Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[Nighthawk]

I always thought a MUTT was a Miniture Ugandan Tiger Tracker??? LOL...Maybe we could commission a multi-heritage tartan, if one already doesn't exist?

Yeah, USA Kilts has it! It's called the American Heritage! That's as multi heritage as you can get- and very appropriate for all of us! I personally would love to have a Clare County tartan kilt, because my grandfather (Leddy) was from there, but I want a Colorado tartan kilt more because I'm from Colorado.

[O'Callaghan]

I don't know if the Irishman who wrote that letter was a unionist or a republican (and I am not talking about the GOP when I use that term here). It's possible a Northern republican might see kilts as unionist/Ulster Scots. OTOH if he is a unionist and probably an Ulster Scot he may think that even more so.

The kilt originated in Scotland BUT it was based on the Irish outfit of leine (shirt) and brat (cloak). The highlanders came to Scotland from Ireland, and according to legend the Irish came there from Spain. Tartan is even older than the celts coming to Ireland, and is thought to go back thousands of years. The Scottish turned the brat (cloak) into the kilt in easy stages, pleating it like the Irish before them had pleated the leine (shirt). I don't think every leine was pleated or that every brat was tartan, but there is really no doubt that some were like that.

As for bagpipes, they came to Scotland from Ireland, but were banned in Ireland by the English in the 14th century. Bagpipes had yet to sprout a third drone at that time, so it is often said that only pipes with just two drones are really Irish, but most Irish pipers use pipes with three drones, which are probably cheaper and easier to find. There are also Uillean pipes in Ireland that have elbow operated bellows, and some call those the Irish pipes but they were originally created to get through a loophole in the law banning bagpipes.

I'm not sure if the bagpipe ban was ever repealed. Many of those who played in pipe bands just prior to the creation of the Free State were also in the IRA, according to band histories. And they wore green kilts to play their pipes.

Saffron kilts were, and are, worn by pipers in the Irish regiments of the British Army, and now the armed forces of the Republic follow exactly the same tradition, which is somewhat ironic. The saffron colour is based on the practice of dyeing the ancient Irish leine with saffron, but ironically a woolen kilt comes out an entirely different colour from a linen leine when both are dyed with saffron, so the actual resemblance is non-existent.

As others have said, many of those who took part in the Easter Rising wore the green kilt. Not in the rising itself, but at other times. One of them got married in a green kilt. Sadly, many of them were executed by the English.

The Irish kilt club has a picture on their site of the Mayor of Limerick wearing a kilt in the 1920s, and pictures of boys at St. Enda's school wearing kilts, probably a little earlier than that. Although their site has not been updated, I think you can download newsletters from there as pdf files that are more recent. Mind you, the guy that runs it is apparently a piper that lives in the North of England, not in Ireland.

Myself, I am English, but of Irish descent, and entitled to membership of the Irish clan that matches my user name, and I live in the USA. I just like wearing the kilt, and wear Irish tartans because I have no Scottish blood.

If Irish tartans are mostly 20th century creations if not even 21st, then I must point out that extremely few Scottish tartans predate the '45, and of those that existed before that even fewer were connected with any clan at that time.

Tartan itself is celtic, not merely Scottish, and the pleats in an Irish kilt represent the pleats in an ancient Irish leine (which is the same place that the Scots got the idea to pleat the kilt). However, it takes some digging to get to the facts, and if the present day Irish are unaware of them it is not surprising.

If I should be laughed at in Ireland for wearing an Irish kilt, or simply mistaken for a Scot, I wouldn't be atall surprised. IME, few in the republic want to know anything about the republican rebels. I get the impression they'd sooner forget them.

I will probably get a green kilt just so I can point out that they were worn by the men that gave Ireland it's freedom. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with patriotic feelings for Ireland, but as an Englishman I have to restrain myself before I blow myself up, LOL! Do I think that anyone who has lived their whole life in Ireland could ever understand? Not a chance!

