Is it St. Patrick's Day yet?

It seems that every so often a new thread is started about whether or not kilts can or should properly be considered "Irish," or how long and for what reason kilts may have historically been worn in Ireland. And then the subject of Irish tartans comes up and opens another can of worms.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the subject, and not always a lot of factual information.

Wouldn't it be handy to have one brief article that kind of told, in a nutshell, the real story behind the Irish kilt and the idea of "Irish tartans?" Sounds like a handy thing to keep bookmarked for reference when the subject comes up, right?

Well, rejoice, for such a thing now exists!

Our forum's own resident historian and myself have teamed up and come up with this wonderful little, handy-dandy article covering the introduction and development of Irish kilts and Irish tartans.

Hibernian Dress, Caledonian Custom: a brief history of Irish kilts & tartan, by Matthew Newsome & Todd Wilkinson.

I have to really thank Todd for doing so much great research and taking time out of his busy schedule to work on this with me. I hope it can be of good use to folks!