Irish Tartans: Scottish tartans in disguise?

Recently there has been some discussion of Irish tartans on the "Scottish attire" mailing list I am on. Someone pondered why the Irish felt the need to appropriate what has always been considered a Scottish symbol. The point was made (nearly simultaneously by myself and Todd Wilkinson) that most of these "Irish" tartans are actually designed, produced, and marketed by Scottish tartan manufacturers!

When people say "Irish tartans" what most readily springs to mind are the very popular Irish county tartans. These were designed by The House of Edgar in 1996. The House of Edgar is a Scottish tartan firm, located in Perth. In addition to all of the Irish county tartans, they also have designed the popular Irish National tartan. Lochcarron of Scotland, located in Galashiels, has designed tartans for all of the Irish provinces, as well as three different "All Ireland" tartans. Taken together, these two Scottish companies probably supply most of what people consider to be "Irish tartans" today.

Even historical Irish tartans seem to have at least some Scottish connections. The most famous is the Ulster tartan, taken from a suit of clothing, c. 1600, that was unearthed on a Dungiven farm in 1956. Textile experts believe that the tartan cloth was most likely woven in Donegal, Ireland, but shipped to the Highlands of Scotland to be made into trews!

But the real reason for this post has to do with many of the so-called Irish name tartans. While there are some that are legitimately commissioned and/or created by Irish families for use by those of the name, many of them seem to have been designed merely for fashion purposes (or perhaps even to fill an order from an Irish-named customer), and based off of pre-existing Scottish tartans.

One famous example is the Tara tartan, also sometimes called Murphy or O'Keefe. Like many of the Irish tartans on record, it was thought to have been included in the book Clans Originaux, published in Paris in 1880. However, recent research undertaken by the Scottish Tartans Authority has shown this work to be a tartan sample book of sorts, containing no Irish tartans whatsoever. Discounting this, the next earliest date we have for this tartan in 1967, when it was being sold to Irish customers by The Kilt Shop, in Edinburgh! It is interesting to note that this tartan is simply a color change of the MacLean of Duart. Both tartans are shown below for comparison.

Tara/Murphy tartan

MacLean of Duart tartan

Another example of the same sort of thing is the Clodagh tartan. The Scottish Tartans Society had a woven sample of this tartan, dating from 1970, from D. C. Dalgliesh of Selkirk. In 1979, a bagpipe maker from County Tyrone wrote to Alex Lumsden, researcher for the Scottish Tartans Society, saying that this tartan came from the Bog of Allan in southern Ireland. However, no other evidence of this being an "artifact tartan" has surfaced.

Another curiosity is that this same tartan was supposed to have been recorded as "Dowling" or "Bowling" in the Clans Originaux, c. 1880. But, as I stated, we now know that there are no Irish tartans in the Clans Originaux. STA notes also say that the woven sample in the STS records is from 1980, not 1970.

An important thing to note here is that this tartan is essentially a color change of the Royal Stewart. While it very well could be possible that this is what the Royal Stewart may look like after being buried for a couple of hundred years in a peat bog, and the man who unearthed it was named Bowling or Dowling, and therefore his name became associated with the tartan, I personally doubt it. There seems to be a tendency to create "Irish" named tartans by simply altering the colors of pre-existing Scottish tartans. My gut feeling is that this is simply another fashion tartan originating in the 1970s.

Clodagh

Royal Stewart

Changing traditional Scottish tartans to create new Irish ones seems to be a common practice that continues today. The Royal Stewart tartan seems especially popular. Other Irish tartans that have been designed as Royal Stewart variants are the O'Farrell and the Shaughnessy. The latter was designed by Scotch Corner, a company from Gateshead, England, that has designed many Irish family tartans, apparently on spec to meet customer's requests.

Shaunessy

O'Farrell

The final "Irish" tartan we will look at is the MacCormick tartan. This one dates to 1985 and was designed, apparently, by Pendleton Woolen mills in Oregon. Once more, it is the same sett as a pre-existing Scottish tartans, with a simple color change. In this case, it is a Campbell tartan that is being altered (though a shortened version of the usual Campbell sett -- this one has been recorded as Campbell, 42nd, and Sutherland and is included in Wilsons of Bannockburn's 1819 Key Pattern Book).

MacCormick

Campbell

Before I close, I want to reiterate that there are indeed some Irish tartans that were designed by Irish people and are recognized as legitimate within Ireland. The most notable of these would be the Cian tartan, which was registered with the Chief Herald of Ireland in 1984 and is accepted and used by the Clan Cian Society. But one does have to admit that many of the so-called Irish tartans were created by people outwith Ireland, and actually have their origins in pre-existing Scottish tartans.

One final note: All images of tartans on this site are courtesy of the Scottish Tartans Authority. The settings of the different tartans are different sizes in most cases, and the images show only a portion of the tartan. Ideally all the images would be the same size and show the same portion of the design for comparison purposes, but that is a task beyond the time I have allotted for this post!

