Timeline of Key Gaelic Historical Events

The purposes of this timeline are threefold:

to provide a rough outline of Gaelic history as it relates to the rest of the world, and internally as it relates to movement of people between Scotland and Ireland (but without wallowing into tedious lists of kings, etc.);
to provide genealogists with key event dates that may relate to the movements of their ancestors, and to identify known migration patterns;
to provide a few dates that relate especially to Highland dress, tartan, Scottish regiments, folk heroes, etc., and a few historical Cuindlis personages, ancient to modern (highlighted in boldface).

It does not do all of these things well yet, as a lot of information is missing on numbers of Scots, Irish, and Scots-Irish immigrants to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies; among other deficiencies, like lack of coverage of religious history (Covenanters, the Killing Time, etc.). Some things are too subtle for a timeline, e.g. analysis of the disportionate number of Scottish male deaths in the World Wars, etc.

If you have a timeline item to add, please get in touch via the Forums, or use the Contact form.

Ca. 850,000 BC: Hominins (early humans) first arrived in what are now the British Isles (then part of the European mainland), though they left and returned at least seven times in response to climatic changes.
Ca. 40,000 BC: Beginning of intermittent visitation of Britain by migrant, Early Stone Age (Paleolithic), anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens). The first evidence for Scotland dates back to about 12,000 BC, but repeat glaciation may have wiped out earlier archaeolgical remanants (the last ice sheet retreated about 13,000 BC).
Ca. 31,000 BC: Beginning of intermittent visitation of Ireland by modern humans.
Ca. 10,500 BC: Possible establishment of continuous human (Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age) habitation of Ireland.
Ca. 10,000–8000 BC: Establishment of continuous human habitation of Britain (earliest evidence in Scotland so far is around 8.500 BC).
Ca. 7,000 BC: Establishment of permanent human habitation in Ireland certain by this period.
Ca. 3500–1800 BC: Peoples of the continental Bronze Age (including the Bell Beaker culture) genetically closely related to modern Britons arrived in Britain (and, perhaps a bit later, Ireland) from Central Europe (this was still the Neolithic or Late Stone Age in Britain).
Ca. 2100–1000 BC: The oldest tartan-patterned twill cloth ever discovered is dated to this period. It was found with the grave goods of the Tarim or Ürümqi Mummies (including the “Cherchen Man”), Caucasoid (light-haired, round-eyed) people buried in the Tarim Basin, in what is now western China, southeast of Kazakhstan, in excavations throughout the 20th century. The material, woven with up to 6 colours and requiring a sophisticated loom, is remarkably similar to that found later in Hallstatt, Austria, and has been taken to suggest that tartan may have been a common tradition throughout western Eurasia going back to prehistory, though this is by no means proven yet.
Ca. 1200-600 BC: The Hallstatt culture of Western and Central Europe, generally considered Proto-Celtic, spanning the continental late Bronze Age and early Iron Age.
Ca. 1200-300 BC: The earliest preserved tartan-type cloth in Europe, a plaid-pattered, two-colour twill, dates to this period, and was discovered in 2004 in the Hallstatt salt mines archaeological site near Salzburg, Austria.
Ca. 1000–500 BC: Celtic-speaking peoples settled the British Isles, in multiple waves from what today are Spain, Portugal, and France, in the late Bronze to middle Iron Age (though by some estimates it could have been as early as 3000 BC, deep in the Bronze Age).
Ca. 800 BC: Comparatively late beginning of the Iron Age in Britain.
Ca. 500 BC: Even later beginning of the Iron Age in Ireland.
Ca. 500 BC: Earliest surviving example of twill-weave (i.e. tartan-style) cloth from Scotland dates to around this time. It was found in the Oakbank crannog (ancient lake village) on Loch Tay, excavated in 1982. Waterlogged, the sample did not retain any vegetable-dye colours, so it is unknown if it was originally multi-coloured tartan.
Ca. 500–100 BC: The La Tène culture, an outgrowth of the Hallstatt, flourished in Iron Age Western and Central Europe, influencing distinctive Celtic art and society as far away as Scotland and to a lesser extent Ireland.
