This is a GREAT set of posts and a real education. Thank you, gentlemen.

I can only contribute this link from someone who actually DID some dyeing with a plant generally available to the Irish and Scottish weavers in the 1400's - 1600's and 1700's....namely, broom.

http://www.reconstructinghistory.com...affrondye.html

Notice that she says that the mordanted wool becomes a "dark yellow" when dyed with extract of the broom plant.

Also, this: http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/irish/saffron.html

From which I draw your attention to this text at the bottom:

"The colour of modern Irish pipe regiments who sport "saffron kilts" is not the colour that saffron produces. "

By 1900 saffron would have been much more generally available than it would have been three hundred years earlier, but still blisteringly expensive. the proprietor of Saint Edna's school surely could not afford the amount of saffron needed to dye all his schoolboys kilts "saffron". In other words, the irish "saffron" kilt as developed by Pease and others is dyed with something almost certainly, totally unrelated to saffron, and the word is only a term of convenience. It was probably used as a link to Irish History, in which the leinte was worn a bright yellow, and described as "saffron".

None of this has anything to do with the political history of the saffron kilt, but I thought you might find it of interest.

Also, a general reference: http://www.yorkcitylevy.com/modules....article&sid=39