It’s Tartan Day!

“So this particular tartan has blues and greys in it because my family originates from the Kintyre Peninsula, which is a spit of land that shoots out towards Northern Ireland. The grays and the blues are reflective of the ocean and the land and the foggy part of the world.”

Today, wearing the tartan of another clan is like paying homage to that clan. But that wasn’t always the case.

“Back when clan tartans were first being adopted and taken under the wing of the clan chiefs, you needed permission to wear somebody else’s clan or else there would be a little bit of a brawl.”

And while there is history going back hundreds of years, there are tartans of a more recent nature. For instance, there is the Maple Leaf tartan.

“In Canada, we should all of us be wearing tartan all the time because there is a national tartan called the Maple Leaf and it’s an absolutely gorgeous tartan because it contains all of the colours of the maple leaf during its growing season.”

So whether it’s the Clan McQuilkan for Neil Wilkinson’s family history or the long-standing Clan MacKenzie or the Clan MacGregor, or more recently, the Maple Leaf tartan, a tartan tells a story of many ages.

by Cheryl Jahn

It’s Tartan Day!

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