#irish dress

[irish-dress-history]

Photos of 16th-17th century Irish clothing

Extant garments in the National Museum of Ireland

Notes: The garments in this post are all bog finds which means their current color may not be their original color. Although some of these items were found with human remains, no photos of human remains are included in this post.

Killery Cóta Mór (great coat) and brogues:

photos by hayling billy used under non-commercial, share alike license

The Killery outfit comes from an adult male bog body found in Killerry parish, Co. Sligo in 1824. It includes a cóta mór, triús, a brat, and shoes which are on display in the museum, and a sheepskin biorraid (conical hat) which fell apart shortly after it was found (Briggs and Turner 1986).

Killery triús (trews):

photo by hayling billy

Killery outfit with and without brat:

The outfit is generally dated to the 17th c. (Dunlevy 1989). It matches Luke Gernon's 1620 description of Irish men's winter apparel:

"in winter he weares a frise cote. The trowse is along stocke of frise, close to his thighes, and drawne on almost to his waste, but very scant, and the pryde of it is, to weare it so in suspence, that the beholder may still suspecte it to be falling from his arse. It is cutt with a pouche before, which is drawne together with a string."

Additional photos of the outfit: cóta front, hem, buttons, and brat.

Shinrone gown:

photo by hayling billy

The Shinrone gown was found in a bog in 1843 in Co. Tipperary near Shinrone, Co. Offaly. Unlike the Killery outfit, there were no human remains or other items found with it (Briggs and Turner 1986). The ends of the sleeves and possibly also the bottom of the skirt are missing. The sleeves would have had wrist cuffs or ties that allowed them to be fastened around the wearer's wrists. It probably also had loops or rings along the U-shaped center-front opening for lacing. It is typically dated late 16th-early 17th c, based on its similarity to a circa 1575 illustration by Lucas DeHeere and to the dresses described by Luke Gernon in 1620 (Dunlevy 1989, McGann 2000). It could be older however, because Laurent Vital described dresses with this type of sleeve in 1518.

Copyrighted, better quality photos: left front, right front, back Additional details: side-front, front waistline

Tipperary Cóta Mór:

photos from Dunlevy 1989 and hayling billy

Another Cóta Mór. This one is from Co. Tipperary, exact find spot and date unknown. Like the Shinrone gown, it was not found with human remains or other items (Ó Floinn 1995). It is probably also from the 17th century (Dunlevy 1989).

Additional photos: front, side, front buttons, front detail, side

Brat and hats:

photo by hayling billy

I haven't been able to find any clear photos of the label on this display, but based on the excellent condition and the presence of the leather tie, I think this is the Meenybradden woman's brat.

Closeup of the tie:

The Meenybradden woman is a bog body found in Meenybradden bog, Co. Donegal in 1978. The brat was wrapped around her as a shroud and secured with the leather tie (Delaney and Ó Floinn 1995). No other garments or artifacts were found with her, although she may have been wearing a linen garment such as a léine when she was buried. Linen tends to not survive in bogs. The Meenybradden woman has a calibrated radiocarbon date of AD 1130-1310, but some archaeologist have suggested humic contamination from the peat may be throwing off the dating. Her brat is identical in cut to others from the 16th-17th centuries (Delaney and Ó Floinn 1995).

Meenybradden brat laid flat. (photo from Delaney and Ó Floinn 1995)

Wool hats:

Hats from Boolabaun, Co. Tipperary made of wool felt which has been cut and sewn to form the shape. They have togs of unspun wool worked into them giving them the appearance of faux fur. Dunlevy suggests a 15th-16th c date for them (Dunlevy 1989, McClintock 1943).

Wool cloak:

photo by hayling billy

The museum label says it's from Glenmalin bog, Malinmore, Co. Donegal, but I think this may be a mistake. According to Ó Floinn (1995), the artifact with accession number 1946:416 from Malinmore, Co. Donegal is a bale of linen. Ó Floinn's table also gives accession number 1946:416* for a group of clothing from Owenduff, Co. Mayo which includes a gown, a jacket, and a cloak. If the cloak in the photo is actually the one from Owenduff, it is probably from the 17th c (Dunlevy 1989). Alternatively, someone might have misidentified a wool cloak as a bale of linen. The museum label dates this as late Medieval to post-Medieval.

