Kilt - History

History

The kilt first appeared as the great kilt, the breacan or belted plaid, is most likely Norse in origin and not Celtic as many assume. The Irish, known as Scotti, who migrated to Scotland and gave the region of north Britain its name, never wore kilts prior to their arrival in northern Britain, nor did their kinsmen, the Brythonic speaking tribes of Britain, nor their Goidelic speaking kinsmen in Ireland. It has been documented in historical accounts Celtic tribes wore trousers, which the Romans called bracae, as did many other neighboring peoples to the Romans. The great kilt was a full-length garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak draped over the shoulder, or brought up over the head. The philibeg or small kilt, also known as the walking kilt (similar to the modern kilt) was invented by an English Quaker from Lancashire called Thomas Rawlinson sometime in the 1720s for the use of the Highlanders he and Iain MacDonnell, chief of the MacDonnells of Inverness employed in logging, charcoal manufacture and iron smelting, for which the belted plaid was "cumbrous and unwieldy".