Irish Folk Costume - Essay Example

Irish Folk Costume 2005 Outline A) Irish National Dress. The Gaelic League, Kells embroidery, Style of costume B) Development of Dancing (folk) costume; Influence of rural dress styles, Dress design, Costume style C) Features of Irish folk costume (male and female); early costume, fabric and colour, brat design, Motifs, embroidery and applique, Collars and cuffs, Belt and socks, headgear, shoes, medals, Knee-breeches, Kilts Description In this paper we research the Irish national dress, its features, style and design, etc. Getting closer look at the national costumer will allow us to better understand this nation. National dress is a reflection of nation character and its vision of the world. In the national dress one can trace how the nation have been developing and to see its unique shape. National dress is symbolic expression of national idea and its values. All details of the national attire have meaning – color, fabric, design. In this paper we research Irish national dress, its style and features, the influence on the entire in different times. The revival of Irish dancing caused viewing of the Irish national dress as a colorful and flashy. However in ancient Ireland people traditionally wore leine (Irish for shirt), trews (Irish for trousers) and long brats (Irish for cloaks) fastened with a brooch. These pieces of clothes (leine and brat) were the basic elements of ancient Irish dress for people in the upper classes. These lasted from the earliest recorded times down to the 16th century. Irish national dresses worn by people back in the eighth century have had great influence on the dresses that Irish dancers wear today. If anyone wants to get an idea of how Irish peasants looked like in the eighth century, one should just have a look at the dresses worn today by Irish dances. The dresses used in their shows are updated replicas of traditional dresses decorated with elaborate Celtic designs from the Book of Kells and emphasized with a Tara Brooch which is pinned to the shawl. The traditional colorful costume of Irish peasants stayed actual up to the beginning of the 20 th century. However with the formation of the Gaelic League the situation changed drastically. The Gaelic League was created in 1893. The aim of this organization was to promote Irish nationalism. To reach this aim the League organized Irish dance classes and competitions called Feisanna, which is “Festival” in Irish. The purpose of these classes and competitions was to make sure that people were dancing the national dance. The organizers believed that if people danced national Irish dances they would not go in for any other dances that weren’t Irish, English dances specifically. In 1901 the Gaelic League introduced an innovation which caused the dancers to change their style. They encouraged dancers who were competing to wear skirts that were green because green color was supposed to show off their Irish identity. It was then declared that all dancers had to wear costumes that were made in Ireland. In the early 1900s embroidery was relatively minimal on costumes. With time the use and complexity of the decorations, embroidery including has significantly increased. Designs were originally of traditional Irish origin, obtained from the Book of Kells, Irish stone crosses, and chalices. The interlocking and continuous lines in the pattern on the costume symbolize the continuity of life and mankinds eternity. (Riley 1997) Today, designers introduce modern interpretations and patterns including extensive usage of silver and gold thread in the embroidery. The dance costume has changed greatly from traditional garb. In the 1800s, dance masters wore hats, swallowtail coats, knee breeches, white stockings, and black shoes with silver buckles probably similar to todays hard shoes. In the 1800s, it is likely that female dancers wore ordinary peasant dresses or perhaps their "Sundaybest" and ribbons formed into flowers or crosses. (Irish step dancing costumes 2005) With time the dancing costume continued its development. And after 1893 the pursuit for a traditional Irish costume was started. This time is characterized by adopting of kilts. Though there little evidence that the kilt originates in Ireland, it’s origin is undoubtedly Celtic. Today, male dancers wear either kilts or long pants. By the beginning of the 20th century, the typical dance costume consisted of a hooded cloak over a white dress with a sash or a shawl as an alternative. By the 1930s the cloak was dropped and the shawl evolved into the current "shawl" worn on the back of costumes; this shawl linked to the traditional Irish "brath" which was rectangular and attached to the outfit by brooches or pins. (Irish step dancing costumes 2005) At the beginning of the 20th century due to the influence of the Gaelic League the predominant colors were green, white and saffron; they avoided red because of the connection to the English national colors. However, evidence show that red dyes were locally available in ancient Ireland; hence