Ca. 60–30 BC: Greek-Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca Historica described continental Celts (Gauls) as wearing clothing “astronishing: … brightly coloured … checkered/striped in design, with separate checks/stripes close together and in various colours”, and seems to be describing tartan or something very similar to it, though Latin lacked separate words for ‘striped’ and ‘checked’. He says that the Gauls wore shirts, trousers, and cloaks.
Late Antiquity – 6th century AD: Ireland was dominated more or less entirely by Gaels, speakers of Goidelic Celtic language (albeit of mixed genetic backgrounds). While at constant war between many fractious minor kingdoms and regional dynasties (sometimes called clans, or by the Irish Gaelic term finte, singular fine), they had a shared culture, mutually intelligible language, etc.
Late Antiquity – 9th century AD: The native Picts or Priteni, after whom Britain is named, ruled most of what is now Scotland, holding off against invasions by Romans, Irish, Anglo-Saxons, more southerly Britons (speakers of Brythonic or Brittonic Celtic languages), and Vikings. Written Pictish does not survive, and the nature of the language remains uncertain, though it is generally accepted as Brythonic. The Picts also held a foothold in north-eastern Ireland, a population called the Cruthin or Cruithne in a realm named Dál nAraidi (later subsumed by the Gaelic overkingdom of Ulaid).
Ca. 2nd–1st centuries BC: Tribes of Belgae (who may have been ultimately of Germanic origin, though Celtic-speaking by this period) invaded southern Britain from Gaul, in modern-day France, and acted as allies of the continental Gauls against the Roman Empire; this attracted Rome’s negative attention toward Britain.
1st century BC: Roman pressure on the contintent drove more Gauls into Britain, in turn causing iron-wielding Britons to move northward into what is now Scotland, largely as a conquering aristocracy among a population still dominated by Bronze Age lifeways (but arguably still broadly Celtic).
55–54 BC: Two failed attempts by Julius Caesar to invade southeast Britain. This effectively marked the end of British prehistory or antiquity and of the Iron Age in Britain, and the beginning of the Classical or Romano-British period.
43 AD: Roman conquest and beginning of occupation of most of Britain (Provincia Britannia).
1st century: Roman writers repeatedly referred to the Gauls as wearing striped or chequered clothing. Latin lacked clearly separate words for the two concepts, and it is unknown whether this referred to tartan or to simply linear-striped cloth.
122–128: Construction of Hadrian’s Wall in what is now Northern England, to defend Roman Britain from incursions by the Picts; it was followed in 142–154 by the Antonine Wall across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland. Folklore sometimes has it that the plated-leather skirts of some types of Roman armour (e.g. the lorica segmentata and lorica squamata) worn by soldiers at these fortifications inspired Pictish (and perhaps southern Briton) immitation in the form of cloth kilts, but in reality there is no sure evidence of kilt-wearing in Scotland until the late 16th century. Before kilts (and after, for that matter) it was common for Scottish men to wear trews (woolen trousers). The “Roman kilt” idea is not so daft as it may seem when one considers that it is commonly believed (though not entirely proven) that the bagpipe, originally of Middle Eastern origin, was disseminated throughout Europe by the Roman army.
3rd century: The earliest preserved example of tartan cloth in Britain dates to this period. The “Falkirk tartan”, a simple chequered pattern of natural dark and light wool (closer in make to tweed than modern tartan), was discovered 1933 in Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland (an area that was part of Roman Britain, south of the Antonine Wall, when the cloth was new, and it was found with Roman coins; this demonstrates that tartan was not confined then to Pictland).
217: The surviving fragment of a statue of Roman Emperor Caracalla, once part of the triumphal arch of Volubilis, depicts a Pictish/Caledonian prisoner wearing tartan trews (carved then inlaid with bronze and silver alloys to give a variegated appearance).
4th century or earlier: The Irish (called Scoti or Scotti in Latin) raided and sometimes settled on the west coast of Roman Britain.
Ca. 400: Beginning of the Early Medieval historical record in Ireland (i.e., the end of Irish prehistory and of the Irish Iron Age).
Ca. 5th century: Approximate date of tartan cloth found in Norway, and held today at the Museum of Stravenger.
410: End of Roman occupation of Britain.
432: St. Patrick (a Welsh former slave of Irish raiders) returned as a missionary to Ireland and played a key role in the spread of Christianity there.
446: The Anglo-Saxon invasion of what is now England began. The Arthurian legendary cycle is set during this time period, which marked the end of the Classical / Romano-British era of British history and the start of the Early Medieval era, also known as post-Roman Britain.
