As ever, these days, Ad Fontes.
I urge all readers to go back to first sources. Read Walter Scott in full and in the original. Read his essays and letters and notice his early and vigorous exposure of the frauds of the Sobieski Stuarts and Ossian. the frauds and impostures which he is now cruelly associated with. Ask any journalist or university lecturer what they know of Walter Scott and they’ll say he ‘invented Tartanry’. It’s the sort of thing people say to sound intelligent and well read.
In actual fact Scott insisted, quite categorically, repeatedly and very much against the current of his times that the ‘idea of distinguishing the clans by their tartans is but a fashion of modern date’.
Highland dress, however, the Clan system, dùthchas and the distinct and ancient way of life of the Gaelic Highlands is an undisputable historical fact. The Belted Plaid or breacan an fhèilidh is attested at least as early as the 1590’s. ‘Tartanry’ (if we must) exists on and in every record of Scottish history. In it’s language, song and folk memory. It is visible in its statutes and the history of its constitution. Read a single page of Ian Lom, the Bard of Keppoch, or any of the older Ballads. Read Blind Harry or John Barbour from the 13th Century. Read The 16th Century Complaynt of Scotland or the MacMhuirich bards of Clan Currie. These resources are all online.
The work Scott did in transferring the oral and archival traditions of the Highlands to the modern printed book is absolutley extraordinary.
Now, Scott certainly laid on a pageant for the visit of George IV. It was, after all, the first visit of a reigning monarch to Scotland since Charles II. He also collaborated with the actor and set designer, William Henry Murray. And It was also in the context of the Highland Clearances and an ancient Gaelic aristocracy reasserting itself
But, the enduring and high handed dimissal of ‘Tartanry’ comes, as cited in this article, from the Invention of Tradition and the nefarious mind of Eric Hobsbawm and his acolytes. They have worked busily to divorce this nation from it’s own history and position the credentialled higher critic as the arbitrator of legitimate historical memory.
There is of, course another and even less creditable line of criticism that runs from the Whigs of the 18th century, through the Radicals of the 19th century, the Marxists of the 20th and on into the incohate and self defeating resentment of current Scottish Nationalism. It is fluently expressed in the words of the Scotch Belle Lettrist Kevin Williamson (who accompained the remark with an image of himself dancing on Scott’s grave) “Sir Walter Scott was not a great Scottish patriot nor even a particularly good writer–his prose is stodge–but he was an arse-licking royalist, a falsifier of Scottish history and a Tory c*** of the worst order”.
Tartanry and the myths around ‘Red Clydeside’ gang ill t’gither so one of them must be discredited.
But as sure there’s ‘hill’s beyond Pentland and lands beyond Forth’ there is certainly a truth and memory far beyond the schemes and systems of the Academy or the fulminations of the malcontented.
Interesting take. I know absolutely nothing of Scott but I did go to a Tartan Themed University in America full of Scottish pageantry!
I do think the author is correct that this tradition has been synthesized into a profitable industry wholly detached from it’s origins and full of exaggerated myths. But that doesn’t negate the truthful aspects.
I think there needs to be a more deliberate effort to bracket thoroughly recorded historical facts from speculative mytho-history. I think the Romantic lineage is the culprit here. Mainly the Marxists, Post-Modernists and even the Anthropologists.
The Neo-Marxists just do revisionist history and center the lived experiences of the so called “oppressed” while sensationalizing the horrors of the so called “oppressors.” The Postmodernists nitpick every documented fact as a biased reimagination of the powerful and the Anthropologist fill historical gaps with speculation.
There’s still room for good ole fashion Empiricism and maybe people should just live with the the fact that we can only know with near-certainty the things that were thoroughly documented through multiple sources and perspectives.
It wasn’t a “dismissal” but a good account of how recent many traditions actually are, contra the often quasi-mystical musings (not to say “ravings!”) of some nationalists!
Despite your protests, much “tradition” is in fact invented, or changed out of all recognition, not least the Coronation ceremony or indeed French cuisine. And Scotland isn’t just Gaeldom or the Highlands – the great majority of its population have always been much closer to the Anglo Saxon South!