*Either Ó Floinn made a typo or this is a mistake in the museum records. Museums are not supposed to give the same accession number to 2 different artifacts. In the NMI's defense, 1946 was probably a messy year for everyone.

Bibliography:

Briggs, C. S. and Turner, R. C. (1986). Appendix: a gazetteer of bog burials from Britain and Ireland. In I. Stead, J. B. Bourke and D. Brothwell (eds) Lindow Man: the Body in the Bog (p. 181–95). British Museum Publications Ltd.

Delaney, M. and Ó Floinn, R. (1995). A Bog Body from Meenybradden Bog, County Donegal, Ireland. In R. C. Turner and R. G. Scaife (eds) Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives (p. 123–32). British Museum Press.

Dunlevy, Mairead (1989). Dress in Ireland. B. T. Batsford LTD, London.

Gernon, Luke (1620). A Discourse of Ireland. https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E620001/

McClintock, H. F. (1943). Old Irish and Highland Dress. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk.

McGann, K. (2000). What the Irish Wore/The Shinrone Gown — An Irish Dress from the Elizabethan Age. Reconstructing History. http://web.archive.org/web/20080217032749/http:/www.reconstructinghistory.com/irish/shinrone.html

O’Floinn, R. (1995). Recent research into Irish bog bodies. In R. C. Turner and R. G. Scaife (eds) Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives (p. 137–45). British Museum Press.

Vital, Laurent (1518). Archduke Ferdinand's visit to Kinsale in Ireland, an extract from Le Premier Voyage de Charles-Quint en Espagne, de 1517 à 1518. translated by Dorothy Convery and edited by me. https://irish-dress-history.tumblr.com/post/721163132699131904/laurent-vitals-1518-description-of-ireland

#16th century #17th century #irish dress #dress history #gaelic ireland #historical men's fashion #historical women's fashion #bog finds #irish history #historical dress #brog #bratanna #irish mantle #headwear #triús #cóta mór

[owlmoonboi]

Happy St Patrick’s Day ☘️

#art #fashionista #fashion illustration #fashion design #fashion #fashion icon #fairycore #fashion dress #fashion drawing #fashion is my passion #fashionindustry #fashion inspiration #st patricks day #green #green dress #rainbow #sprout cloverleaf #Irish flower #Irish dress #fairy core #greencore #green fashion #green fairy #nature #naturedress #my art #vintage fashion #fashion inspo #fashionforward #irishflower

[inthepynck]

The Only Roisin Linnanne Collection You Need at Showcase Ireland

Global buyers discover the secret power of Irish crafts at Showcase Ireland, Roisin Linnane Corner as captured by Pynck Fashion.

The Designers Shop Page

For the Latest in Fashion and Lifestyle, please visit Pynck Fashion

#roisin linnane #showcase ireland #irish crafts #irish handmade #handicrafts #trousers #tops #cashmere #irish dress #Youtube

[shit-talker]

Roach definitely has a tiktok where he literally just shitposts but it is super fucking popular for no reason. Because of the really spotty internet he has basically all of the time, he doesn't really interact with any of his fans, but there was once like five months where he didnt post and people started cancelling him for "propaganda".

It had all pretty much calmed down by the time he even realised it was happening, but in response he posted a video of Gaz and Soap, both high on pain meds laying in beds next to each other meowing at each other because they both think the other is a real cat (for some reason). He just slowly pans it to Ghost, who is sitting deadly still, eyes balnkly staring at a wall. He looks tormented. He switches the camera to his own face and pulls the polite-awkward-british-smile and just nods.

It's got clown music playing in the background, and the caption with absolutely no hashtags is just "Honestly thought my account was the definition of 'anti propoganda' but ok (i am in hell (please save me (this is a joke (for legal reasons (god bless the queen)))))

Almost every single comment is ; "It's a king now actually"

He then posts a video of him and the guys all saluting to a picture of Trisha Paytas. No caption at all. No hashtags.