5th–8th centuries: Dál Riada or Dál Riata, a Gaelic kingdom of Scoti rooted in the north-east of Ireland (specifically in the Glens of Antrim north of Lough Neagh, in what was then Ulaid), spanned the North Channel of the Irish Sea and claimed substantial parts of what today is western Scotland from the Picts, beginning a long process of Gaelicization. The kingdom was not always Gaelic-controlled, however, especially after 637; it came to be controlled by Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (r. 729–761); the later Pictish king Caustantín mac Fergusa also placed his son Domnall on the throne of Dál Riada (r. 811–835).
563: St. Columba (originally an Irish prince of the Cenél Conaill, a branch of the Northern Uí Néill of Ulster) founded a monastery on the island of Iona (Inner Hebrides, Scotland), granted to him by King Áedán mac Gabráin of Dál Riada. Iona became a center of learning and a base for Christian missions in Scotland and beyond.
575: St. Columba negotiated an alliance between the Northern Uí Néill and Dál Riada at Druim Ceit near present Derry/Londonderry. A result of this pact was the freeing of Dál Riada from the overlordship of Ulaid, allowing Dál Riada to focus on acquiring territory from the Picts.
577: The Britons lost key cities to the Anglo-Saxons after the Battle of Deorham.
6th–10th centuries: Uí Néill dynasty ruled north-west and parts of east-central Ireland, and supplied an outsized number of Ireland’s (sometimes disputed) high kings. Ulster’s distinctiveness from the rest of Ireland began this early.
Ca. 600: By this time, Anglo-Saxons controlled most of what today is lowland England.
7th century: Anglo-Saxon speakers of the Northumbrian dialect of Old English settled in what is now south-eastern Scotland. Their language (with Gaelic, Danish, and later Norman French influences) eventually developed into Scots in later centuries.
637: Battle of Moira (Magh Rath) and Battle of the Mull of Kintyre: High King Domnall II of Ireland (originally from the Cenél Conaill kindred of the Northern Uí Néill), successfully defended against his foster-son King Congal Cáech of Ulaid (originally of the Dál nAraidi kindred) who was supported by King Domnall Brecc of Dál Riada. Direct consequences included that the Northern Uí Néill dynasty dominated the north of Ireland (for nearly 1000 years, until the Flight of the Earls); and Dál Riada for a time lost possession of Scottish lands back to the Picts.
684: Synod of Whitby, though initially confined in jurisdiction to Northumbria, signalled the end of Ionan or Columban or “Celtic” Christianity as distinct from Roman Catholicism, with the adoption and spread of Roman Catholic calendar calculation, tonsures, etc. (However, an argument is also made that most of these changes had already been adopted throughout Ireland and southern Britain, so northern Britain’s Ionan separatism was already probably doomed.)
706–24, 728–32: Nechtan (or Naiton) mac Derilei of Dál Riata was also King of the Picts, starting a long series of intermingling between the two populations.
713–24: Cuindles (or Cuindless, Coinndles) of Connacht was the 17th Abbot of Clonmacnoise in Uí Failghe (now Offaly, Leinster, Ireland).
724 gravestone of the abbot, reading
“Or[oit] ar Chuindless“, ‘Pray
for Cuindless’, in Old Irish letters
732–61: Oengus I or Óengus mac Fergus (in Pictish something like Onuist map Vurguist), King of the Picts, took over also Gaelic Dál Riata. This was one of many times the control of these lands switch hands, between lineages that were already closely intermarried.
Ca. 793–1066 (or 1169, depending on reckoning): The Viking Age, during which Norse raiders and eventually settlers played a formative role in various regions of Ireland and Scotland (and England, and France). Viking influence was particularly strong in what today are eastern Ireland and west coastal Scotland, including Galloway in particular (the name of which means ‘Norse-Gaelic’), the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man. Viking raids and invasions had a strong impact on Gaelic kingdoms, leading to the rise of regional power centers and political instability.
838–49: Permanent Viking settlement of Dublin (later the Kingdom of Dublin). Also the beginning of a wave of Norse–Gaelic assimilation and intermarriage; the Vikings were somewhat integrating into Gaelic society in some areas. The Ivar dynasty (Gaelic: Uí Ímair) established in Dublin soon came to control the islands from the Hebrides to Mann (the Kingdom of the Isles), the west coast of Scotland, and even York in England for a while. It also supplied two or more “queens of Ireland” (actually queens of multiple parts of Ireland) and possibly a queen of Norway.
