Of Irish Descent...Which tartan?

[Jerry]

[quote="Avonlea22"]Hello everyone! Let me first introduce myself, since this is my first post here. My name is Brian, and I live in Florida. I'm of Irish descent, but have always had an interest in kilts. I do not currently own one, but I'm in the process of looking to buy one.

Hello, Brian, I too am new to the forum, today in fact. My name is Jerry, and my family, McNeills, are also from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Many of the families in that are considered septs of Scottish clans. Mine is a sept of clan Macneil of Barra, and that is the tartan I choose to wear. On my mothers side of the family, I am a gordon so I could wear that tartan also. However, clan affiliations generally are from the father's side of the family. As others have said, there are county tartans for all Irish counties and regions. There are a few Irish national tartans as well as an Ulster Tartan. You can also wear the Blackwatch or the Royal Stewart tartan. I believe that it is the official tartan of the British Royal Family. Several states here in the USA now have state tartans, and all military services have an official tartan. Bear Kilts has some nice and inexpensive kilts in these tartans. Sportkilts also has some inexpensive kilts.

As for just choosing a tartan because you like it, I asked the same question in several forums, and all the replies I got including some from Clan Gordon and Clan Macneill forums said that that wasn't wrong.

[macwilkin]

...Royal Stewart tartan. I believe that it is the official tartan of the British Royal Family.

There are several tartans associated with the British Royal Family. See this article on the Tartans Authority web site:

http://www.tartansauthority.com/Web/...yalTartans.asp

Cheers,

T.

[bubba]

Jerry, I'm also associated with Clan MacNeil od Barra as well as Hamilton. The connection to MacNeil is through Greely/MacGrail. Welcome to the board. I'm sure you'll enjoy it here. As far as what tartans to wear, pretty much any that you like with the exception of tartans that are personal to the Royal Family and Clan Chiefs personal tartans. Since those aren't in common production that's not much of an issue. Just wear them with dignity and nobody is going to be upset about it.

[Jerry]

I did manage to find a Wilson clan tartan too. It is red and blue. You might want to check it out for future reference. I was going to attach a pic, but I haven't yet figured out how to do that in this forum

[Raphael]

It would be cool to get a Princess Louise Tartan Kilt made for my wife. a mini kilt that is.

[Jerry]

It would be cool to get a Princess Louise Tartan Kilt made for my wife. a mini kilt that is.

I picked this spoof of the old TRIX commercials as my signature, because I attended the Williamsburg Scottish festival this past Saturday, and there were at least 6 or 7 women there wearing men's kilts. I have no objection to a minikilt or a kilted skirt for women, but regular kilts are men's garments. Actually, some of the young ladies wearing minikilts there, were quite enough to get this old fart's Celtic blood stirring.