County Cork tartans and Arsenal tartan

[macwilkin]

Caveat Emptor:

http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/search?q=missouri+tartan

Regards,

Todd

[BoldHighlander]

Caveat Emptor:

http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/search?q=missouri+tartan

Regards,

Todd

And there you have it ladies & gents!

Thanks Todd!

[O'Callaghan]

Caveat Emptor: http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/search?q=missouri+tartan Regards, Todd

What I take from this is that Mr. McGill at International Tartans goes his own way and designs his own tartans without any regard for what may be already registered. To be fair, though, the tartan mills do exactly the same thing. For example, there are about a dozen different tartans that claim to represent Ireland, and about half of those are so similar to eachother that it is fair to say that plagarism is involved somewhere.

That's quite apart from the two tartans for every Irish county already discussed, although I think it's necessary to point out that at least those two sets maintain a complete lack of any similarity, aside from perhaps sometimes using the same colours in a different arrangement, which I believe is reasonable given where the colours come from.

I will have to check to see if McGill's Arsenal tartan is the official tartan of the soccer club. After reading this article it is possible that it may not be, and indeed I thought it looked slightly different. OTOH, it matters little if it isn't, as all I had seen previously in Arsenal tartan were dog accessories and I have no dog. That doesn't mean I'll buy it, in fact I'm probably far too cheap, LOL!

The comments on the three different explanations of the poem on the site are a warning that he is economical with the truth. The anecdote about the North Carolina tartan order is also a warning that he may not be able to deliver the tartans that he pictures. The latter is more worrying than a little blarney. The origins of many tartans involve more than a little blarney.

However, what wasn't brought out in the article is that the person who commissioned the North Carolina tartan probably did so because the Carolina tartan is the official tartan of BOTH North and South Carolina, so he probably took the view that NC didn't have its own tartan as such. I have no axe to grind there, with no connection to either state, but I could understand such a PoV.

McGill's view that anyone can design a tartan and call it what they like seems about right to me, and is nothing more than the mills do all the time. I can see how it would upset Matt Newsome though. Some of Matt's crticisms seem valid, e.g. plagiarism and lack of availability, and others not so much, i.e. I care very little if there are two (or more than two) tartans of the same name, although I would prefer to have that information.

[BoldHighlander]

Caveat Emptor:

http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/search?q=missouri+tartan

Regards,

Todd

To add to Todd's post, I just ran across this about Mr. McGill & International Tartans:
http://www.carolinatartan.com/fraud.htm