Irish Dress in the 19th Century
"To come to the matter of dress, it might truly enough be said that the only distinctively national garment which is to be found all over Ireland to-day is the…
From: 1909 C.E. To: 1909 C.E.
Location: Ireland
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Home Life in Ireland by Robert Lynd, 1909.
To come to the matter of dress, it might truly enough be said that the only distinctively national garment which is to be found all over Ireland to-day is the shawl worn by the women. In some parts of the country, the wives of the farmers as well as the laborers wear the shawl; though many of them, of course, wear hats and bonnets in addition on Sunday.
Black or grey is perhaps the prevailing color, but in different parts of the country different colours are the vogue, and even the fashion in which the shawl is arranged varies from place to place. In one district you will find fawn-coloured or brown shawls almost the only wear, and these have often broad borders with designs in other colors woven into them. Elsewhere the women frequently wear two shawls; one over the shoulders and the other over the head.
In the manufacturing towns, they draw the shawl tight and nunnishly across the brows and pin it beneath the chin, and on a wet evening the lamp-lit streets are filled with hurrying Madonna-like women of a strange, hidden beauty. Again you find the shawl worn like a wild hood that has half-fallen from the head, while one end is flung loosely round the shoulder. Check handkerchiefs are often worn over the head, and in some parts the old women wear dainty frilled caps.
The national dress of the men is said to be the kilt, but this is only worn as yet by a number of enthusiastic pioneers. The Irish kilt is not made of tartan, but is saffron-coloured, though tartan, I believe, is a thing of Irish origin. The ordinary costume for men is sufficiently unremarkable in cut; elderly men seem to have a preference for a kind of morning coat.
The material of which the clothes are made, on the other hand, is of distinctive interest, and a bog-coloured coat of dyed home-spun has an appropriate beauty of its own. In Connemara the men wear a baínín (a jacket of white flannel) which helps to give an air of local wonderfulness to the roads and the fields. The women too, with their petticoats of beautiful shades of red remind us of a time when the Irish were noted for their love of colours, though the red petticoat of the town is sometimes eye-scaring enough.
The red petticoat of rural Ireland, I may say, is of a totally different colour from that worn in pseudo-Irish plays on the British stage. It is not an offensive scarlet; its colour is nearer that of a red carnation. It is not, of course, the custom to wear green garments along with it,
I have already spoken of the beauty of the heavy dyed garments of the women of Achill, some of bright blue, some of bright red, some of bright green. It is customary to use an incredible number of yards of stuff in these skirts, so that the figure has something of a clumsy look. I heard from one girl how an Achill woman had reproved her for immodesty, because she wore a skirt of the ordinary shape and measure.
The pampooties, or cow-skin sandals, worn by the people of the Aran Islands are the most distinctive foot-dress to be found in Ireland. In some parts of the country you will also occasionally see an old woman going the roads in martins; a kind of soleless socks which would do little, one imagines, to keep the feet either warm or dry on uncomfortable days. Nearly all the grown-up people wear boots, however, and it is only the children as a rule who run about with their feet as bare as their heads.
There is scarcely any need to refer to the dress of the professional classes in the towns. It is of the cosmopolitan sort, and the only noticeable thing in this regard to it is the comparative infrequency of the tall hat.
Robert Lynd, Home Life in Ireland (London: Mills, & Boon, 1909), 208-210.
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