Gordon Black
11 months ago
Great start to the day: Bill Gates-myth: Israel’s plans-myth: Aristasia-myth: Trump-myth: Le Pen-myth: Wilders-myth: and crikey! … Scottish tartan a myth! I have nothing left to believe in.
Throw in all the druidism BS of the Welsh Eistedffords.
There was a practice of bardic competition in Wales dating back to the middle ages, but Eisteddford just means sitting together. It was little more than the Welsh version of the common oral tradition of communities gathering to listen to poets and story-tellers.
But the National Eisteddford is an early 19th century invention, co-opting the practice and under the heavy influence of Welsh romantic antiquarian Iolo Morgannwg, layering on lots of made up druid-y nonsense.
The kicker is that Iolo Morgannwg’s real name was Edward Williams and he forged some of his supposed medieval sources.
Yes, he’s almost a Welshman but the name 54321 is a giveaway. No real Welshman would fail to spell eisteddfod correctly.
The problem was the Act of Union in 1707. It was so trendy that the Welsh and Scots (Scotch for my friend CS) wanted to be English, not British. There was, of course, a reaction and intellectuals reinvented Welshness. Today’s Welsh and Scottish assemblies are the creation of intellectuals, who want to write books and become important. Correct is British until the union is dissolved by parliament.
I can’t decide if that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever called me or the nastiest
😉
Russell Hamilton
11 months ago
“The king himself was delighted to claim his Scottish roots, and strut about in a Royal Stuart tartan mini-kilt and pink tights. Lowlanders began dressing in the colours of imaginary highlanders and the tartan biscuit tin was born”
This is exactly the sort of thing I need to read to start the day.
But seriously, “A robust culture is attained through fantasy, through making things up — and continuing to make things up.” is a little dangerous. People living in Australia will know just how robust is the process of creating ‘traditional’ Aboriginal culture, the ‘welcome to country’ etc. Somehow I suspect this fantasy won’t end well.
Kente cloth is, in fact, a type of Malay Batik, first produced commercially by the Dutch East India Company in the late 19th Century and exported to the Gold Coast in the 1890’s by the Scottish businessman Ebenezer Brown Fleming.
Effectively all traditional Kente patterns, despite their spurious African folk origins, were actually invented by Dutch and British clothiers and sold to West Africa in the early 20th Century. Many of the most famous, cherished and iconic Ghanaian ‘ancestral’ prints were created in the 1930’s by a Dutchman named Piet Snel.
When I was a boy in Glasgow in the 80s and 90s, I very rarely saw anyone wearing a kilt outwith a Tartan Army context. You would maybe see someone from the Highlands or one eccentric relative at a wedding, but the concept of an ordinary man wearing a kilt would have seemed bizarre. You would point it out as a curiosity.
Now, it’s generally expected that a groom and the men in a bridal party will be kilted and everyone acts like it has always been the tradition to wear a kilt at formal events. It’s interesting to witness the growth of a ‘tradition’ in real time, but I expect all national traditions emerge with some people looking on scratching their heads.
I wondered if it’s linked to the release of Braveheart, or is it a kind of meta-Americanisation, where our national identity has been packaged up and sold back to us.
In the end though, I think it’s quite simply that women seem to love it and we men are not complicated beings
Once you’ve got a kilt, that’s your wedding outfit sorted.
Uncomplicated, as you say. Whether it started last year or last millennium, it’s the ceremonial dress these days.
Chris, you are spot on! I was brought up in the 60s on the West coast and, apart from the occasional soldier, you NEVER saw a kiltie. I once asked my extremely scottish grandfather about kilts, and he told me that if I saw someone (other than a soldier) in a kilt, it was probable that it was an englishman trying to fit in.
I still think the whole kilt thing is risible. Why otherwise normal men think they should wear a comedy outfit to get married in totally astounds me.
I confess I do have a clan tartan tie which I wear on Burns’s night, but that is merely to piss off the locals (I do missionary work in the South) by reminding them of who the superior beings are (that’s fun – like hearing an englishman trying to recite Burns……)
You touch on an interesting but often unappreciated aspect of Scottish History which is the cultural disunity of the Highlands and the Lowlands. Something much obscured in Nationalist historiography.
