To kilt or not to kilt: A St. Paddy's Day conundrum

[Bugbear]

I don't believe the Romans ever made it to Hibernia.

Guess we can't wear togas then...

* Wait! Maybe they were, see MacMillan of Rathdown's folowing post... But pteruges and togas are still out. Guess we all have to go back to the leine...

[Chef]

You know this whole dress in green and get drunk thing seems similar to the chicken and the egg.

Which came first:
Dressing in green and getting drunk or getting drunk and then turning green?

[Bugbear]

You know this whole dress in green and get drunk thing seems similar to the chicken and the egg.

Which came first:
Dressing in green and getting drunk or getting drunk and then turning green?

Sounds like some kind of Roman invintion, Chef... I don't know; I don't drink.

But I have horrible, horrible news to report. This is just aughful. My mother called and she will be coming out to visit me, she lives in a near by city, on "that" day, and she wants me to wear my kilt... to dinner.
It might not be that bad though, Chef, though. We really don't cellebrate "that" day, and instead celebrate a mixed Scottish/Irish day on the seventeenth. It's a personal family thing.
Na Chef, it doesn't have anything to do with St Patrick's Day, so I'm just joking with you.

[sharpdressedscot]

I don't believe the Romans ever made it to Hibernia.

Nope, never even knew about.

[beloitpiper]

Nope, never even knew about.

Yes they did. St. Patrick was Roman and went to Ireland to convert it.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

While it is true that there is no account of a Roman army setting foot in Ireland, there was trade between Britannia, Caledonia, and Ireland/Hibernia. In the 1970s a hoard of Roman coins dating from (I believe) the third and fourth centuries was discovered in a cave in County Wicklow.

Of the two historical Patricks who came to Ireland in the 5th century, the first was from Brittany and the second from Romano-Britain. Christianity had come to Britannia with Roman troops and civil administrators in the second and third century, and was spread to Hibernia by Roman Christian "missionaries". By the 5th century the two Patricks were concerned as much with conversion as they were in "regularizing" Christian worship in Hibernia.

Our modern interpretation of "Saint Patrick" is based on a synthesis of the lives of both of these early Christian evangelicals.

[Woodsheal]

MacMillan is correct, although the first "Patrick" from Gaul was actually named Palladius. He was active in Ireland in the early 400's, whereas Patricius ("St Patrick") from Britain most likely did his missionary work in the second half of that century, dying in the 490's. Their activities did indeed become somewhat melded in later writings and legends of St Patrick, though Patrick was of course a unique and influential individual separate from Palladius and the other early "saints" in Ireland....

[The Ulsterman]

I don't believe the Romans ever made it to Hibernia.

That's right PiobBear,..they heard what the weather was like (wet and windy) and decided against it.


Neil.

[Bugbear]

My mother lived over in Ireland for a while back in the nineties, and she said that if the sun did shine, people did as much... sun bathing as they could. She said it wasn't too bad... the weather that is...

[beowulf67]

Actually denim jeans (like Levis, etc.) were developed for farm and industrial wear, and were originally a mud-brown colour. Real cowboys preferred hard wearing wool trousers when mounted as "jeans" were the mark of a sod-buster. Anyone who has ridden more than twenty miles a day, for days on end, will attest to the fact that jeans aren't the most comfortable britches in the world. So, to answer your question: Since any Irish man can be a cowboy, but not every cowboy can be an Irish man, the answer is "NO".

And since I come from a long line of sod-busters, Irish and Scots, I can wear jeans, wool pants or kilts on any day I choose.