Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry - Ric-A-Dam-Doo

Ric-A-Dam-Doo is a nickname for the original camp flag of the PPCLI. Various sources claim that "Ric-A-Dam-Doo" is, a presumably phonetic version of, the Gaelic for "cloth of thy mother"; but it is not clear that this claim has been confirmed by a Gaelic speaker. In the late 19th Century, members of The Royal Highland Regiment of the British Army, The Black Watch, were known to have referred to their regimental colours in Gaelic as the "rikk u dan du". In 1984, in a conversation with the PPCLI Colonel-of-The-Regiment, Colonel William Sutherland, Lieutenant James MacInnis surmized that the PPCLI's founder, Brigadier Hamilton Gault, a former 'Black Watch' officer from the Canadian Militia, may have used the Gaelic term when referring to the flag and Lt MacInnis believed that subsequent soldiers' bastardization of the Gaelic became accepted practise. The Ric-A-Dam-Doo was hand-sewn by Princess Patricia and presented to the Regiment.