It was commented at the time of George IV’s visit that to many Lowlanders, particularly in the West and near the Highland Line the Highland dress and Gaelic speech were the garb and tongue of the blackmailer, cattle rustler and thief.
The union of 1707 and measures taken after the ’45 were as significant in ending the ancestral and historic conflict between the Gaelic Highlanders and the frankly Saxon (as they were often called) Lowanders as it was in uniting the crowns of Britain.
We all know about Bannockburn and Culloden but the bloodiest and most decisive battle in Scottish history was the victory of the Lowlanders under the Duke of Albany over the Highlanders under the Lord of the Isles at Harlaw. It is also a splendid ballad.
I once asked my extremely scottish grandfather about kilts, and he told me that if I saw someone (other than a soldier) in a kilt, it was probable that it was an englishman trying to fit in.
Ambrose Bierce’s definition of a kilt in the Devil’s Dictionary is a garment worn by Scotsmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
With so many kilts being rentals these days, you get charged extra for cleaning if you don’t.
Charles Stanhope
11 months ago
What’s new about all this? The late Hugh Trevor-Roper exposed the bogus nature of much Sc*tch history years ago.
Besides most of the Sc*tch were in fact IRISH, crossing the water as the Dál Riata group of thugs in the mid fifth century. The others, on the east coast, where stuff actually grew were Angles*, Germanic speaking barbarians who would eventually create the Kingdom of Northumbria.
The PICTS.
Incidentally the Romans comprehensively conquered the place, but rapidly abandoned it because it was virtually valueless,*unlike for example contemporary Dacia**
Disagree a little but it can’t really be clear. Yes, the Scots were Irish immigrants, displacing the Picts, who moved eastwards. As Mr Roper says, there was a lot of inter-marrying and the Scots culture came to the head of the pile. The Anglea wete involved and there was more inter-marrying. I would say that the ones on the east coast were the Picts, who morphed into the Angles.
Good book though.
Its no surprise that so many of these so-called ancient traditions in fact date from the early or mid 19th century.
The previous 200 years had been a catalogue of sectarian and nationalist conflicts of various types (civil war, acts of union, jacobite uprisings and religious controversies in the succession of the British crown, American war of independence etc).
The 1801 Act of Union which constitutionally created the UK of GB&Ire marked a kind of milestone after which these various conflicts were (at least temporarily) largely converted into romantic nationalism. Most Scots/Welsh and to a lesser extent Irish might have been resigned to being junior partners in a union with England, but they could still express their national distinctiveness through claims to ancient traditions. Even if those traditions were substantially made up on the spot.
At the same time there was a massive outward flow of people from the UK and Ireland to America and Australia which created large diasporas hungry for a sense of belonging to the “old country”. Their descendants now form a large part of the target market for all the tartans and similar.
I wore a kilt for a wedding in the highlands once. I was an usher for a mate and his family wanted us all to wear one for consistency. I really liked it. They are very comfortable, surprisingly substantial, and I wore a Black Douglas which is a belter of a tartan.
In Scotland, too, people continue to invent tartans, now free of clan-connections.
I hope someone is working on a special thermal weave, given the proposals to compel the installation of heat-pumps for people buying properties. A chill wind whistling around the Trossachs can be quite dispiriting.
Do those bloody things work? The heat-pumps I mean, not the kilts.
Richard Craven
11 months ago
“Regardless, back in the day it never occurred to me to wonder whether my ancestors would have approved of the kilted Canadian.”
A large proportion of Canadians have Scottish heritage anyway – I’m an Atholl Murray myself.
UnHerd Reader
11 months ago
The human intellect and its mangled perception of reality are too limited to deal in anything but myth and fantasy.
A 200 year old delusion is as good as any other supposed foundation for an identity.
With respect to the broader point of history at question here, what is being attempted is a reduction of Scottish identity to a tartan biscuit tin.
Scottish identity is built on a milennium of songs and storys, religion, law, custom and practice spanning the Highlands, Lowlands, Isles and Borderlands in Gaelic and in Scots, in English and in Latin. It bridged the Irish Sea and crossed to the New World. They sing the pure old Ballads in the Blue Mountains of Tennessee and speak Gaelic in Glengarry County Ontario.
