Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[macwilkin]

Whilst technically the letter from D. Golden that Terry quoted is correct in the sense that historically, the Scots of Ulster would have never worn the kilt, being the garb of the "Redshanks", he does fail to mention that the so-called "Ulster" tartan, found by a farmer whilst ploughing his fields, was in the form of trews -- so as O'Callaghan points out, "never say never".

And in this instance, I agree with O'Callaghan's post; we must remember that the term Scots/Scotch-Irish came into popularity in the United States as a way to distinguish the Protestant Ulster "Irish" from the Roman Catholic "Green" Irish who began immigrating to America in the 1840s. Before this period, you will find some references to simply "the Irish" of Ulster.

The Scots-Irish/Ulster-Scots have adopted a good deal of Scottish culture as a way to differentiate themselves from their Southern Irish neighbours, including Highland dress, which has also been adopted by their Lowland and Borders cousins -- what Cameronian Covenanter in their right mind, for example, would ever think that the regiment that bore their name would do so in tartan trews, and would march into battle with kilt-clad pipers?

Regards,

Todd

[2176agp]

Not wanting to stray too far off topic here, but I can tell you that the 'plastic paddy' phenomena is alive and well in Slavic cultures too.

Back many years ago, I won a stack of 45 rpm records from Radio Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia. I played them for some family members who were very disappointed that the records were Slovak or Czech language covers of western pop hits by Abba, Blondie, etc, and not polkas.

Likewise in the mid 90s after Croatian independence, people from Hrvatska Radio TV came to my (Croatian heritage) church to speak about 'the old country'. Several people complained because they only played pop/ rock music and not polkas and waltzes.

There seems to be this mindset amongst some that the 'old-country' is somehow preserved in amber, and that everyone dresses 24x7 in folk costume, has ox drawn carts for transport, and listens to the folk music of the culture only.

The culture of the 'insert your heritage here' diaspora is somewhat idealised and, while worth preserving, is IMHO generally more based on external influences than reality.

Tony

[O'Callaghan]

A lot of the argument is over when history ended and the modern day began, which is a ludicrous and unanswerable question. A century or a few decades may be recent history, but still history to anyone born after it happened, and to many who weren't. I think Muldoon summed it up correctly.

On another topic that has come up here, I read elsewhere recently that most ihhabitants of the British Isles are mainly of Iberian pre-Celtic descent, i.e. not only not Anglo-Saxon, but not Celtic either. Who knows who is right? I'd wager that we are the sum of all cultures that have passed through, and probably all their genes as well.