kilts in Scotland

[Woodsheal]

I don't entirely agree with the notion that the Proscription of 1746 wiped out kilt-wearing in the highlands as an everyday, common practice that reemerged via Walter Scott as a strictly formal/ceremonial habit.
The Proscription was not universally enforced, especially in remote highland and non-Jacobite clan regions. Period paintings from the Proscription period show instances of everyday kilt-wearing still going on in non-formal contexts: hunting, cattle droving, sheep herding, etc.
The Clearances probably dealt a worse blow to common highland dress that the Proscription, but everyday, non-formal use of the kilt apparently maintained a precarious existence in the highlands through the 19th and into the early 20th centuries, again if paintings and photographs are accepted as evidence.
The photo of the boy with the trout is ca. 1910. Here's another from the same period:



At leat three of the young fellows are kilted, in hardly a formal or ceremonial manner...!

[seanboy]

O.K. Well, at that same time and before thousands upon thousands of Scots also moved to Germany, America, Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand, France and England.

those scots are removed from scottish culture , and there children born and bred in those countries are not scottish they become german, american, or canadian dependant on which culturemakes them who they are. so no the kilt is not german, american, canadian, australian.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

So Sean, does that mean somone who is born in Glasgow of Nigerian parents is more Scottish that someone born in Canada of Scottish parents? Please explain the difference between ethnicity and nationality?

[Chef]

A few points here:

-The origin of the kilt is most definitely in the Highlands and yes at one point they were considered savages by the many in the Lowlands.

-The kilt (primarily the modern kilt) became a a symbol of Scottish nationalism after Proscription ended. If this had not happened the kilt would have eventually passed into history like many other ways of dress. Have you seen anyone wearing a lien lately? Was the idea of the kilt being Scottish helped along by Sir Walter and Queen Victoria? Quite likely, but that doesn't change what it now symbolises. So while the kilt is Highland attire it is most definitely Scottish.

-The idea that Lowland Regiments were upset about wearing the kilt is somewhat out of context. While I'm sure there were a few who didn't actually want to wear a kilt, the majority of the sentiment was about losing the individual regiments and the monikers of those regiments. For the lowland regiments they felt the trews was one of theirs. It's not that they were upset about being forced to wear the uniform of savages.

[Jaggy thistle]

I think one reason that thekilt is not worn as much in Scotland as it should be is because people do not want to be seen as being different . Many more people own a kilt than wear it regularly , in my working life I could not wear a kilt because of my job but changed to kilt after work . At my school there were 6 or 7 regular kilt wearers kilts are still seen regularly in town and at weekends and I think they are on the increase

[seanboy]

So Sean, does that mean somone who is born in Glasgow of Nigerian parents is more Scottish that someone born in Canada of Scottish parents? Please explain the difference between ethnicity and nationality?

Yes of course they would be,

1. the scots are made up of many differant bloodlines, scandanavian/nordic, germanic, angol saxon etc etc.
so when a newworlder says he is of scottish ethnicity he is actually made up of many ethnicities.

3. most scottish americans are made up of many, many differant ethnicities, and most who claim to be "wholly scottish" be in for a shock if they had a dna test.

4. I do not believe that being born in scotland makes you scottish nor do I believe it is whether your parents are scottish.

to be scottish you must have at least been brought up in scotland and experianced and assimilated scotlands culture, identity, dialect, people, sense of belief, ideology, sense of inward and outword perceptions, education system, world views etc etc.

this is what makes you scottish, my friend is from iceland and moved to scotland when he was 10 he is now in his late twenties and I consider him wholly scottish as he knows what it truely means to be scottish after having the above attributes assimilate and reavaluate his identity.
and as a result I conisder him scottish.

canadians with scots parents etc, are ... well canadians. !

there may be people on this forum whi disagree with me but I think I have portayed what it is to be scottish pretty well.

[seanboy]

how do you delete posts ?

[macwilkin]

Chef,

You said:

-The idea that Lowland Regiments were upset about wearing the kilt is somewhat out of context. While I'm sure there were a few who didn't actually want to wear a kilt, the majority of the sentiment was about losing the individual regiments and the monikers of those regiments. For the lowland regiments they felt the trews was one of theirs. It's not that they were upset about being forced to wear the uniform of savages.