One can take the trouble and reap the rewards of investigating the rich and voluminous beautiful and contradictory Story of Scotland or one can dress it up in borrowed rags and throw it in the dustbin of history.
The choice belongs to every reader.
I think I have mentioned this before, but when I was 18 I met the headmaster of my old school in Scotland. He asked me which university I was going to (meaning St Andrews or Glasgow, of course) and when I told him it was in England, his comment was “At least we know the average IQ of both countries will go up.”
Best put-down ever!
It was always attributed to Lange’s predecessor, P. Iggy Muldoon.
He probably didn’t coin the expression either. The wit of politicians is greatly overestimated.
Chris Hayes
11 months ago
Ah….brings back memories of my undergraduate days and Eric Hobsbawn’s “Invention of Tradition” (I think he edited it) which certainly opened my eyes on the subject…It immediately brought about a heated discussion as to whether this was an attempt by Cultural Marxist Internationalists to drive a wedge between the Good British People and their history….Oh happy times.
As ever, these days, Ad Fontes.
I urge all readers to go back to first sources. Read Walter Scott in full and in the original. Read his essays and letters and notice his early and vigorous exposure of the frauds of the Sobieski Stuarts and Ossian. the frauds and impostures which he is now cruelly associated with. Ask any journalist or university lecturer what they know of Walter Scott and they’ll say he ‘invented Tartanry’. It’s the sort of thing people say to sound intelligent and well read.
In actual fact Scott insisted, quite categorically, repeatedly and very much against the current of his times that the ‘idea of distinguishing the clans by their tartans is but a fashion of modern date’.
Highland dress, however, the Clan system, dùthchas and the distinct and ancient way of life of the Gaelic Highlands is an undisputable historical fact. The Belted Plaid or breacan an fhèilidh is attested at least as early as the 1590’s. ‘Tartanry’ (if we must) exists on and in every record of Scottish history. In it’s language, song and folk memory. It is visible in its statutes and the history of its constitution. Read a single page of Ian Lom, the Bard of Keppoch, or any of the older Ballads. Read Blind Harry or John Barbour from the 13th Century. Read The 16th Century Complaynt of Scotland or the MacMhuirich bards of Clan Currie. These resources are all online.
The work Scott did in transferring the oral and archival traditions of the Highlands to the modern printed book is absolutley extraordinary.
Now, Scott certainly laid on a pageant for the visit of George IV. It was, after all, the first visit of a reigning monarch to Scotland since Charles II. He also collaborated with the actor and set designer, William Henry Murray. And It was also in the context of the Highland Clearances and an ancient Gaelic aristocracy reasserting itself
But, the enduring and high handed dimissal of ‘Tartanry’ comes, as cited in this article, from the Invention of Tradition and the nefarious mind of Eric Hobsbawm and his acolytes. They have worked busily to divorce this nation from it’s own history and position the credentialled higher critic as the arbitrator of legitimate historical memory.
There is of, course another and even less creditable line of criticism that runs from the Whigs of the 18th century, through the Radicals of the 19th century, the Marxists of the 20th and on into the incohate and self defeating resentment of current Scottish Nationalism. It is fluently expressed in the words of the Scotch Belle Lettrist Kevin Williamson (who accompained the remark with an image of himself dancing on Scott’s grave) “Sir Walter Scott was not a great Scottish patriot nor even a particularly good writer–his prose is stodge–but he was an arse-licking royalist, a falsifier of Scottish history and a Tory c*** of the worst order”.
Tartanry and the myths around ‘Red Clydeside’ gang ill t’gither so one of them must be discredited.
But as sure there’s ‘hill’s beyond Pentland and lands beyond Forth’ there is certainly a truth and memory far beyond the schemes and systems of the Academy or the fulminations of the malcontented.
The Gordon Highlanders tartan does something to my eyes.
Good or bad?
Lots of good memories of the people we used to be, now long gone.
Scottish women must be forced to wear plaid burkas in light of Islam’s advances.
Dress Gordon is very sophisticated.
Interesting take. I know absolutely nothing of Scott but I did go to a Tartan Themed University in America full of Scottish pageantry!
I do think the author is correct that this tradition has been synthesized into a profitable industry wholly detached from it’s origins and full of exaggerated myths. But that doesn’t negate the truthful aspects.