839: Vikings invade what is now northern Scotland and exact quite a death-toll, including among the leading Gaelic and Pictish families, leading to a short period of instability in the region until Kenneth MacAlpin.
Ca. 843–1286: The Kingdom of Alba (a merger of Dalriadic and Pictish lands and crowns) covered what is now most of Scotland; Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín), r. 843–858, is often regarded today as first king of a unified Scotland (though it was not yet called that, and sometimes this honour is accorded to Constantine II, r. 900–943, and some southern parts of the modern country were still part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde until the 10th or 11th century). Kenneth was certainly at least king of a united and increasingly Gaelicized Pictland (formerly often divided into separate kingdoms like Fortiu and Cait), as were his successors Donald I (Domhnall), Constantine I, and Áed – the House of Alpin.
865: The Great Heathen Army, a coalition of Scandinavian forces, sought to not raid but take over much of England (then divided into four kingdoms), in a 14-year campaign culminating in the Battle of Edington with the English nominally victorious.
886: The Anglo-Saxons united under a single king, Alfred the Great, who negotiated a treaty with the Vikings in England, forming the Danelaw in 886, which lasted roughly two centuries before full English assimilation.
900–943: Reign of Constantine II of Alba (Causantín mac Áeda), sometimes considered the first king of united Gaelic and Pictish Alba, rather than the earlier Kenneth MacAlpin. Regardless, his reign played a major part in the Gaelicization of Pictish lands (primarily through church reform). The terms Scots and Scotland were also first applied to what is now all of northern Scotland during this era (instead of referring only to the Gaelic people of Dál Riada in the west), though these terms would later become more associated with the Lowland speakers of the Scots language after it developed from Northumbrian Old English.
911: Rollo, a Viking, became Count of Rouen and founded the realm (later duchy) of Normandy (‘Northmen-land’) in what today is northern France, as a result of a peace treaty with King Charles III of West Francia. “Norman” as a unique socio-political identity was largely forged by Richard I of Normandy in the 960s. The Normans would later have an enormous impact on England, Scotland, and Ireland starting in 1066.
Ca. 943–954: Máel Coluim (Malcolm) I of Alba is believed to have annexed the Brittonic kingdom Strathclyde at least as a client state; it was not fully absorbed until the 1070s.
Ca. 950s–960: Scotland annexed Edinburgh and the surrouding Midlothian area from Northumbria (who in turn had taken it in 638 from a Brittonic kingdom, Gododdin, who were earlier the tribe Votadini). Edinburgh became the principal royal burgh of Scotland early in the 12th century, and has remained under Scottish control except for brief periods (1291–1314, 1333–1341) during wars with the English.
980: The Battle of Tara, in which the Irish Gaels under High King Máel Sechnaill II retook the Kingdom of Dublin for a time from the Vikings.
999: The Battle of Glenmama, in which a Gaelic alliance of the forces of Máel Sechnaill II and Brían Boru again defeated the Dublin Vikings who this time had aid from the fractious Gaelic forces of Leinster.
Ca. 1000: Thurgot or Turgot, Prior of Dunham and Bishop of St. Andrews (the most powerful abbey in Scotland at the time) wrote of the “multi-coloured clothes” of the Gaels, and seems to have been referring to tartan.
1002: Æthelred II of England razed much of the Danelaw in the St. Brice’s Day massacre, in retaliation for Denmark’s continued raiding of English territory.
1002–13: King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark repeatedly raided and invaded England to avenge the St. Brice’s Day massacre, and in 1013 wrested the kingship of England from Æthelred II, albeit only for five weeks.
1014: The Battle of Clontarf, in which Irish High King Brían Boru defeated a Norse–Gaelic alliance, though at the cost of his own life and the lives of his male heirs. This Gaelic victory is generally seen as freeing Ireland from Viking rule. Picts from the Mar clan or tribe participated on the winning side, and foreshadowed a later long tradition of Scottish mercenary work in and migration to Ireland.