#gary roach sanderson #simon ghost riley #kyle gaz garrick #john soap mactavish #is this totally unrealistic? #yes #do i care? #no #price does definitely keep telling him to stop #and roach definitely keeps posting #they are that one tiktok of that soldier dressed in a womans dress (Gaz) and their sergeant appeared behind him (ghost) #like thats them #is this too political for the king and trisha payras rn? #idk im irish #im like bred to hate the monarchy or some shit #shit talker talks #roach tok

[elven-kisses]

don't make the joke don't make the joke don't make the

#smallishbeans #new life smp #new life joel #the dullahan is an irish folklore guy so i found it was pretty appropriate to dress him up all irishy #joel smallishbeans #kit art

[ask-but-beware-the-consequences]

You might say Nathan is the prettier friend and "I have never seen two pretty best friends"

But Nathan's pov is this. He tossed a green cloth on him.

Without text and cut and mtl reference:

#mtl #metalocalypse #pickles the drummer #mtl fanart #dethklok #metalocalypse fanart #dethklok fanart #nickels #aka just me wanting to draw Pickles in Irish habitat collecting herbs for... you know damn right #fun fact: The background is from our local forest #pickles in his doomstar requiem outfit a bit reimagined #why can I hear Tír na Nóg music? #his robe now looks like a wedding dress im- #Nathan was about to fucking cry

[larobeblanche]

John Lavery (British, Irish – 1856–1941) • Evelyn Farquhar • 1906 • Private collection

#art #painting #fine art #art history #john lavery #irish artist #women in white #la robe blanche #art blog #artwork #oil painting #white dress #portrait #society portrait #female portrait #early 20th century british art

[irishthings]

#ireland #irish #Dressed like an 085 number is destroying me

[marzipanandminutiae]

thinking about the museum guests who get surprised by our photo of an Irish-Canadian immigrant maid on her wedding day, because she’s dressed indistinguishably from a wealthy woman of the same era (to modern eyes, at least)

and the thirtysomething Black femme sapphic couple I talked to at another museum who had never seen extant images of Black women in fashionable Victorian clothing until that week, and were absolutely delighted by them

thinking about how empowering it can be for historically oppressed people to learn that, no, beauty and elegance and artistic expression within this specific cultural framework were not the exclusive purview of wealthy whites until like 1920

(thinking about who it serves to erase those images and that knowledge from the public consciousness)

#dress history #history #art history #historical fashion #my favorite example is the hoop skirt #because guys those were UBIQUITOUS #cheap to make and cheap to buy #Queen Victoria wore them. Irish immigrant servants wore them. factory workers had to be expressly banned from wearing them #for safety reasons but still- that indicates that they WERE following the fashion #there are even accounts of enslaved women wearing them to church and such #and yet nowadays most Americans associate them exclusively with white Southern Belles(TM) #I've even been asked at events (while wearing 1860s) if northern women in general really wore hoops too

[sparrowsfallingfromthesky]

just a fun (🫠) little detail I just latched onto is how this curly design chandelier thing is on a table beside Silver in this scene where he's talking to Max and learns about the Oglethorpe plantation thus planting a seed of an idea of how he might go about saving/betraying Flint (and Madi by extension)

and then there's this similar fixture beside him (but elevated) in this scene where he's talking to Billy and increasingly having doubts

and then there's this (a little less spirally maybe but similar and. pointing at Flint.) when things are really falling apart

and THEN. there's this shirt of Madi's that she wears in the scenes where she has to process what he's done

#hey I haven't had a really obsessive post in a little while #Black Sails #I probably wouldn't have noticed this except I love this shirt because the embroidery reminds me of my first Irish dance solo dress

[tainbocuailnge]

Hello, I hope it's ok I'm sending this ask but you've written some amazing posts and explanations about Cú Alter and Medb and I was wondering if you also did their valentine's scenes? Have a great day and Happy Valentine's Day 💕

i don't think i've ever talked about their valentines gift scenes specifically. they're pretty straightforward displays of their particular styles of responsibility and diligence.