traditionally Irish people might use this color in their costumes. Today, all colors have come into use. Early descriptions of dancers sometimes note they were barefoot but already by 1924 soft shoes were introduced for girls dancing reels, jigs, and slip jigs. Boys adopted the use of soft shows but already by 1970s they had dropped this practice. Hard shoes have also evolved in style and technology now employing fiberglass toe tips and hollow heels. This change in materials allows dancers "clicks" of their heels to become much louder, thus changing the emphasis and content of many dances. (Irish step dancing costumes 2005) The costumes for the boys and girls differ greatly. The girls wear elaborately embroidered dresses. The boys wear jackets, ties, knee socks, kilts of contrast colors and a sash worn down the back of the jacket. Sometimes a boy-dancer would have Celtic-styled embroidery on the sleeves of his jacket. The difference from the Scottish dancing lies in the fact, that boys wear solid colored kilts and not plaint ones. Green and safron are common colors both for girls and boys costumes. But at the same time the boys dance in a wide variety of brightly colored kilts white and black including. Boys and girls doing the Irish jig wear special blue or white pants sailor suits with caps. The competitors always wear long bell-bottomed pants, never short pants for jig competitions. (Irish step dancing costumes 2005) All costumes are worn with either hard shoes or soft shoes. This depends to a large extent on the dance being performed. Boys always wear kneesocks with the kilt, never ankle socks. Usually the knee socks would match either the jacket or kilt, but in some cases a third color is worn. Irish also wear suspender straps to keep their kilts in place for dancing which do not come with belts. Seldom boys would wear short pants under their kilts, especially if the latter are of the same material as the kilt. There are also pair costumes where 2-4 dancers dancing in pairs wear coordinated costumes. Male and female costumes differ but often the colors match or are coordinated. The girls doing Irish step dancing wear dresses often in bright colors. Many are heavily embroidered in Celtic designs. The embroidery on the costumes is generally based on designs from an ancient Irish book called the Book of Kells. Although many costume makers these days will design their own costume which are protected by copyright so the designs cant be copied. The girls are never allowed to wear kilts for performances.A boys performance jacket may have some embroidery, but nothing like those of the girls. Some schools do not even allow the girls to even wear kilts for practice. Reserving the kilts for boys is done in part because the kilt was the ancient Celtic male garment and in part so the boys arent dressed like the girls. (Irish step dancing costumes 2005) To fit the national costume the girl have to have their hair curled into ringlets which demand a bit of practice to get right. As it is very time consuming to put in all those curlers - and then take them out again the next day many girls prefer to wear a hair piece. Features of Irish folk costume (male and female); early costume, fabric and colour, brat design, Motifs, embroidery and applique, Collars and cuffs, Belt and socks, headgear, shoes, medals, Knee-breeches, Kilts As it was stated above the traditional Irish costume consisted of leine, trousers and cloak. Early manuscripts describe leine as a long shirt-like garment made of linen, not too widely cut, reaching to slightly above the ankles and decorated around the neck, wrists, and lower hem with embroidery. McClintock says it resembles a djelabbeh (Arabic garment). It might have sleeves or be sleeveless. The léine can be drawn up through the belt to knee-level (which causes it to bunch in such a way that carvings of men wearing their léinte this way are sometimes mistaken for wearing a kilt). (McClintock 1950) The léine may sometimes have opened in the front to the waist, but most pictures show a neckline and dont indicate such an opening. The léines neckline can be round, square, or v-shaped. Sometimes a léine is described by the term culpatach, meaning hooded; this could have meant that it had a collar (culpait) large enough to be used as a hood. (McClintock 1950) Both women and men wore the léine, but for women, it was a little longer. The full-length léine is nearly always shown being worn with a brat. The full-length leine was never worn with trews or the inar. The léine can sometimes be shorter than ankle-length; a shorter léine, however, seems to be a mark of lower status, as the wearer probably is involved in physical labor. (Dunleavy 1989) Laborers or peasants are sometimes seen in what a type of clothes that seems to be a short kilt with some embroidery around the lower hem. However, this most likely represents a léine, with the upper part thrown off to allow for coolness and freedom of movement while working. This would indicate that the neck-line of the léine is big enough to allow the