I think there needs to be a more deliberate effort to bracket thoroughly recorded historical facts from speculative mytho-history. I think the Romantic lineage is the culprit here. Mainly the Marxists, Post-Modernists and even the Anthropologists.
The Neo-Marxists just do revisionist history and center the lived experiences of the so called “oppressed” while sensationalizing the horrors of the so called “oppressors.” The Postmodernists nitpick every documented fact as a biased reimagination of the powerful and the Anthropologist fill historical gaps with speculation.
There’s still room for good ole fashion Empiricism and maybe people should just live with the the fact that we can only know with near-certainty the things that were thoroughly documented through multiple sources and perspectives.
It wasn’t a “dismissal” but a good account of how recent many traditions actually are, contra the often quasi-mystical musings (not to say “ravings!”) of some nationalists!
Despite your protests, much “tradition” is in fact invented, or changed out of all recognition, not least the Coronation ceremony or indeed French cuisine. And Scotland isn’t just Gaeldom or the Highlands – the great majority of its population have always been much closer to the Anglo Saxon South!
Great start to the day: Bill Gates-myth: Israel’s plans-myth: Aristasia-myth: Trump-myth: Le Pen-myth: Wilders-myth: and crikey! … Scottish tartan a myth! I have nothing left to believe in.
Next up- “Kissinger never made it to China”
We used to dance the Gay Gordons in my school’s Scottish dance class.
I thought my school was the only one that had a Scottish Country Dancing class. “Rock with Jock” we called it.
St. Patrick’s Day parades originating in America with Irish soldiers in the British army there, rather than in Ireland itself is another one.
Throw in all the druidism BS of the Welsh Eistedffords.
There was a practice of bardic competition in Wales dating back to the middle ages, but Eisteddford just means sitting together. It was little more than the Welsh version of the common oral tradition of communities gathering to listen to poets and story-tellers.
But the National Eisteddford is an early 19th century invention, co-opting the practice and under the heavy influence of Welsh romantic antiquarian Iolo Morgannwg, layering on lots of made up druid-y nonsense.
The kicker is that Iolo Morgannwg’s real name was Edward Williams and he forged some of his supposed medieval sources.
Quite right – but do check how to spell “eisteddfod”.
Yes, he’s almost a Welshman but the name 54321 is a giveaway. No real Welshman would fail to spell eisteddfod correctly.
The problem was the Act of Union in 1707. It was so trendy that the Welsh and Scots (Scotch for my friend CS) wanted to be English, not British. There was, of course, a reaction and intellectuals reinvented Welshness. Today’s Welsh and Scottish assemblies are the creation of intellectuals, who want to write books and become important. Correct is British until the union is dissolved by parliament.
Scotch is something you drink.
Your friend is a racist clown.
“Yes, he’s almost a Welshman”
I can’t decide if that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever called me or the nastiest
😉
“The king himself was delighted to claim his Scottish roots, and strut about in a Royal Stuart tartan mini-kilt and pink tights. Lowlanders began dressing in the colours of imaginary highlanders and the tartan biscuit tin was born”
This is exactly the sort of thing I need to read to start the day.
But seriously, “A robust culture is attained through fantasy, through making things up — and continuing to make things up.” is a little dangerous. People living in Australia will know just how robust is the process of creating ‘traditional’ Aboriginal culture, the ‘welcome to country’ etc. Somehow I suspect this fantasy won’t end well.
Regarding the first sentence of that quote, thank goodness photojournalism didn’t exist in the early 19th century.
But political cartoons did. And there is one satirising his kilt and tights outfit.
There is, i believe, a painting. Imagine a fat kraut in pink tights and a mini-kilt instead of a tutu and you have it.
If Ghanaians think wearing kente cloth if you’re not Ghanaian is cultural mis-appropriation, can we have all their 2 and 3 piece suits back?
Kente cloth is, in fact, a type of Malay Batik, first produced commercially by the Dutch East India Company in the late 19th Century and exported to the Gold Coast in the 1890’s by the Scottish businessman Ebenezer Brown Fleming.