medb takes love very seriously both as a tool of control and as her genuine true heart's desire so her gifts as both rider and saber are extremely high quality to the point where it seems storebought (handmade chocolate is seen as more genuine than storebought) and she calls every chocolate she hands out her true love chocolate (as opposed to obligation chocolate, the gift you only hand out because there's a societal expectation for women to give valentines gifts to all their classmates and colleagues), because she has complexes and both intentionally and unintentionally smudges the lines on how genuine her displays of affection are so that she can maintain plausible deniability on whether she showed vulnerability or not. but while most people would aim for this plausible deniability by making medium effort obligation choco that could mean nothing she instead makes everything a display of true love because love is deeply important to her.

she wants the excitement of confessing her true love, and she wants the control you have over someone who is in love with you, and she wants the safety of people not knowing her true feelings and thus not having that control over her in turn. she's assertive and a bit fussy and when she decides to do something she always makes sure to do it well, and the result is beautiful professional quality handmade chocolate, but in her saber scene when she decides she wants to be the one who is pursued for a change she kinda fumbles it because even though she's assertive and prides herself on "taking whatever she wants" she has a hard time asking for what she really wants (close relationship as equals with someone she loves), because of the complexes.

cu alter meanwhile is clearly uncomfortable with displays of affection both because of medb's specific style of affection-as-control and because he just thinks of himself as a weapon rather than a person and gets really annoyed when guda doesn't share that view. he brusquely dismisses any attempt to treat him like a person but also has a way too strong sense of duty, so even though he doesn't want guda's gift and says he's just gonna throw it out later he still has to arrange a return gift, it's the obvious thing to do. there's a disconnect between what he says and what he does for basically everything he does because he's torturing himself by thinking he doesn't get the luxury of being the same he's always been even though he's still just the same he's always been. he's obviously not actually gonna throw out that chocolate.

mini cu-chan debuted in the prillya event that ran before male valentines scenes got added and i think they made that the gift just because they couldn't really think of something he would give lol. there's various possible explanations for why the description says medb doesn't recognise it, maybe it's the usual event amnesia handwave, maybe she's lying because she thinks she posted cringe in the prillya singularity. i don't think cu alter is lying about it just showing up in his room one day because he tends to lie about his opinions (to himself most of all) but not about facts. i do like that even though he says you can throw it out for all he cares he obviously did not do that himself, because his sense of duty is way too strong and he takes care of his own as the obvious thing to do even if it pisses him off.

its a fun little contrast between the two of them, medb is very verbally affectionate but struggles to actually unambiguously display affection for a myriad complicated reasons while cu alter grumbles and complains but through his actions is always clearly on your side. but they're both very reliable and diligent, if you need medb for something she will absolutely pull through for you and this very sincere diligence of hers is exactly what she's trying to obfuscate with her elaborate ambiguous affection so that it can't be taken advantage of while cu doesn't really care if he's being taken advantage of because he's gonna do it anyway and that's what frustrates her so fucking much about him that she had to make a version of him that will at least loudly complain about it.

#wearingmidnight #king of asks #metapost #hound of the irish #all dressed up and nakey #ugh my medb tag probably hasnt seen anything new in over a year WHERE is the medb fanart on my dash

[irish-dress-history]

Irish dress history sources online:

A list of sources for Irish dress history research that free to access on the internet:

Primary and period sources:

Text Sources:

Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT): a database of historical texts from or about Ireland. Most have both their original text and, where applicable, an English translation. Authors include: Francisco de Cuellar, Luke Gernon, John Dymmok, Thomas Gainsford, Fynes Moryson, Edmund Spenser, Laurent Vital, Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn

Images:

The Edwin Rae Collection: A collection of photographs of Irish carvings dating 1300-1600 taken by art historian Edwin Rae in the mid-20th c. Includes tomb effigies and other figural art.

National Library of Ireland: Has a nice collection of 18th-20th c. Irish art and photographs. Search their catalog or browse their flickr.

Irish Script on Screen: A collection of scans of medieval Irish manuscripts, including The Book of Ballymote.

The Book of Kells: Scans of the whole thing.

The Image of Irelande, with a Discoverie of Woodkarne by John Derricke published 1581. A piece of anti-Irish propaganda that should be used with caution. Illustrations. Complete text.