wearer to put his whole body through it, so that it hangs around the waist. (Dunleavy 1989) The léine as seen in the Book of Kells has a high neckline. Traditionally this neckline is too narrow for the wearer to throw off the top of the garment for work. Sleeves are narrow and close to the arm. The léine is of bright colors, which probably indicates light-colored linen. Some of the léinte shown in the Book of Kells are of various colors, including light blue or green, which are obtainable with woad, with an under-dye of weld for the green. Linen doesnt take dye as well as wool does, and most colors applied would come out light, rather than the intense, dark colors we are able to achieve with modern chemical dyes; the exceptions are the pigments obtained from indigotin (from woad) and murex purple. (Riley & McGann 2003) The brat was a rectangular woolen cloak worn over the shoulders like a shawl and/or fastened with a brooch on the chest or the right shoulder. The brat seems most commonly to have been rectangular, and rather voluminous, so that it could be folded several times around the wearer, with longer length indicating greater status. (Gantz 1981) some of the pictures show brat with some sort of hood. But the explanation can be that brats are just folded and pinned in such a way that part of the brat could be drawn up over the head as a hood. Several other forms of the brat seem to have been used, though its hard to tell from the pictorial evidence — one form seems to have holes through which one can put ones arms without unfastening the cloak. Some are shown that look like modern capes — a half-circle, with the bottom edge parallel to the ground, with or without a hood. (Dunleavy 1989) The pictures depict large and small mantles. The shorter brats, were supposedly usually worn with trews. Women usually wore the full-length brat. Unlike linen used for leine, wool used for brats takes dye very well. That is why unlike leine brat is often described as being colored. Usually the brat is one color with a fringe or border of another color. These borders or fringes could have been either woven into the brat, as was common with fabric woven on a warp-weighted loom, or made separately, and could include silver and golden threads. It is possible that embellishments included appliqué and tapestry-woven patterns. (McClintock 1950) Bright colors were common, with purple, crimson and green being mentioned most often. Other colors listed are blue, black, yellow, speckled (which, from the Latin, can mean checked or tartan), gray, dun, variegated and striped. (McClintock 1950) The brat is also sometimes described as being fleecy. Some brats from later periods have been found that had a pile woven into the fabric, so that they looked rather like a rug. It is also likely that the nap of the fabric was drawn out with teasels, so that the fabric was very fuzzy; this fiber could then be either left long or sheared short, so that it looked like modern woolen blankets. (Riley & McGann 2003) Irish trews are usually shown on soldiers, who wore them with a short jacket. The trews are usually close-fitting, sometimes shown to end above the knees, sometimes to a few inches below the knee, and sometimes cover the whole leg. They are sometimes marked with vertical lines which may represent decoration or a striped weave in the cloth. (McClintock 1950) Dunleavy describes another form of threws on the Cross of Muiredach (10th c.). There oldiers are shown wearing what appear to be striped trews that are rather short -- they only reach to mid-thigh at most. (Dunleavy 1989) Usually the threws were considered to be the clothes of the poor. That is why the threws would be worn by charioteers, the kings bodyguard, food bearers, door keepers, and scouts. Kings and other notable persons would usually wear the long léine. The Irish word crios usually refers to a belt made of leather or woven. These are probably either tabby weave (as is the criosana still woven in Aran today), or tablet-woven. (Riley & McGann 2003) The crios was usually worn not only to keep the léine in place but to carry object and different utensils. Contrary to popular opinion, going shoeless is not a universal Celtic trait. The Rule of Ailbe of Emly directed that "no matter how ascetic a person became he should never go barefoot." (Dunleavy 1989) Sometimes it is mistakenly considered that a kilt as a piece of clothes exist in ancient Ireland and, hence, was a part of traditional Irish national costume.  