Effectively all traditional Kente patterns, despite their spurious African folk origins, were actually invented by Dutch and British clothiers and sold to West Africa in the early 20th Century. Many of the most famous, cherished and iconic Ghanaian ‘ancestral’ prints were created in the 1930’s by a Dutchman named Piet Snel.
Do you enjoy being a misanthrope?
I am not a misanthrope.
Au contraire, cherie – at least judging by your comments around here!
If I promise to make misanthropic comments you promise to call me cherie again, d’accord?
Cheri I think
I would ignore her, she has nothing to offer but bile.
Oh dear, racist grandpa doesn’t like being called out!
Won’t stop me from doing so, obviously!
QED.
When I was a boy in Glasgow in the 80s and 90s, I very rarely saw anyone wearing a kilt outwith a Tartan Army context. You would maybe see someone from the Highlands or one eccentric relative at a wedding, but the concept of an ordinary man wearing a kilt would have seemed bizarre. You would point it out as a curiosity.
Now, it’s generally expected that a groom and the men in a bridal party will be kilted and everyone acts like it has always been the tradition to wear a kilt at formal events. It’s interesting to witness the growth of a ‘tradition’ in real time, but I expect all national traditions emerge with some people looking on scratching their heads.
I wondered if it’s linked to the release of Braveheart, or is it a kind of meta-Americanisation, where our national identity has been packaged up and sold back to us.
In the end though, I think it’s quite simply that women seem to love it and we men are not complicated beings
Once you’ve got a kilt, that’s your wedding outfit sorted.
Uncomplicated, as you say. Whether it started last year or last millennium, it’s the ceremonial dress these days.
Chris, you are spot on! I was brought up in the 60s on the West coast and, apart from the occasional soldier, you NEVER saw a kiltie. I once asked my extremely scottish grandfather about kilts, and he told me that if I saw someone (other than a soldier) in a kilt, it was probable that it was an englishman trying to fit in.
I still think the whole kilt thing is risible. Why otherwise normal men think they should wear a comedy outfit to get married in totally astounds me.
I confess I do have a clan tartan tie which I wear on Burns’s night, but that is merely to piss off the locals (I do missionary work in the South) by reminding them of who the superior beings are (that’s fun – like hearing an englishman trying to recite Burns……)
You touch on an interesting but often unappreciated aspect of Scottish History which is the cultural disunity of the Highlands and the Lowlands. Something much obscured in Nationalist historiography.
It was commented at the time of George IV’s visit that to many Lowlanders, particularly in the West and near the Highland Line the Highland dress and Gaelic speech were the garb and tongue of the blackmailer, cattle rustler and thief.
The union of 1707 and measures taken after the ’45 were as significant in ending the ancestral and historic conflict between the Gaelic Highlanders and the frankly Saxon (as they were often called) Lowanders as it was in uniting the crowns of Britain.
We all know about Bannockburn and Culloden but the bloodiest and most decisive battle in Scottish history was the victory of the Lowlanders under the Duke of Albany over the Highlanders under the Lord of the Isles at Harlaw. It is also a splendid ballad.
Ambrose Bierce’s definition of a kilt in the Devil’s Dictionary is a garment worn by Scotsmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
We love it when you dance in them always hoping to get the question answered do they or don’t they?
With so many kilts being rentals these days, you get charged extra for cleaning if you don’t.
What’s new about all this? The late Hugh Trevor-Roper exposed the bogus nature of much Sc*tch history years ago.
Besides most of the Sc*tch were in fact IRISH, crossing the water as the Dál Riata group of thugs in the mid fifth century. The others, on the east coast, where stuff actually grew were Angles*, Germanic speaking barbarians who would eventually create the Kingdom of Northumbria.
(* From where the word English comes!)
So who were the Romans fighting, and failing to conquer, then if no-one was up there before c.450CE?
The PICTS.
Incidentally the Romans comprehensively conquered the place, but rapidly abandoned it because it was virtually valueless,*unlike for example contemporary Dacia**
(*And still is.)
(**Now known a Romania.)
It’s a shame the Romans didn’t build a better wall.
It would take more than wall to stop the Scots from running the UK.
Did you mean running, or ruining?
As in Dacia Duster.
No as in Sarmizegetusa.