1014 Battle of Clontarf depicted
by Eoghan Ó Neachtain in 1905
1016–42: England was ruled by Nordic kings (Cnut or Canute, Harold I, then Harthacnut/Hardicanute) as part of a broader North Sea Empire.
Ca. 1016–1018: Battle of Carham, an alliance of Alba and the Cumbric kindom of Strathclyde, against Uhtred the Bold, the earl or minor king of Bamburgh, with the Scots and Cumbrians victorious. It is traditionally seen as when Scotland permanently annexed the Lothians and the Borders counties, though there has been some dispute about it among historians since the 19th century. (Aside: Contrary to a popular TV show’s fiction, Uhtred was not a Danish mercenary for the English, but from an Anglo-Saxon family who controlled Bamburgh from the beginning of the 10th century.)
1042: Nominally Anglo-Saxon rule of England was restored, under Edward the Confessor (whose mother was Norman, and who was a half-brother of Harthacnut).
1066: The Norman Conquest of England, under William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and later William I of England. Greatly changed England and even its language. Led to the eventual expansion of Norman (Franco-Nordic) influence into Scotland and Ireland.
1070s: Roughly the modern extent of Scotland was completed with the final absorption of the former Cumbrian kingdom, Strathclyde, which was then granted by Alexander I of Scotland to his brother, who was to become David I.
Late 11th century: King Malcolm III of Scotland organized a race (to select a royal messenger) that is sometimes seen as ancestral to the modern Highland games events.
Ca. 1100: The Pictish language, long in decline, finally went extinct, replaced by Gaelic in the north and early Middle English (not yet Scots) in the Lowlands.
Early 12th century: Norman French supplanted Gaelic as the high-register, courtly language of Scotland for some while, and had a loanword influence on both Scottish Gaelic and the early English that would become the Scots language. Scottish de names (e.g. de Brus), among others such as Menzies and Fraser, are of Norman origin.
1124–53: The Davidian Revolution, in which the reign of David I of Scotland introduced Normanization of government, imposition of feudalism over traditional clan organization (in the Lowlands) through land grants to Norman and Anglo-Norman knights, the foundation of monasteries and burghs (organized towns, starting with Roxburgh and Berwick, then Stirling, Dunfermline and Edinburgh among others), and other societal changes.
1165–1214: Reign of William I “the Lion” in Scotland; marked by English immigration to the burghs and an influx of early Middle English language into the Scottish Lowlands, which eventually merged with extant English dialects there into the Scots language, which would come to supplant Gaelic in this area by the 14th century.
1169–77: The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland (beginning with the landing of Norman knights in Wexford), under Henry II of England and his military commander Richard “Strongblow” de Clare, leading to a period of English influence and colonization in Ireland, including the establishment of Norman feudalism; the gradual erosion of Gaelic, clan-based power; and the beginning of anglicization of Gaelic names. The invasion established the Lordship of Ireland, which at its late 13th to early 14th century peak encompassed about 2/3 of Ireland. Fitz- and de names in Ireland (FitzHugh, de Burgh) are of Norman origin. Ireland was essentially divided into Anglo-Norman and Gaelic areas, though with the fomer generally as overlords of Gaelic chieftains and minor kings.
13th century: Scottish gallowglass mercenaries (gallóglaigh ‘foreign warriors’) began a centuries-long practice of moving to Ireland, primarily from the Western Isles and Scotland’s west coast (especially Argyll). They settled on land grants and became permanent members of the Norse-Gaelic clans of Ireland, but often kept their names. The first group arrived in 1258–1259, and there were at least 59 such contingents by 1512. In 1569, a single group of incoming gallowglass consisted of at least 1,200 men, perhaps as many as 5,000 within a few years. Any given conflict might see gallowglass units raised (usually as heavy infantry) from both Northern Ireland and the Scottish Islands and Highlands. Use of gallowglass forces declined after the 1601 Irish loss of the Battle of Kinsale, but continued into the 1640s. Gallowglass also served in continental armies, sometimes in quite large proportions (e.g., see Gustavus Adolphus in 1631, below).
1215: The Magna Carta was signed in England, laying the foundations for the concept of constitutional law, influencing later Scottish and Irish political development.