Do-It-Yourself kilt jacket

Many people have heard me recommend getting an inexpensive men's jacket (from a thrift store, or a charity organization such as Goodwill or Salvation Army) and shortening it to wear with a kilt. I've had several people ask me about my experiences with this, and how the finished jackets actually look, so I thought I'd share my most recent acquisition with you.

The jacket I'm wearing in the picture to the left was given to me by a friend who scours the second-hand stores. I'm not quite sure where she found it, or what she paid for it, but I'd guess it was less than $5. Cost to me was free! How could I pass it up? It's a Harris tweed jacket, and there is nothing more authentically Scottish than Harris tweed. What better cloth for a good kilt jacket?

It fit me perfectly (44L) but was entirely too long to wear with the kilt. I have a black Argyll jacket that I use for formal or semi-formal wear, and a brown Harris tweed jacket that had been cut down to a kilt jacket that my friend Bob Martin gave to me. But I thought a nice grey jacket was just the thing for casual wear with some of my kilts (like the Mull tartan kilt I'm wearing in the picture). Plus this jacket was rather heavy and would be great for winter wear.

So I took it to a local alteration shop (if your town doesn't have one, it really should). I wore my kilt in, and put on the jacket. I simply showed the lady where I wanted it to fall on my hip, and she pinned it in place. Many people wonder about adding on features typical in standard "kilt jackets" such as guantlet cuffs, epaulettes, etc. I wasn't worried about these. I have them on my formal jacket, and they are fine, but this coat was for casual wear. Another concern is moving the pockets when you shorten the jacket. Again, I was not worried about that. The jacket has a rather large inside breast pocket, and between that and my sporran, I can carry just about whatever I need. So I told the seamstress to just sew the other pockets shut and not worry about them.

The alteration shop had it all summer. I could have gotten the jacket quickly, if needed, but as it was such a warm jacket I told the lady I really didn't need it until the weather turned cold. I just picked it up on Thursday this week. Total cost was all of $25. And for that sum I have a nice looking Harris tweed casual kilt jacket. Can't beat that price for anything! She even replaced the rather ugly buttons that came with the jacket (they looked like something that belonged on a couch cushion from 1973) with something more appropriate from her "button bin." One day I may try to find some nice horn buttons for this jacket, but in the meantime it is still more than auitable.

With the abundance of good Harris tweed jackets to be found in thrift stores everywhere, you too can have a nice looking jacket to wear with your kilt for a similar paltry sum.

What a difference a stripe makes

When you order your kilt, you have the choice of having it pleated to the sett (showing the whole pattern of the tartan in the back) or to the stripe (each pleat showing the same stripe of the tartan). Pleating to the sett really didn't become common until the twentieth century. Pleating to the stripe was the way military kilts were made since at least the 1790s, with civilian kilts being pleated to no pattern. Early in the nineteenth century, civilian kilts also adopted the practice of pleating to the stripe (sometimes also called pleating to the line, or "regimental pleating"). So this is the way that I make most of my box pleated kilts.

You can have a kilt pleated to any stripe in the pattern you want, for the most part. It is easiest, and usually looks better, if you select one of the "pivot lines" in the tartan. But technically you can pleat the kilt to any stripe you want. And what stripe you select can make all the difference in the world regarding the look of your kilt.

To illustrate this point, here are three different kilts made from the exact same tartan -- the standard Buchanan clan tartan in modern colors. Here is the front of one of the kilts, so you can see the overall tartan design (the front aprons of the kilt are not pleated).

As you can see in the picture, there are three main stripes you can pleat to. You can pleat to the white stripe, on the red background (showing mostly red in the back); you can pleat to the black stripe on the yellow background (showing mostly yellow in the back); or you can pleat to the blue stripe on the green background (showing mostly green in the back). As I am making box pleated kilts, the size of each of the pleats will be wider than in most 8 yard, knife pleated kilts, and show more of the background color. Here is this same kilt shown from the back.

On this kilt, I pleated to the white stripe on the red. This would be my personal preference for pleating this particular tartan, because I think it gives the most balance. Out of the three dominant colors (yellow, red and green), red is the "middle ground." It is less bright than the yellow, but brighter than the green. This does not mean that the same tartan would not look striking pleated to one of the other options.

Here is a different kilt made from the same tartan (it is a larger size and so has more pleats). This time I pleated to the black line, which shows mostly yellow in the back. It is a much brighter kilt than the previous one, pleated to show the red. You can see how this has created a very different look. But there is still another option for pleating this tartan.

For this last kilt, I pleated to the blue line, showing mostly green in the back. This is a very different look, because by pleating to the darkest color, the brighter red and yellow lines in the sett really show in the horizonatal. It is visually a very different kilt from the other two, though it is made from the exact same cloth.

So, when ordering your kilt, in addition to what tartan you select, also give some thought as to how you want that tartan pleated. The stripe you pleat to (assuming you have it pleated to the stripe) can greatly affect the overall look of the garment, as I trust these photos have illustrated.