Devil's Advocate!

[Blu (Ontario)]

James,

Since I am the guilty party, for the record I will state that I most certainly intended no offense or disrespect by my "Devils Advocate" remark recently. In fact, James, I like your style and appreciate where you're coming from. While you have not been posting at Xmarks as long as some others, I still consider you one of the senior members here. Your experience, wisdom, and knowledge are a valuable asset to the group and we all benefit from your insightful, albeit sometimes blunt, posts. I admit that I don't place quite as much gravity as others do on certain aspects of kilt and clannishness, but at the same time I feel that it's important that these topics are explored openly... and you are good at doing just that. Now maybe I'm dead wrong here but I imagined that while writing some of your posts you're sporting a devilish grin and a twinkle in your eye... hence my remark. If I am wrong, I apologize to you openly before the group. I say go ahead and "stir the pot" when you think it needs it. But I think we should all guard ourselves against taking some of these issues so seriously that there's no joy left in any of it.

Cheers, all

blu

[Archangel]

I think that it's difficult to separate the two when related to the subjugation of the Highlands.

Certainly the Lowlanders were collaborating with the English even before King James' defeat by his uncle (King Henry VIII) at the Battle of the Solway Moss in the 1540s in "dealing" with the remains of the rival power base of the Lordship of the Isles; James VI and I was an active hater of Gaelic and the Gaels' way-of-life and tried hard to subvert both; and in the mid-1600s, Argyll, Montrose and others were working with the English after the Union of the Crowns (and the Highlands although a side issue enabled certain favourable pickings).

It was only after the Bishops' War when Montrose became Viceroy of Scotland that he really seems to have become involved with the Highlanders (and he's still refering to them as Irish, even when he's not talking about Colkitto's Irish McDonalds).

During the aftermath of the Jacobite risings of 1714 and 1745, it was the Highlands and Islands (both Loyalists and Jacobites) who suffered - Lowland and English Jacobites got off scot free, more or less. Next year, 2006, sees the 260th anniversary of the passing of the Act banning the tartan and the wearing of the kilt (it doesn't seem to have been implemented seriously for another year), which again affected the Loyalist Gaels as badly as it did the Jacobite.

There's a phrase in Gaelic to refer to the sheer nastiness of many of the policies and postures of the Lowlanders towards the Gaels: mì-rùn mòr nan Gall, "the great malice of the Lowlander".

So, I think that probably I did mean 'British', rather than simply 'English'.

this works, good history lesson. Just needed to clarify since, of course, there was no real British policy until 1701. However, the reality is that it wasn't that sharp a border either.

[An t-Ileach]

Mustn't follow up, the Mods are watching... resist the temptation... nothing to add really... Archangels' said it, anyway... go to bed, it's late enough! (Disappears down the corridor)

[Alan H]

I think I missed what, if anything, the kerfuffle was about, but I know this....

I don't necessarily have to agree with everything that someone says to respect their opinion, learn from them, and let them prod me into thinking. So James, while we have different views on a few things, that's fine, and I'm one hundred percent behind you explaining your perspective on kilt wearing, clans and everything. I'll learn from what you have to say, and THAT is a very good thing, indeed.

Carry on, Sir!!

[MacSimoin]

...I will not of necessity see things through the same eyes as someone who for their own entirely laudable reasons has come to the kilt in later life.

Though I too have missed the gist of this conversation, I agree with Jame's logic (quoted above); I'll also add that accepting an opinion is a matter altogether confused with respecting an opinion. But that's just my opinion. ;)