Wearing the kilt in Scotland

[kilttrip]

Yup, I know the feeling. Graduated high school with a class of only 86.....small farming comunittee in the South of MN where everyone knows everyone..... not a fun time in my life...... but I'm still here, and I'm still kilted. illegitimi non carborundum

Hey Kilted Cole, where in MN are you from? I live south of Mason City Iowa. I'm heading to the cities for a ball game at Target Field in Aug. - and of course I'll be wearing my Utilikilt!

[TheOfficialBren]

When I go to Scotland, I'm going to follow the same protocols as when I go home to Cape Breton. I'm bringing my kilt and my musical instruments. I'm not going to wear my kilt everywhere I go but I will be glad to have it for the Clan Donald events and Highland Games that I will seek out as part of my journey. I'll also bring a tape recorder and see if I can find an old Gaelic song in the Hebrides that nobody sings anymore!

I'm not going to be kilted 24-7 and regaling every Scot I meet with stories of the Lordship of the Isles. I'll likely spend most of my time in jeans. That said, I like to have the right tool for the right job.

Ditto. I shall pack exactly ONE (1) clan tartan kilt and wear it only on the appropriate occasions. Plus, no one really wants to chat with the guy who's stuck in the past and has no better conversation than academic debates about the justification of Clan MacOnion's raid on Clan MacCarrot's lands in 1524...or the guy who insists that he's "way more Scottish" (recalling an earlier thread) than the locals.

I just don't want to be "that guy", you know?

[OC Richard]

I just don't want to be "that guy"

Me neither. Kilts and pipes stay back in California. Nobody in Scotland needs to see a Californian in kilts and/or playing pipes. The last thing I want to do is draw attention (negative or otherwise) to myself. It's the same reason I don't wear kilts to church.

I did wear my LA Galaxy shirt (in Scotland, not in church). They might not know who the Angels are or the Ducks are but they all know who the Galaxy are.

[kilttrip]

I say if your man enough to wear it here , you could do it there, try being from Texas and wearing a kilt ... Lol

Not sure whether Texas or Iowa would be worse - I suspect it would be a tie!

[Ron Abbott]

Who?

Funnily enough c1978, I was over in the US with the school pipe band and we went to see a NY Cosmos game.
It was bizarre.
The crowd (if you can call it that as the stadium was only a quarter full) was full of nice respectable families, eating burgers and the like, they were all sitting down, there was no violence and there was no religious bigotry/songs. It was a bit of shock!

But yes, I think the majority in Scotland would smirk (that's me being polite) at seeing someone from the new world, and especially the USA clad in the usual clan belt buckles, clan tartan, clan cap badge, clan tie, clan kiltpin playing the bagpipes at Bannockburn or wherever with a tear in the eye......and then telling the story about how their mother's great aunt's sister's husband's great grandmother's aunt's, second cousin's ancestors was a MacKowalski from Invershoogle who married a MacDonald whose successor lives in 'quaint Edinburg' and then ask.....do you know him?

But hey, each to his own.

[tky58]

My Dad, a huge history buff with a particular interest in our Colonial period, was always dismayed that history is taught here as if everything began with the Revolution. He would point out (when I was a kid in the 1960s) that over half of our history occurred before our Independence.

(And that's just the original 13 states. Out here, never British but rather part of the Kingdom of Spain, our history goes back much further.)

I was raised in Virginia and Massachusetts in the 60's and 70's. In both places history started with the "landings" (Lost colony and Plymouth) and continued to diverge from there. I had best not describe the differences in how the Civil War was taught, we have bans of such things here. Lets suffice it to say I got to see both sides of the coin.

[kilttrip]

I just got a new Utilikilt and am very happy with it. It is a black heavy cotton twill fabric. I was wondering what any of our Scottish members think about those. It is a nice every day kilt for wearing around home - even in small town Iowa where it raises a few eyebrows.

[Jock Scot]

I just got a new Utilikilt and am very happy with it. It is a black heavy cotton twill fabric. I was wondering what any of our Scottish members think about those. It is a nice every day kilt for wearing around home - even in small town Iowa where it raises a few eyebrows.

As I think I have said somewhere here before, I have only ever seen one of that style(I don't know if it was a utilikilt though) in the wild and in all honesty whilst I did not laugh in front of the owner, I did however, when driving home. Let just say that I was not impressed. Others in Scotland may take a different view of course, but actions appear to speak louder than words by the very fact and to say the very least they are not a common sight here.

One needs to also bear in mind that until very recently(in my lifetime) the kilt-----of any kind----was ridiculed by many in the lowlands and there are still parts of Scotland where I would not venture when wearing the kilt, even now, so goodness only knows what they would think of a utilikilt!

[TheOfficialBren]

(Very quick sidenote re: history)
Richard, I'm sure that you've heard the story about Sir Francis Drake being the first explorer from a Western nation to visit California. The story goes that he stopped near Monterrey (it wasn't a settlement at the time, obviously, muchless a nice city) and claimed the future California for England prior to its conquest by the Spanish Empire.

I have no idea how true it is.

[Nathan]

One needs to also bear in mind that until very recently(in my lifetime) the kilt-----of any kind----was ridiculed by many in the lowlands and there are still parts of Scotland where I would not venture when wearing the kilt, even now, so goodness only knows what they would think of a utilikilt!

Interestingly, I got ridiculed recently about my love of Highland attire by someone working in a store selling kilts. It is a shop that sells a variety of products both imported from and representative of the British Isles. She was a lowland woman, that sounded Glasweigian and she could not understand why anyone would care about what their surname was or why they'd wear a kilt. When she was growing up, wearing a kilt made you, "square with a capital S" as she put it.

I tried to explain my perspective to her as I stood among the British groceries, quaichs, 'become a Highland Laird of Glencoe' land sales kits (eye roll) and Pakistani-made tartan tat but she wasn't having it. For her, she thought it was all ridiculous.

I think I'll look for stone ground oats and Ir'n Bru elsewhere.