Did Charles’s wife run off with a Scotsman? There must be some reason for this irrational (and inaccurate!) fear and loathing!
I bought a roman silver coin in an Aberdeen shire auction.
Cost me 50P in the mid 70’s.
*AD.
Damn right!!
Disagree a little but it can’t really be clear. Yes, the Scots were Irish immigrants, displacing the Picts, who moved eastwards. As Mr Roper says, there was a lot of inter-marrying and the Scots culture came to the head of the pile. The Anglea wete involved and there was more inter-marrying. I would say that the ones on the east coast were the Picts, who morphed into the Angles.
Good book though.
Kenneth MacAlpin?
The Anglo-Picts seem to have been English speaking by the 13th century if not earlier.
What ‘book’ are you referring to?
Standard issue English envy of the Scots!
Isn’t it Scottish history not “Scotch” history?
Its no surprise that so many of these so-called ancient traditions in fact date from the early or mid 19th century.
The previous 200 years had been a catalogue of sectarian and nationalist conflicts of various types (civil war, acts of union, jacobite uprisings and religious controversies in the succession of the British crown, American war of independence etc).
The 1801 Act of Union which constitutionally created the UK of GB&Ire marked a kind of milestone after which these various conflicts were (at least temporarily) largely converted into romantic nationalism. Most Scots/Welsh and to a lesser extent Irish might have been resigned to being junior partners in a union with England, but they could still express their national distinctiveness through claims to ancient traditions. Even if those traditions were substantially made up on the spot.
At the same time there was a massive outward flow of people from the UK and Ireland to America and Australia which created large diasporas hungry for a sense of belonging to the “old country”. Their descendants now form a large part of the target market for all the tartans and similar.
I wore a kilt for a wedding in the highlands once. I was an usher for a mate and his family wanted us all to wear one for consistency. I really liked it. They are very comfortable, surprisingly substantial, and I wore a Black Douglas which is a belter of a tartan.
Did you wear anything underneath the kilt? A friend wants to know.
Shoes and socks.
I hope someone is working on a special thermal weave, given the proposals to compel the installation of heat-pumps for people buying properties. A chill wind whistling around the Trossachs can be quite dispiriting.
Do those bloody things work? The heat-pumps I mean, not the kilts.
“Regardless, back in the day it never occurred to me to wonder whether my ancestors would have approved of the kilted Canadian.”
A large proportion of Canadians have Scottish heritage anyway – I’m an Atholl Murray myself.
The human intellect and its mangled perception of reality are too limited to deal in anything but myth and fantasy.
A 200 year old delusion is as good as any other supposed foundation for an identity.
With respect to the broader point of history at question here, what is being attempted is a reduction of Scottish identity to a tartan biscuit tin.
Scottish identity is built on a milennium of songs and storys, religion, law, custom and practice spanning the Highlands, Lowlands, Isles and Borderlands in Gaelic and in Scots, in English and in Latin. It bridged the Irish Sea and crossed to the New World. They sing the pure old Ballads in the Blue Mountains of Tennessee and speak Gaelic in Glengarry County Ontario.
One can take the trouble and reap the rewards of investigating the rich and voluminous beautiful and contradictory Story of Scotland or one can dress it up in borrowed rags and throw it in the dustbin of history.
The choice belongs to every reader.
I think I have mentioned this before, but when I was 18 I met the headmaster of my old school in Scotland. He asked me which university I was going to (meaning St Andrews or Glasgow, of course) and when I told him it was in England, his comment was “At least we know the average IQ of both countries will go up.”
Best put-down ever!
The New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange used the same line when asked about the emigration of Kiwis to Australia.
Gosh! I wonder how far back it goes. My conversation was in 1974………
Lange was PM some time in the 1980s.
It was always attributed to Lange’s predecessor, P. Iggy Muldoon.
He probably didn’t coin the expression either. The wit of politicians is greatly overestimated.
Ah….brings back memories of my undergraduate days and Eric Hobsbawn’s “Invention of Tradition” (I think he edited it) which certainly opened my eyes on the subject…It immediately brought about a heated discussion as to whether this was an attempt by Cultural Marxist Internationalists to drive a wedge between the Good British People and their history….Oh happy times.