Great Kilt, Little kilt Historical information wanted

[Steve Ashton]

Peter,

There is a lot of confusion over the difference between Feileadh Beag and Feileadh Mor.

It is not unusual to hear the names as if they were interchangeable names for the same garment.

Perhaps it would be helpful for you to define the two or describe the difference.

[figheadair]

Peter,

There is a lot of confusion over the difference between Feileadh Beag and Feileadh Mor.

It is not unusual to hear the names as if they were interchangeable names for the same garment.

Perhaps it would be helpful for you to define the two or describe the difference.

Steve, a good point. The two terms, as you rightly say, often used interchangeably.

I tend to follow Bob Martin’s definition in referring to the separate lower half of the plaid that was worn loosely pleat, possible with a draw-string and no sewn in pleats as a feileadh beag. Anything that has sewn in pleats, irrespective of the style Bob called a kilt.

A few early kilts survive but no example of a feileadh beag, nor a complete 18th century feileadh mor does. Given the Proscription restrictions and the fact that both styles were essentially a length of cloth, it is easy to understand how the material could have been recycled and so not survived in an identifiable form.

We are not helped in our understanding by the historical use of kilt to describe what is assumed to have been a feileadh beag. The Act of Proscription forbade the wearing of, amongst other things, ‘….the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt…’. Nowhere does it refer to the plaid as the belted plaid or feileadh mor, and certainly not the great kilt as some re-enactors call it.