1237: The original Treaty of York, between Alexander II of Scotland and Henry III of England, established a new border between the two countries – a clearly defined one for the first time – which has remained almost unchanged to the present. (It also reduced the size of the original English counties of Cumberland and Northumberland, by ceding some of their territory to Scotland.) It was the end of the southward expansion of the Kingdom of Scotland (other than the unrelated acquision, for a time, of the Isle of Man from Norway in 1266). Not to be confused with the second Treaty of York in 1464.
1263: Battle of Largs, between the forces of Alexander III of Scotland and Haakon (or Håkon) IV of Norway (who hoped to retake the west coast and islands that had been the Norse-controlled Kingdom of the Isles). The Scottish victory effectively ended the Norse invasions of Scotland, though this was not formalized until 1266.
1266: Treaty of Perth, between Alexander III and Magnus VI of Norway, in which Norway ceded the Hebrides and the Isle of Man to Scotland, and Scotland ceded Shetland and Orkney to Norway.
1286: The death of Alexander III plunged Scotland into a lengthy succession dispute, and provided Edward I of England an excuse for meddling and an eventual invasion.
1292: John Balliol, a Normano-Scottish noble, was elected (over 12 other claimants) by nobles as King of Scots, after an interregnum. He was basically a coerced and undermined puppet of Edward I of England, and was forced to abdicate in 1296. Scotland was left without a king until 1306.
1295: The Auld Alliance was formed, a mutual aid treaty between Scotland (under John Balliol) and France (under Philippe IV), especially against the English.
1296: Edward I of England invaded Scotland and forced the Scottish nobility to swear allegiance to him, marking the beginning of English domination of Scotland (and Scottish resistance to it).
1296–1328: First War of Scottish Independence; Scotland defended (eventually successfully) against English invasion.
1297: Rebellion against England under William Wallace (“Braveheart”, though he was not called this in historic sources) and Andrew Moray. Culminated in the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
14th century: Some Spanish paintings depicted cotehardies (medieval long and long-sleeved tunics) of tartan cloth, which might have been locally made or Scottish imports.
14th century: Scots clearly emerged as a distinct language in the eastern Lowlands, having developed and diverged (e.g. with Gaelic loanwords) from early Middle English, and with its roots in Northumbrian Old English and the later Anglo-Danish of the Danelaw in Yorkshire.
1306: Robert the Bruce became King of Scotland. He was actually Normano-Scottish; the name was originally de Brus.
1314: Battle of Bannockburn: Bruce’s Scottish forces defeated those of England’s Edward II. This was effectively the end of the First War of Scottish Independence (the formal end came in 1328).
1315–17: Widespread famine in Europe, including Ireland and Britain.
1315-18: Scottish invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce (brother of Robert) allied with some of the native Irish (Gaelic) lords against Anglo-Norman occupation; these supporters declared Edward the new High King of Ireland. The war was not ultimately successful (Bruce’s forces were defeated at the Battle of Faughart), in part due to the ongoing famine which made supplying an army difficult; but it wreaked much havoc for the English. It also involved the movement of some 6,000 to 10,000 Scots into Ireland, mostly Ulster.
Ca. 1310s–20s: O’Neills of Tyrone brought many Scottish gallowglass mercenaries to Ulster to fight the English, during reign of Robert the Bruce. Many remained there.
1320: On April 6, the Declaration of Abroath was written by Robert I and Scottish barons, addressed to Pope John XXII. It defended Scottish action in the First War of Scottish Independence, asserted the antiquity of the Kingdom of Scotland, and denounced English invasion attempts. The document is widely believed to have inspired the American Declaration of Independence. April 6 is now the date of Tartan Day in the US and Canada.
1326: The Auld Alliance between Scotland and France was renewed.
1328: Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton formally ended the First War of Scottish Independence, largely in Scotland’s favour, with England recognizing the country’s independent sovereignty.
1332–57: Second War of Scottish Independence; Scotland again slowly repelled an attempted English invasion (successful in part because of the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France, plus England becoming embroiled in the Hundred Years’ War with France from 1337). Conflict more or less ended with the Treaty of Berwick. Scotland was destitued by the war (which included civil war between the forces of David II and the pretender Edward Balliol, son of John), but remained independent until the Treaty of Union in 1707.
1333: The Anglo-Norman English lost control of Ireland west of the River Shannon.
1337–1453: The Hundred Years’ War between the English and French dynasties drew English military away from Gaelic areas.