I respectfully disagree. The fact that the kilt is considered a Highlandman's dress is an indirect reason for some of the Lowland squaddies being upset. Yes, there was a general feeling of upset that the regiments were being merged -- I won't argue that point -- but remember that the Lowland Regiments -- the Royal Scots, the KOSB and the RHF (the latter which are amalgamations of the old HLI and the RSF) have never been kilted (save pipes & drums and a few territorial battalions, such as the Dandy 9th Royal Scots and the 10th Glasgow Highlanders of the HLI).

I distinctly remember reading an article in which it was mentioned that the Lowland squaddies were upset in having to wear the kilt when it was never a part of their regimental customs and traditions.

So we're both correct!

Regards,

Todd

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I don't entirely agree with the notion that the Proscription of 1746 wiped out kilt-wearing in the highlands as an everyday, common practice that reemerged via Walter Scott as a strictly formal/ceremonial habit.
The Proscription was not universally enforced, especially in remote highland and non-Jacobite clan regions. Period paintings from the Proscription period show instances of everyday kilt-wearing still going on in non-formal contexts: hunting, cattle droving, sheep herding, etc.
The Clearances probably dealt a worse blow to common highland dress that the Proscription, but everyday, non-formal use of the kilt apparently maintained a precarious existence in the highlands through the 19th and into the early 20th centuries, again if paintings and photographs are accepted as evidence.
The photo of the boy with the trout is ca. 1910. Here's another from the same period:



At leat three of the young fellows are kilted, in hardly a formal or ceremonial manner...!

Both of the these photos date from some three quarters of a century after Sir Walter Scott died in 1831. The second photo is of a group of boys and their (?) teacher. It is obvious that it's summer (mostly bare foot boys with cheeks of tan) and because it's a group photo this must be a "special occasion", perhaps commemorating the end of the school year? Hence the idea of dressing your wee lad in his Sunday best. I don't think we should read into these photos anything other than what we see--- ten boys in breeks, three in kilts, all out front of their school at end of term with their teacher.

It would be interesting to see how many of those wee kilted lads had grown into their borther's breeks in another two years...

I don't think anyone said or even suggested that the proscription act of 1748 (forgive me if I have the date wrong) extinguished the kilt. What did for the kilt was the social upheaval that occured in the aftermath of the Jacobite war of 1745-1746 and the continuing changes in the socio-economic structure of both the highlands and the lowlands throughout the 19th and 20th century.

That the kilt survives today is wonderful. But it's survival has had little or no impact on the dress of the vast majority of Scotland's five million inhabitants who rarely, if ever, wear a kilt.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Sean-- I respond to this because your lengthy, and well argued, reply has shown up. And as an aside, I totally commiserate with you about spending a fair old amount of time knocking out some deathless prose in response to some moronic posting only to have it vanish into thin air when you hit "send".

NOW:

The Duke of Wellington, who was born in Ireland, was once asked if he was Irish. His reply is the now famous line, "Just because someone is born in a stable it doesn't make him a horse."

No one ever seemed to question that Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was Scottish. But in fact she was born in England. David Lumsden of Cushnie, one of Scotland's most elegant gentlemen, was born in what's now Pakistan, was educated at Cambridge, and spent his working life in Africa. He now resides in a 17th century house in mid-Lothian, having down sized from his ancestral home, Tilliecarin Castle, which he bought as a ruin and restored to all of it's original splendour. He's Scottish, but not by your definition. And what about that icon on the shortbread box, Bonnie Prince Charlie? By your definition I guess he wasn't Scottish, either. Hmmm. This is turning out to be a bad day for royals and aristocarts. Bummer.

So I think you're wrong. But then I would. I'm on the side of all those royals and aristocrats (and hard working Scots not born or raised North of the Tweed).

Or to put it another way, if I had been born on a Navajo Indian Reservation I wouldn't be a Navajo. I'd still be a Scot. To be sure, a Scot with the benefit of an American passort, but a Scot none-the-less. Now this isn't to say being a Navajo is a bad thing. Far from it. Fine chaps, the Navajo. It's just that I prefer to laud my ethnic heritage that happens, by the most happy of circumstances, to be the same as yours. I'm Scottish.

Now don't get too up set by this-- think how it works in your favour. Suppose you get married to a nice, oh I don't know, Tibetan, girl and you end up taking a job in Liverpool. And have children. Guess what? They'll still be Scottish, and can cheer for Rangers or Celtic without being regarded as some sort of pseudo-cultural interlopers . They might be regarded as football thugs and hooligans, but at least they'll be thugs and hooligans with the proper ethno-cultural credentials. Why?

Well just because they were born in Liverpool.... it doesn't mean they're NOT Scots.