Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[O'Callaghan]

Mine doesn't.

The Cover:



Pages 1 and 2



No mention of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

Is your passport current?

Regards

Chas

It seems you are right about the current one, but I also have an older cancelled one (with a blue cover) that does list the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands as part of the UK. I wonder if this has something to do with the EU? The red passport is the unified EU version, and the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not considered to be part of the EU. IOW, it seems that when we got EU passports they took them off the list because they are not in the European Union? Does that mean they used to be in the UK and no longer are? Perhaps since we joined the EU? I assume the people who live in the those places still have blue passports?

[The Guy in the Kilt at UC]

Back to the topic (sort of), my girlfriend and I are going to exchange Claddagh rings at our wedding. When I told my (Slovenian) cousin about it, he & his wife said we should do an Irish theme and wear kilts. I guess he was as confused as anyone about kilts being Irish. I am going to wear a kilt, but not because its "Irish" but because I look so good in them. Plus my girlfriend is making me.

Coincidentally, my groomsmen will be wearing the Irish county kilts. I will be in my Scottish county kilt. I think they would still look good in them.

[gilmore]

There is the idea that Celtic culture migrated to Britain rather than Celtic people.

That is now indisputible.

DNA shows that the majority of the inhabitants of the UK and Ireland descend from people who lived in the Iberan peninsula during the last Ice Age, and migrated north up the Atlantic coast as the ice retreated.

Take a look at the first two maps here http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/Wo...groupsMaps.pdf showing the distribution of the Y DNA R1b Haplogroup in 1500 AD, just before the time of European imperialism.

It was for the most part the same group of people who were formerly thought to be pre-Celtic, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, etc., and were merely changing their language, technology and culture, rather than successive waves of people of different ethnicities invading and conquering the British Isles.

[BoldHighlander]

I wonder if the individual who wrote the original email moved back or has a relative with similar views?

By way of explanation, the other day I received my semi-annual copy of the "The Ulster-Scot", a publication of the Ulster-Scots Agency and some amadán wrote in the following letter:

ULSTER-SCOTS AND THE KILT

Dear Sir,
While contributors to your paper are at pain to emphasise that Ulster-Scots folk are of non-Gaelic Anglo-Saxon decent, [?!] why do such contributors, and present generation Ulster-Scots in general, here and in the wider colonial diaspora, transvesticise themselves by adopting the 19th century Victorian parody of Gaelic highland dress at Ulster-Scots functions.
Whereas tartan fetishism has become the stylised national dress in Scotland where there is no longer any distinction between Lowlander and Highlander, Scot and Gael, it is incongruous and hypocritical for Ulster-Scots to flaunt it as a symbol to differentiate themselves from the Gaelic, Norse, Norman, English, etc.. etc populations of Ulster and Ireland.
The wearing of formalised highland dress by diaspora Scots should only be valid for those whose ancestors emigrated from Scotland after the date when such dress was invented in the Victorian era.
If today's Ulster-Scots need an identifying form of "national" dress it should be the garb worn by their early 17th century lowland Scots ancestors.

D. Golden, A Scot in Ulster
Strabane

All I can say is "WOW!"
I don't even know where to begin with this one, and I think I'll leave it to others to dissect. However let me say that for the past 4 or 5 years I've been reading this paper, and during that time I have never seen any contributors take pains to emphasise that Ulster-Scots folk are of non-Gaelic Anglo-Saxon decent. Rather I've seen them emphasis both the Lowland & Highland roots of the Ulster-Scots.
As for his thoughts on wearing the kilt....whew!!
I don't understand people sometimes.
Like I said, he's either the first fool, moved back to North Ireland, or fell out of the same tree!!

[O'Callaghan]

I wonder if the individual who wrote the original email moved back or has a relative with similar views?

By way of explanation, the other day I received my semi-annual copy of the "The Ulster-Scot", a publication of the Ulster-Scots Agency and some amadán wrote in the following letter:

ULSTER-SCOTS AND THE KILT

Dear Sir,
While contributors to your paper are at pain to emphasise that Ulster-Scots folk are of non-Gaelic Anglo-Saxon decent, [?!] why do such contributors, and present generation Ulster-Scots in general, here and in the wider colonial diaspora, transvesticise themselves by adopting the 19th century Victorian parody of Gaelic highland dress at Ulster-Scots functions.
Whereas tartan fetishism has become the stylised national dress in Scotland where there is no longer any distinction between Lowlander and Highlander, Scot and Gael, it is incongruous and hypocritical for Ulster-Scots to flaunt it as a symbol to differentiate themselves from the Gaelic, Norse, Norman, English, etc.. etc populations of Ulster and Ireland.
The wearing of formalised highland dress by diaspora Scots should only be valid for those whose ancestors emigrated from Scotland after the date when such dress was invented in the Victorian era.
If today's Ulster-Scots need an identifying form of "national" dress it should be the garb worn by their early 17th century lowland Scots ancestors.