1342: Death of Domnall Ó Cuindlis, a chronicler in Uí Mháine (present-day Galway and Roscommon, Ireland).

[Image:Stylized scribe with book, bordered by Celtic knotwork, from ancient Irish manuscript]

A medieval Irish scribe as depicted
by medieval Irish scribes, from
8th-century Book of Mulling

1346–53: The Black Death (bubonic plague), which reached Ireland in 1348 and Scotland in 1349, causing widespread death and social disruption. The effect in Ireland was so calamitous that English control there shrank back to the Pale, the fortified area surrounding Dublin, with surviving Gaels reasserting control over the rest of the island. In Scotland, at least a third of the population died. Plague returned many times over the next century.
Ca. 1350–1500: The Gaelic Resurgence or Gaelic Revival in Ireland. Hiberno-Norman landholders outside the Pale were (when they survived) assimilalted to Gaelic language and life to such an extent they were later described as “more Irish than the Irish themselves”. (This period is not to be confused with the 19th-century Gaelic Revival movement.)
1355: A comparatively early mention of tartan is recorded, in the ledger of John Lord of the Isles, who expensed “one pair of tartan trews”.
1366: The Statutes of Kilkenny were enacted in Ireland, aiming to prevent cultural assimilation between the Anglo-Norman settlers and the native Irish. It attempted to forbid Gaelic and Anglo-Norman intermarriage, suppress the use of the Irish Gaelic language, and ban traditional Irish modes of dress. It was never successfully enforced, even within the Pale. At this period, Ireland was effectively divided into three areas: The Pale (an English-controlled region centered on Dublin); Leinster and Munster, ruled by loyal Anglo-Irish; and Connacht and Ulster, ruled by Gaelic chiefs with only token obedience to England.
1371: The first of the Stuart dynasty (AKA House of Stewart), Robert II, came to the Scottish throne. A grandson of Robert the Bruce, he earlier was the 7th hereditary High Steward of Scotland (thus the name) and a guardian of Bruce’s son, David II, who had become king while still a child.
1380: Chaucer mentions bagpipes in The Canterbury Tales; this is the first unambiguous written reference to bagpipes in Britain, though they possibly dated throughout the island to the Roman era.
1395: First recorded instance of a formal clan system in Scotland, with the establishment of the MacGregor clan. However, Gaelic society on both sides of the Irish Sea is believed to have been at least loosely clan-based going back to the early medieval period.
1398–1411: Murchadh Riabhach Ó Cuindlis was a scribe in Uí Mháine, working on Irish manuscripts that survive to the present day, including the Book of Lecan and An Leabhar Breac.
Ca. late 14th – early 16th centuries: Scots gradually became the higher-register (courtly, literary, and governmental) language of most of Scotland, with Gaelic suriving mostly in the Highlands and Islands.
Ca. 1400: First certain attestation (in period artwork) of the bagpipe in Scotland.
1444–63: Cornelius Ó Cuinnlis was Catholic bishop of Emly then Clonfert, in east Co. Galway, Ireland.
1455–85: The Wars of the Roses in England (also affected Scotland and parts of Ireland through troop conscription, political instability, etc.).
1464: The second Treaty of York, between James III of Scotland and Edward IV of England in 1480. This was followed by a 1474 treaty, centred on marriages that would buy a truce until 1519, but that fell apart, and the 1464 treaty was broken by Edward IV with an military build-up and invasion in support of Scottish pretender in 1480–82.
1471: John, Bishop of Glasgow, and treasurer of King James III of Scotland, recorded ordering tartan cloth to be used in attire for the king and queen, demonstrating that at least this early, tartan was in use by the gentry not just by “wild” Highlanders. (It is also notable that he wrote in the Scots dialect, not in courtly Latin, which could suggest a more general positive change in attitude toward native traditions.)
1480–1482: Edward IV of England built up military forces at the Scottish border, then in June 1482 launched a land and naval invasion of Scotland, in support of the pretender to the Scottish throne, Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany (brother of James III) who had (in the so-called Treaty of Fotheringhay) pledged allegiance to England and against the Auld Alliance, and declared himself King of Scotland. England failed to install him, and eventually withdrew, with concessions such as renewed noble-marriage-related agreements from James III, but not until after acquiring Berwick, which has remained English to the present.
1492: Chrisopher Columbus reached the Americas, starting a new era of global exploration and colonization that would eventually lead to the large world-wide Gaelic diaspora (among many other consequences).
