Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[PneumoniaHawk]

>My family is Irish, English, Welsh, and Scottish but I am above all American.<

I think this says it best.

Being a mix of Francophone And Celtic blood, being born in germany and moving around Canada for 19 years theres no real "hometown" for me, but there is a homeland that my Father, Grandfather, and Scottish immigrant Great Grandfather have fought to protect and that I will protect should the need arise, no ones asking this Irish fellow for citizenship so I think he could hold off on the disparaging comments about Irish descended Americans and share a pint with his fellow man.

speaking of which a friend of mine has been talking about getting an O'dell tartan kilt- I was under the impression that there were only the coloured and county Irish kilts.

Thanks for listening to my rant everyone

[Nighthawk]

>My family is Irish, English, Welsh, and Scottish but I am above all American.<

I think this says it best.

Being a mix of Francophone And Celtic blood, being born in germany and moving around Canada for 19 years theres no real "hometown" for me, but there is a homeland that my Father, Grandfather, and Scottish immigrant Great Grandfather have fought to protect and that I will protect should the need arise, no ones asking this Irish fellow for citizenship so I think he could hold off on the disparaging comments about Irish descended Americans and share a pint with his fellow man.

speaking of which a friend of mine has been talking about getting an O'dell tartan kilt- I was under the impression that there were only the coloured and county Irish kilts.

Thanks for listening to my rant everyone

Yeah, that was my thought, as well. I don't claim to be Irish/Scottish/English/German simply because my grandparents were. I am American. I personally consider myself to be a New World Celt. So I don't think I fall into the plastic paddy category.

[Carolina Kiltman]

I agree too. Having (with a lot of help) traced my Father's lineage back to 1689, in Maryland, and looking at the names. . . . . I'm like that mutt from the humane shelter, a "Heinzhund" 57 varieties!

As far as the tartan, the Tartan Ferret came up with a copyrighted one, so I guess that answers your question (Clan O'Carroll), or does it?

[Nick the DSM]

I'm also a mutt but I consider myself, Chilean-American since my mother is from there.

[Chase]

I always thought a MUTT was a Miniture Ugandan Tiger Tracker??? LOL...Maybe we could commission a multi-heritage tartan, if one already doesn't exist?

[Nighthawk]

I always thought a MUTT was a Miniture Ugandan Tiger Tracker??? LOL...Maybe we could commission a multi-heritage tartan, if one already doesn't exist?

Yeah, USA Kilts has it! It's called the American Heritage! That's as multi heritage as you can get- and very appropriate for all of us! I personally would love to have a Clare County tartan kilt, because my grandfather (Leddy) was from there, but I want a Colorado tartan kilt more because I'm from Colorado.

[O'Callaghan]

I don't know if the Irishman who wrote that letter was a unionist or a republican (and I am not talking about the GOP when I use that term here). It's possible a Northern republican might see kilts as unionist/Ulster Scots. OTOH if he is a unionist and probably an Ulster Scot he may think that even more so.

The kilt originated in Scotland BUT it was based on the Irish outfit of leine (shirt) and brat (cloak). The highlanders came to Scotland from Ireland, and according to legend the Irish came there from Spain. Tartan is even older than the celts coming to Ireland, and is thought to go back thousands of years. The Scottish turned the brat (cloak) into the kilt in easy stages, pleating it like the Irish before them had pleated the leine (shirt). I don't think every leine was pleated or that every brat was tartan, but there is really no doubt that some were like that.

As for bagpipes, they came to Scotland from Ireland, but were banned in Ireland by the English in the 14th century. Bagpipes had yet to sprout a third drone at that time, so it is often said that only pipes with just two drones are really Irish, but most Irish pipers use pipes with three drones, which are probably cheaper and easier to find. There are also Uillean pipes in Ireland that have elbow operated bellows, and some call those the Irish pipes but they were originally created to get through a loophole in the law banning bagpipes.

I'm not sure if the bagpipe ban was ever repealed. Many of those who played in pipe bands just prior to the creation of the Free State were also in the IRA, according to band histories. And they wore green kilts to play their pipes.

Saffron kilts were, and are, worn by pipers in the Irish regiments of the British Army, and now the armed forces of the Republic follow exactly the same tradition, which is somewhat ironic. The saffron colour is based on the practice of dyeing the ancient Irish leine with saffron, but ironically a woolen kilt comes out an entirely different colour from a linen leine when both are dyed with saffron, so the actual resemblance is non-existent.

As others have said, many of those who took part in the Easter Rising wore the green kilt. Not in the rising itself, but at other times. One of them got married in a green kilt. Sadly, many of them were executed by the English.

The Irish kilt club has a picture on their site of the Mayor of Limerick wearing a kilt in the 1920s, and pictures of boys at St. Enda's school wearing kilts, probably a little earlier than that. Although their site has not been updated, I think you can download newsletters from there as pdf files that are more recent. Mind you, the guy that runs it is apparently a piper that lives in the North of England, not in Ireland.

Myself, I am English, but of Irish descent, and entitled to membership of the Irish clan that matches my user name, and I live in the USA. I just like wearing the kilt, and wear Irish tartans because I have no Scottish blood.

If Irish tartans are mostly 20th century creations if not even 21st, then I must point out that extremely few Scottish tartans predate the '45, and of those that existed before that even fewer were connected with any clan at that time.

Tartan itself is celtic, not merely Scottish, and the pleats in an Irish kilt represent the pleats in an ancient Irish leine (which is the same place that the Scots got the idea to pleat the kilt). However, it takes some digging to get to the facts, and if the present day Irish are unaware of them it is not surprising.

If I should be laughed at in Ireland for wearing an Irish kilt, or simply mistaken for a Scot, I wouldn't be atall surprised. IME, few in the republic want to know anything about the republican rebels. I get the impression they'd sooner forget them.

I will probably get a green kilt just so I can point out that they were worn by the men that gave Ireland it's freedom. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with patriotic feelings for Ireland, but as an Englishman I have to restrain myself before I blow myself up, LOL! Do I think that anyone who has lived their whole life in Ireland could ever understand? Not a chance!

[herminator]

Oh dear, oh dear, I am a 100% german and I simply love my ireland´s national USAKilt....



Can somebody tell me how to become PC??



I hope not!

[Freedomlover]

I received a most interesting email from an Irish fellow this morning. I assume he visited my website.

I have seen that message somewhere before. It was, I think, around St. Patrick's day, and was in one of my news feeds.

[CelticMedic]

From an earlier post by kallan..."My son(who will be here in Oct.) will basically be 1/3 Irish, 1/3 German, 1/3 Mexican. So, according to this dude, he won't be able to celebrate ANY of his heritages. If he wants to be a kilt wearing Luchador"
I personally would actually PAY to go see "Herr Hombre McMex" wrestle...