Secondary sources:

Irish History from Contemporary Sources (1509-1610) by Constantia Maxwell published 1923. Contains a nice collection of primary source quotes, but it sometimes modernizes the 16th c. English in ways that are detrimental to the accuracy, like changing 'cote' to 'coat'. The original text for many of them can be found on CELT, archive.org, or google books.

An Historical Essay on the Dress of the Ancient and Modern Irish By Joseph Cooper Walker published 1788. Makes admirable use of primary sources, but because of Walker's assumption that Irish dress didn't change for the entirety of the Middle Ages, it is significantly flawed in a lot of its conclusions. Mostly only useful now for historiography. I discussed the images in this book here.

Chapter 18: Dress and Personal Adornment from A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland by P. W. Joyce published 1906. Suffers from similar problems to An Historical Essay on the Dress of the Ancient and Modern Irish.

Consumption and Material Culture in Sixteenth-Century Ireland Susan Flavin's 2011 doctoral thesis. A valuable source on the kinds of materials that were available in 16th c Ireland.

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy Volumes 1 and 2 by William Wilde, published 1863. Obviously outdated, and some of Wilde's conclusions are wrong, because archaeologists didn't know how to date things in the 19th century, but his descriptions of the individual artifacts are worthwhile. Frustratingly, this is still the best catalog available to the public for the National Museum of Ireland Archaeology. Idk why the NMI doesn't have an online catalog, a lot museums do nowadays.

Volume I: Articles of stone, earthen, vegetable and animal materials; and of copper and bronze

Volume 2: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Antiquities of Gold in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy

A Horsehair Woven Band from County Antrim, Ireland: Clues to the Past from a Later Bronze Age Masterwork by Elizabeth Wincott Heckett 1998

Jewellery, art and symbolism in Medieval Irish society by Mary Deevy in Art and Symbolism in Medieval Europe- Papers of the 'Medieval Europe Brugge 1997' Conference (page 77 of PDF)

Looking the part: dress and civic status and ethnicity in early-modern Ireland by Brid McGrath 2018

Irish Mantles, English Nationalism: Apparel and National Identity in Early Modern English and Irish Texts by John R Ziegler 2013

Dress and ornament in early medieval Ireland - exploring the evidence by Maureen Doyle 2014

Dress and accessories in the early Irish tale, ‘The Wooing of Becfhola’ by Niamh Whitfield 2006

A tenth century cloth from Bogstown Co. Meath by Elizabeth Wincott Heckett 2004

Tertiary Sources:

Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia edited by Sean Duffy published 2005

Re-Examining the Evidence: A Study of Medieval Irish Women's Dress from 750 to 900 CE by Alexandra McConnell

#resources #dress history #irish dress #irish history #early medieval #bronze age #textile history #late medieval #16th century #historical dress

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

Paddington 2 (2017) - Brendan Gleeson 

Mmm… give me a moment with thoughts of Brendan and Hugh Bonneville's asses. And if the the rumors are true, one of those asses have seen some action.

Hugh. I'm talking about Hugh.

What?

Look up 'Hugh Bonneville pegging' and tell me what you think.

On A Side Note: Hello Robert Stevenson. Want some dick?

[photoset #4 of 4]

#brendan gleeson #paddington 2 #irish actor #handsome daddy #husky daddy #daddy #celebrities #casual dress #hats #bearded daddy #beard mode #movie #screenshots #actor #cilf #hugh bonneville #robert stevenson

[river-of-wine]

Molly actually joined the gang because her parents sold her to them One Direction style

#rdr2 #molly o'shea #I tie my ginger hair into a loose braid. my wealthy Irish mother storms into the room #get dressed I’m selling you to the van der linde gang

[werewolfetone]

Ready to test out the new sims 4 tenant revolt feature!

#https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Steel <- joke explanation #don't ask why he's dressed like a pirate btw i didnt have a lot of options #this doesn't deserve an irish history tag #jory.txt

[larobeblanche]

John Lavery (British-Irish, 1856-1941) • The Lady in White, Viscountess Wimborne • 1939

#art #painting #fine art #portrait #art history #society portrait #portraitist #John lavery #irish artist #painter #20th century british art #la robe blanche blog #art blog #women in white #female portrait #white dress