D. Golden, A Scot in Ulster
Strabane

All I can say is "WOW!"
I don't even know where to begin with this one, and I think I'll leave it to others to dissect. However let me say that for the past 4 or 5 years I've been reading this paper, and during that time I have never seen any contributors take pains to emphasise that Ulster-Scots folk are of non-Gaelic Anglo-Saxon decent. Rather I've seen them emphasis both the Lowland & Highland roots of the Ulster-Scots.
As for his thoughts on wearing the kilt....whew!!
I don't understand people sometimes.
Like I said, he's either the first fool, moved back to North Ireland, or fell out of the same tree!!

Lowland Scots are largely Anglo-Saxon, and Ulster Scots (which Americans call Scotch Irish, although more properly that should be Scots Irish) are mostly the descendants of Lowland Scots, hence yes, mostly Anglo-Saxon. Notice I do say mostly, not entirely. It also has to be admitted that the Ulster Scots settled in Northern Ireland before the Lowland Scots adopted the kilt from the Highlanders. All that is true.

That said, if they want to wear tartan kilts to emphasize their Scottish roots, it's churlish to be so pedantic as to say they shouldn't. Only reenactors should have to concern themselves with avoiding anachronisms, nobody else should worry about it.

However, if they are doing it to distinguish themselves from Irish people who aren't Ulster Scots, such as those who are Gaels, then they should consider that the Irish kilt is hardly any more recent than the lowlanders adoption of the kilt. Not five minutes ago in another thread I read a comment that "the Irish never wore kilts". Never is a long time. If you accepted that as true, which I don't, then you would also have to accept that the Lowland Scots never wore kilts. Neither statement is quite true, although the kilt certainly originated in the Highlands, and the wearing of kilts by Lowland Scots and Irish Gaels, let alone Ulster Scots, doesn't go back to time immemorial.

IOW, I don't see why they shouldn't do it, but I don't think it marks the difference that they intend by it, or that they even have a much greater claim to the kilt than the "other side".

[BoldHighlander]

Lowland Scots are largely Anglo-Saxon, and Ulster Scots (which Americans call Scotch Irish, although more properly that should be Scots Irish) are mostly the descendants of Lowland Scots, hence yes, mostly Anglo-Saxon. Notice I do say mostly, not entirely.

As an aside, what I found when researching my family genealogy, is that those who were Ulster-Scots in my linage were mostly Highland Scots. The very few others were English it seems. So far none of Lowland stock (at least that I've been able to trace).

I guess mine are the exception rather than the norm

[gilmore]

Lowland Scots are largely Anglo-Saxon, ...".

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the Angles and the Saxons contributed relatively little to the British gene pool, much less that was thought formerly, DNA evidence now reveals.

Genetics and culture are two different things. While Lowland Scots might speak (or spoke) a language, Scots, closer to English than to Gaelic, it doesn't follow that they are or were a different people. They were, for the most part, the same people adopting different language and culture, of which dress is a part.

And culture is a harder to pin down, ever shifting thing. Fashions in clothing come, sometimes go, sometimes stay. Thus it is with the kilt.

[dfmacliam]

Just an interesting thought I had thought about recently... My Scot roots go back to a family named Claghorn.. which the name is derived from Glegerne, which was taken from military camp with a Gaelic name on the border of "Scotland" and the Romans.. I would assume this area was in the Lowlands, probably in the area of Lanarkshire. If the Gaels had a history to at least 80AD in that area.. wouldn't it be reasonable to assume, Gaels resided in that area?

[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

[Rob]

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the Angles and the Saxons contributed relatively little to the British gene pool, much less that was thought formerly, DNA evidence now reveals.

Genetics and culture are two different things. While Lowland Scots might speak (or spoke) a language, Scots, closer to English than to Gaelic, it doesn't follow that they are or were a different people. They were, for the most part, the same people adopting different language and culture, of which dress is a part.

And culture is a harder to pin down, ever shifting thing. Fashions in clothing come, sometimes go, sometimes stay. Thus it is with the kilt.

You are absolutely spot on. Unfortunately there are still many, such as some Highlanders, Irish, Welsh and Cornish, who do not want to believe that those of Anglo-Saxon ancestry are in a small minority, even in England and Lowland Scotland.

Then there are the Anglo-Saxon history and re-enactment groups who don't want to believe the facts either, because they want to believe that the English are the descendents of great Anglo-Saxon warriors who drove the savage Britons out of what is now England.

Even those English (mainly in the East) who do have some genetic ancestry from Northwest Europe are usually unaware that their ancestors came to Britain long before Roman times even, and not in the 5th/6th centuries AD. Such people argue that the population geneticists must have got it all wrong, because what they say does not fit in with their deeply held beliefs.

There are a lot of heads buried in some very deep sand.