[herminator]

Oh dear, oh dear, I am a 100% german and I simply love my ireland´s national USAKilt....



Can somebody tell me how to become PC??



I hope not!

[Freedomlover]

I received a most interesting email from an Irish fellow this morning. I assume he visited my website.

I have seen that message somewhere before. It was, I think, around St. Patrick's day, and was in one of my news feeds.

[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.

[beloitpiper]

As somebody who has LIVED in Ireland and worn kilts over there, I can say that they are not laughed at. Granted, I didn't go around telling everybody my kilt was Irish, but a large majority had no problem with an American wearing a kilt. The best thing, I've found, is to just say "I'm a kilt enthusiast," which gives them no right to bash you. You're not claiming an identity, you just love to wear kilts!

But seriously, where did this email come from?!? Who does he think he is, just emailing you about what he thinks of Irish Americans? He's a jerk, so who cares what he thinks?

Interestingly enough though, of the 40 million people claiming Irish descent, 27 million of those are Ulster Scots (Scots-Irish)...

[Captain Karrot]

This thread must have been recently revived, because I don't remember seeing it before.

I know live in Ohio...and wear kilts. I wonder what part of Ohio this individual lives in, and what pub...curious if I may have run across him a time or two...

[CelticMedic]

I did a search...turns out there is only 1 member of Team Ireland competeing in the Olympics this time around...and he's not a native Irishman, he became a citizen based on his Irish heritige, Allistar Ian Cragg
From his official Olympic Bio: Born June 13, 1980. ... Making his second appearance in the Olympics. ... At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, ran the 5,000 meters in 13 minutes, 43.06 seconds for a 12th-place finish. ... It was the top time among Europeans in that event. ... Broke an Irish record in the 10,000m, finishing in 27:39.55 in Stanford, Calif. on April 29, 2007. ... Finished fourth in the 3,000 at the 2006 World Indoor Championships in Moscow with a time of 7:46.43. ... Took gold in that event at the 2005 European Indoor Championship in Madrid with a time of 7:46.32. ... After representing South Africa as a junior athlete, was able to become an Irish citizen in 2003 because of his ancestry.
Wonder how our young friend feels about being represented by a former "Plastic Paddy"

[O'Callaghan]

I did a search...turns out there is only 1 member of Team Ireland competeing in the Olympics this time around...and he's not a native Irishman, he became a citizen based on his Irish heritige, Allistar Ian Cragg (bio snipped) Wonder how our young friend feels about being represented by a former "Plastic Paddy"

If the young e-mailer is from Northern Ireland, then he is from the UK, which is represented by Team GB, not Team Ireland. Either way, I don't suppose he's thrilled by being represented by someone he would see as South African.

OTOH, it is more complicated than that, as so many things in life are. You can claim either British or Irish citizenship from links to Northern Ireland, but not both. That doesn't stop someone from claiming both if at least one or the other is not derived from NI, though. FWIW, I have no connection with NI. I am from England and my Irish heritage is from the Republic. You can also vote in all British elections as an Irish citizen, but not as an absentee voter. This means that republicans who have lived in the North for generations can choose to have Irish and not British citizenship without even losing the right to vote.

As for the athlete, Ireland has, amongst other ways of claiming Irish citizenship, a way of extending the claim an indefinite number of generations, the only catch being that the chain cannot be broken. I think you get two generations as of right, and then it continues only if you make the claim, and you are known as an Irish citizen 'by association' I think it's called. This is quite odd, in that I don't know any other nation that has such a rule. So, for example, because as far as we know my grandfather failed to assert Irish citizenship, all generations past him are now SOL. If he had made such a claim while he was alive, and I wish he had, we could have kept Irish citizenship going indefinitely, until somebody else failed to claim it and broke the chain.

[Mr. Kilt]

Wow, odd that this thread has popped back up and has generated so much new interest.
On the plus side...I haven't heard back from the fellow in question.