Eminent Historian Debunks Scottish History As Largely Fabrication

The Times Online ^ | 5-18-2008 | Stuart MacDonald

[ArmyTeach]

... no kilts til the 18th c. Well, I think it's for sure there were no kilts in the second half of the 18th century. They were banned after Culloden, or so I hear.

[ArmyTeach]

... no kilts til the 18th c. Well, I think it's for sure there were no kilts in the second half of the 18th century. They were banned after Culloden, or so I hear.

[ArmyTeach]

duplication :-(

[varialectio]

Sorry,, Taylor’s book came out in 1961. Time flies when you’re having fun.

[norton]

"checking the family history at the website of the Old Bailey proceedings"....

Tried - any tips?

[dynachrome]

Just punched in my last name in the search box and cme up with a lot of hits. Helps to have a very common name.

[dynachrome]

Sorry. You meant the website!

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/index.jsp

[AnAmericanMother]

The kilts continued as part of the uniform of the Black Watch and a couple of other regiments or militia organizations (including the Duke of Atholl's private army).

About the only way you could continue to wear tartan or play the pipes was to join the army . . . .

The whole "clan tartan" thing didn't really take hold until Victorian times, and the assignment of particular patterns or "setts" to a particular clan is purely a Victorian fantasy. There were some pre-1745 tartans associated with districts, probably mostly because the local weavers had favorite patterns and tended to weave a lot of them. But there was no organized "system" such as they have now.

That historical excuse gives me free rein to avoid tartans that I hate and wear the ones that I like. My dad's family's "official" tartan is dull and boring, so I wear one of my mom's many patterns. She's a MacDonald of Glencoe, but I like the MacDonald of the Isles better, so I wear that. My husband's Marr tartan is hideous and enough of it to cover 6'6" of quarter-Scot, quarter-Irish, and half Heinz 57 would be a public eyesore, so he wears Gordon, with which he has sort of a vague family connection through his dad.

Somebody once asked a Lowland Scot if his family had a tartan, and he replied, "No. Thank God my family could always afford to wear pants."

[AnAmericanMother]

How it does.

I have that same picture demonstrating the use of a belted plaid in an old book on tartans from the late 50s or early 60s.

In 1967 I was a competitive Highland Dancer. Girls still wore kilts in those days, the "Flora MacDonald" outfit didn't come in until later, unless you were dancing the Lilt.

[AnAmericanMother]

My London relations appear to have successfully stayed out of trouble before they immigrated to Newark NJ (which was actually a nice place in the 1790s!)

Neat website.

[AnAmericanMother]

IF William Wallace spoke Gaelic (which I profoundly doubt - he was from Ayrshire or somewhere thereabouts and they thought the Highlanders were barbarous savages from the north and west), he would have spoken Scots Gaelic, not Irish.

It's "Alba gu braith!"

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Blam. In the book, Trevor-Roper claims that Scotland’s literary and political traditions, which claim to date back to the Roman invasion of Scotland in the first century AD, are in fact based on myth and were largely invented in the 18th century... Scots are also accused of fabricating their own literary tradition, culminating in the publication of The Works of Ossian. These were claimed to have been translated from ancient sources in Gaelic about the lives of Celtic heroes, but have long been suspected of being a figment of the imagination of James Macpherson, the 18th-century Scottish poet who claimed to have translated them. I don't think there are many who regard Ossian as anything but a recent invention; I don't doubt that this isn't a unique approach, though. :') To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[DariusBane]

Ouch, me ancestors were a randy lot I’ve got to say. Me pur people had a need fer pickin pockets and the like also. No, not nice fellows at all.

[Mariebl]

Right. Anyone who's even heard of Ossian knows that literary critics have been taking for granted that the poetry was a fake, since forever and a day.

Likewise, the modern kilt is ... modern. However, plaid stuff that shows off a guy's hairy knees has been around forever and a day, also.
What are we going to get next? Eminent historian declares that it is unlikely that George Washington actually chopped down a cherry tree with his little hatchet.

[wildbill]

Hoot mon, only we wild and barbarian scots could invent haggis and deem it fit food for humans.

Ye canna take that distinction awa from us.

[AnAmericanMother]

Grant Wood beat the 'eminent historians' to it 70 years ago . . .

[Dustbunny]

Sounds like total BS.

Never trust anyone who writes a book that is not to be published until five years after his death.

[stop_fascism]

Wasn’t he Welsh?

[gost2]

Don’t know who invented pants put they are a very bad idea. Kilts are so sensible given the First Law of Human Male Thermo-Dynamics. That being give your b**ls some air.

[Eaker]

Ping!