This mistaken is explained by some experts by the wrong translation made by OCurry of the texts dated 18th and 19th centuries, In his books, OCurry translated the word "leine" ("leinidh," "lene," etc.) alternately as "shirt" and "kilt." Through his own explanation, when the ancient manuscripts mentioned a garment of fine linen "placed upon his white skin," he translated it "shirt." When the tracts mentioned a border of silk or embroidery descending to the knees, he translated it as "kilt." (Riley & McGann 2005) In the Old Irish, the spellings of both words were often the same. W. K. Sullivan, Ph.D., Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy and writer of the introduction to OCurrys work, says that “OCurry concluded that the leine was a kilt. From such brief descriptions of it as are available, it appears to have been a tight-fitting garment apparently without sleeves, which covered the upper part of the body and extended to the knees." (OCurry 1996) Henry Foster McClintock, in his work "Old Irish and Highland Dress" made this same analysis. He says, "I think it is clear that, so far as the evidence adduced goes, the word [leine] cannot be properly translated as "kilt"." (McClintock 1950) Still already by medieval ages the kilts were worn in Ireland. Some experts suggest considerable similarity between the kilts worn by the Gaelic people of Ireland and Scotland until the 16th century. But the current Irish kilt appears to be a copy of the short kilt fashioned by an Englishman in the 18th century. There are historical drawings of kilted celtic warriors. They appear to have worn mustard color kilts, often described as "saffron". The length is usually described as Lein-croich. Another description of a kilt says that a kilt is "... one of the oldest garments peculiar to the Celts. This was called the Lein-croich, or saffron-colored shirt, which was dyed of a yellow color from that plant. This vestment resembled a very ample belted plaid of saffron-colored linen, being fastened round the middle..." (Irish kilts, 2005) Another description uses the term "mustard-colored" rather than saffron-colored. Henry McClintock in his great book, Old Irish and Highland Dress says that the spice saffron does not dye linen a yellowish brown, but rather a pure yellow color. (McClintock 1950) Therefore, the modern "saffron" kilts worn by Irish pipers have no basis in history. Indeed, the Irish never wore the belted plaid or any garment resembling a kilt. Another word on the use of saffron as a dye.  Saffron is an expensive spice that does not grow in either Scotland or Ireland.  However, a similar color dye can be made from Sticta crocata or Solorinacrocea, lichens common in both lands.  (Irish kilts 2005) In early Ireland, dyeing was considered to be a somewhat magical process, and was strictly a womens craft, there being a taboo on dyeing fabric in the presence of men. There were also rules about which days of the month or week were proper for. (Mahon 1982) Many dyestuffs were also used in folk medicine. Many Highland dye recipes involve steeping the wool for as long as several days or even weeks in order to achieve the proper depth of color and degree of fastness. This is sometimes attributed to the harsher quality of Highland wool. (Mahon 1982) The old English saffron stands for any yellow color, and generally distinguishes the weld, still retained in many parts of England and the very plant the Irish call Buídhe Mór, or Great Yellow. With this they dye their linen and fine woolen stuffs with different degrees of colour and fix the colour with urine. The yellow thus obtained is bright and lasting. (Walker quoted in Brid Mahon,) Other pieces of clothing that traditionally refer to national Irish costume are headgears and knee breeches. Headgear or headdress is the name given to any element of clothing which is worn on ones head. Irish headgears served a variety of purposes. They protected against impact, cold, heat, rain, kept hair contained or tidy. People also wore headgear for decorative purposes. Male Irish dancers in the 19 th century and early 20 th century typically wore a long-tailed coat that would be taken off when dancing and a dress shirt. They wore knee breeches which were replaced by long pants. This was because knee breeches could not be considered Irish national dress for men, as they were reminiscent of the English occupation of Ireland. (Riley & McGann 2003) Pants were replaced with kilts as the official dress condoned by the Gaelic League, as they had been worn by League members themselves. Kilts have now mostly been replaced with the return to pants. Bibliography 1. Barber, E.J.W., Prehistoric Textiles: Princeton University Press, 1992 2. Dunlevy, M. Dress in Ireland, Holmes and Meir Publishers, Inc., New York, 1989. 3. Gantz, J, Early Irish Myths and Sagas., Harmondsworth, Penguine Books, 1981 4. Haurin, D. & Richens, A., Irish Step Dancing A Brief History. Richens Academy of Irish Dancing (Ohio) 2005 http://www.geocities.com/aer_mcr/irdance/irhist.html 6. Mahon, B., Traditional Dyestuffs in Ireland, Glendale Press, Dublin, 1982 7. McClintock, H.F. Old Irish and Highland Dress, 2nd edition Dundalk, Dundalgen Press, Ltd., 1950. 8. OCurry, E., On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish. Dublin, Edmund Burke Publisher, 1996. 9. Riley, M.E., & McGann, K., What the Irish wore. 2003, http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/irish/legendary.html 10. Riley, M.E., & McGann, K., Proof against the Existence of an Irish Kilt, 2005, http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/irish/IrishKilts.html Read More