The invention of Scotland

FYI: For a few decades after the ‘45 (1745) wearing the kilt or claymore was illegal, as was the playing of the bagpipes.

(...some time later...)

[some busybody] Source please.

[’Civ] Up yours.

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I have never figured out how the Scots and the Irish got started with kilts. I have been to both countries and it was cold even in July.

The greatkilt can be pretty warm, plus doubles as a bedroll.

Even the smallkilt can be comfortable -- some time back i had a gig piping for the "Christmas Ship" (party boat during Advent, toured Seattle's Lake Washington front evenings). It sometime went enough below freezing they were salting the pier, and my fingers would be thoroughly numb in under 5 minutes, but in the ca 1900 military uniform I wore, including regulation smallkilt (belted kilt), the rest of me was quite comfortable.

FYI: For a few decades after the ‘45 (1745) wearing the kilt or claymore was illegal, as was the playing of the bagpipes.

In the autumn of 1996 I was touring Scotland (after business in England), and took the opportunity to find the auld College of Piping where the art was kept alive during that time by the MacCrimmons.

The "town" of Borreraig itself, famous by name to all Highland pipers, turned out to be (from what we saw) little more than two or three houses plus some kind of small bagpipe (history?) museum which was closed.

But a small hand-done wooden sign by the side of the road, maybe a foot off the ground, alongside a dirt path through a field, said only "Memorial Cairn".

That was enough to induce us to park the car and hike a few hundred meters on the path through the fields and over a ridge, down to a 10- to 12-foot-high beehive-shaped stone cairn, which bore a plaque... that was written only in Scots Gaelic. We were less than a year into Gaelic then, but with a dictionary we quickly learned that the plaque declared (roughly): "Near this spot stood the College of Piping where the MacCrimmons [kept the art alive]. The stones of the buildings have long since been removed and used for other purposes."

I'd made my pilgrimage.

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