Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[Ayin McFye]

Only about 5 Irish families, all with Scottish roots, have their own tartans like Tara Murphy.

For more tartans that 5 for Ireland you can visit http://www.doyle.com.au/tartan_irish.htm

You are correct that there isn't that many, but there are definitely more. I'm sure there is even more than I've listed in this link, but oh well.

[cavscout]

One side of me can sympathize with the sentiment of the emailer. When I see the oafish drunks acting like idiots on St. Paddy's Day and Cinco De Mayo.

On the other hand, equating heritage to steel, I'm reminded of this line from Conan the Barbarian:

"but in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield. We who found it are just men. Not gods. Not giants. Just men. The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline."

Does this mean that to be a good Celt you have to wear a kilt? No. Some have said in other discussions that just because Scots or Irish don't wear a kilt or parade their heritage around doesn't make them less respectful of their heritage, and I agree. But, it seems at times that the desire of opinions like the emailers is that heritage should be confined to museums and reserved for an undefined select few.

Just as their tendency may be to value their heritage by keeping it personal, there's nothing wrong with respectfully celebrating it publicly either. If those who cherish it do not defend it, it will be corrupted by those who are ignorant of it's meaning and significance.

[meinfs]

I have an American friend who was adopted. He never knew his real parents; he doesn't have brothers and sisters and cousins. His adoptive parents have recently passed. He is white but he doesn't know from where.

Before I learned of this, I asked him what his ethnic ancestry was and he just didn't know.

He wants to wear a kilt (he's seen mine) and I will make him one.

[gilmore]

I have an American friend who was adopted. He never knew his real parents; he doesn't have brothers and sisters and cousins. His adoptive parents have recently passed. He is white but he doesn't know from where.

Before I learned of this, I asked him what his ethnic ancestry was and he just didn't know.

He wants to wear a kilt (he's seen mine) and I will make him one.

You might suggest that he go to www.familytreedna.com and take a look at their FAQ if he is interested in his biological ancestry. They have projects for adoptees. Testing his Y chromosome DNA is quite likely to reveal his biological father's surname, and even more likely to reveal his father's ethnicity. He could also test his mitochondrial DNA and probably discover his biological mother's ethnicity, though it would be less likely to find her surname.

It costs a couple of hundred dollars, is simple and painless, and takes about 6 weeks to get the results.

[Carolina Kiltman]

One side of me can sympathize with the sentiment of the emailer. When I see the oafish drunks acting like idiots on St. Paddy's Day and Cinco De Mayo.

If those who cherish it do not defend it, it will be corrupted by those who are ignorant of it's meaning and significance.

I heartily agree with both, and especially the latter. I have whole boxes of family photos that I can only guess as to who they are (Most taken in the early 1900's) To celebrate one's ethnic history is to preserve it! The only danger is that it can be romanticized all out of any resemblance to the reality.

[meinfs]

You might suggest that he go to www.familytreedna.com and take a look at their FAQ if he is interested in his biological ancestry. They have projects for adoptees. Testing his Y chromosome DNA is quite likely to reveal his biological father's surname, and even more likely to reveal his father's ethnicity. He could also test his mitochondrial DNA and probably discover his biological mother's ethnicity, though it would be less likely to find her surname.

It costs a couple of hundred dollars, is simple and painless, and takes about 6 weeks to get the results.

Excellent. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Larry124]

...But for every person of Irish descent living in Ireland, there are seven people of primarily Irish descent living in the United States. Irish-Americans have long maintained some distinctive cultural traditions in the United States. Maybe it would be more proper to call this "Irish-American culture" than "Irish culture," but the sense of "Irishness" remains quite strong among Irish-Americans.
So if Irish-Americans wear kilts, then the wearing of kilts is an authentic part of Irish culture in America. Since there are 44 million of us here, and only 6 million people of Irish descent left in Ireland, who is to say which is the "real" Irish culture, if only one can be?

Good post.

When folks ask me if I'm Scottish, I say no, I'm American. I am from an Irish-American background with grandparents and great-grandparents born in Ireland and parents who grew up in a big city Irish-American neighborhood. But I don't say that. I just say American. I wear kilts for comfort and style. And if the kilt is tartan I know it's name and something about the clan/family.

The letter writer sounds to me like an angry young man. Been there, done that. Got over it (mostly).
Is there "Irish Cringe"?

[slohairt]

It probably is from a young man. It seems to be a fairly common view held by younger generations of people (especially the ones with a lack of education). I encountered it quite a bit when I lived in Ireland. I rarely encountered it in anyone over the age of forty.

There are no longer waves of emigration from the UK and Ireland to the New World. The cultural and familial links for many (on both sides of the Atlantic) are growing tenuous or disappearing. The younger Irish and British people don't often understand the difference between ethnicity and citizenship, because it is usually one and the same for them.

[O'Callaghan]

For more tartans that 5 for Ireland you can visit http://www.doyle.com.au/tartan_irish.htm

You are correct that there isn't that many, but there are definitely more. I'm sure there is even more than I've listed in this link, but oh well.

I had a look at that Doyle site, and it lists 48 Irish clan or family tartans. Nor is it even vaguely true that most of them have links to Scotland.

Only two or three of them correspond to Scottish clans, and even with those you have to remember that the highlanders came to Scotland from Ireland, not the other way around, so even where the tartan was originally adopted in Scotland the clan itself invariably existed in Ireland first and then spread to Scotland, not vicea versa. That is a common mistake when people think they recognise 'Scottish' names in Ireland, i.e. if they are highland clan names then they are in fact Irish names that occur in Scotland.

OTOH, lowland Scots and a even a few highlanders did settle in the North of Ireland many centuries later, so it can be hard to unscramble, but many people get it wrong because they have heard of that migration and not the earlier one in the other direction.

This brings up an interesting questions. If you find out from genealogical research that you are descended from a Scots clan name solely via Ireland and have no Scots blood can you still wear the tartan? I'd say yes, if it's the same clan, but not everyone would agree.

There are certainly other Irish name tartans that are not listed on the Doyle site. Callaghan is one of them. It isn't old, but it represents the Callaghans in the same way that, for example, the Leatherneck tartan represents the USMC, i.e. someone has registered it.

The Irish Record Office at one time kept a list of Irish clans, and I think there were only 16 or 19 or some number like that. Of course, in reality there were far more, but AFAIK there isn't the tendency to start new clans that seems to be found in lowland Scotland. Callaghan was recorded as a clan, but the tartan was registered as a family tartan without any approval of either the hereditary clan chief (believe it or not located in Barcelona, Spain, LOL!) or the clan society in Co. Cork.

In comparison, my cousins' lowland Scots clan, that shall remain nameless to spare their blushes, didn't even exist AFAIK when I was a child. Back then they were supposed to be a sept of another clan, but now they have a clan society and a chief, and of course a tartan that goes all the way back to the 1980s. Granted that's older than the Callaghan tartan (registered in 2007, LOL!), but the Callaghan clan itself is over a thousand years old.

I have seen Callaghan tartan on the net, but at 75 bucks a yard! At that price I think I could afford enough for a tie!

[Phil]

As someone with a foot in both camps (Ireland and Scotland) I would agree with him about kilts being regarded as 100% Scottish by most Irish people. The rest of it just sounds a pretty mindless rant and best ignored.