1496–97: James IV of Scotland twice invaded northern England in support of a pretender (ultimately failed) to the English throne. The insecurity of the Anglo-Scottish border effectively forced Henry VII of England into the Treaty of Ayton with Scotland in 1497, the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1502, and arrangement of marriage between James IV and Henry VII’s daughter Margaret in 1503. The marriage meant that the only thing standing between the Scottish king and the English succession was the future Henry VIII of England, who at this time was an heirless prince. This commingling of the Scottish and English royal lineages had important consequences in 1603.
Ca. 1500: The English word tartan was in use by this period (imported from Scots, in which it was attested to at least as early as 1355). Its origin is debated, but it is most likely from Gaelic tarsainn ‘crossing over’, ‘across’. A French origin from tartarin or tiretaine (‘Tatar cloth’, meaning mixed linsey-woolsey material) has also been proposed.
Ca. 16th century: Irish kerns (ceithern, singular ceithernach), a class of militia footmen (dating back to at least the 13th century) who served as light infantry to the gallowglass heavy infantry, were frequently depicted in surviving period artworks (e.g. by Albrecht Dürer) clearly wearing the léine (plural léinte), often with light armour or a short doublet (ionar) over it. The léine had been worn for many centuries in Gaelic lands, and some have suggested it may have been ancestral to the kilt, as the garment was also known in the Scottish Highlands. A long tunic, it was often heavily pleated, usually woolen (sometimes linen or even, among the gentry, silk), and dyed saffron-yellow, or some other solid colour including red, brown, green, or black, or occasionally striped. It was worn belted so that it fell to the knees, forming something of a kilt-like skirt under the belt. It was a unisex garment and could be worn with or without trousers. The sleeves were narrow at the top, wide at the elbow, and open at the forearm (and at least in this period rather pendulous). The term léine (in various spellings) goes all the way back to Old Irish records of the 6th century, but it would be foolhardy to assume that the same garment was worn unchanged for 1000 years. Modern, tailored léinte remain in use, in lieu of kilts, in the uniforms of some Irish pipe bands today.
1500–1655: Radiocarbon date range of the earliest surviving sample of “true” tartan in Scotland; the “Glen Affic tartan” is not a simple cheque pattern, but a complex four-colour tartan made with natural dyes like indigo and woad, and was discovered in the 1980s in a peat bog at Glen Affric, about 19 miles west of Loch Ness.
1531–34: The Protestant Reformation began in England, with a series of acts of Parliament declaring that “this realm of England is an Empire” and severing Church of England ties to Rome, declaring the king the “only supreme head of the Church of England”, which renounced papal authority under Henry VIII in 1534.
1534–35: The Silken Thomas Revolt or Kildare Rebellion in Ireland. Had several consequences, including being a factor in the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, the establishment of the Royal Irish Army (a standing English army on Irish soil), and the imposition of “surrender and re-grant” policy, under which Irish clan chiefs operating under traditional Gaelic law and inheritance rules were forced to give over their territories to the English crown and then were given back control of the land if they agreed to adopt English common law and the feudal and primogeniture systems.
1534–36: The Reformation in Ireland established the Church of Ireland (an offshoot of, and beholden to, the Church of England), with Protestant bishoprics overlapping and competing for adherents with Catholic ones. The CoI still survives today as a minority denomination (but the dominant Protestant one in the Republic of Ireland, while Scottish-imported Prebyterianism dominates in Northern Ireland).
1538: The Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland recorded purchases by the tailor of King James V of materials for a “short Highland coat”, of a “Highland sarkis [shirt] of Holland cloth”, and of “Highland tartan for hose” (which may have meant trews), demonstrating that Highland garb was in at least some demand by the Scottish nobility of the period.
1540s–1600s: Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, under Henry VIII and later Elizabeth I then James I (VI of Scotland). Established the Kingdom of Ireland in 1542 as a secondary realm of the kings and queens of England, and lasted to 1800. One side effect of the re-conquest was Henry VIII’s renewed ban of traditional Irish dress, including the léine.
1550s: Privately organized British “plantations” (colonies) were founded in Ireland in counties Laois and Offaly. Others followed into the early 17th century in Wicklow, Longford, and Leitrim. It is unclear how many of the settlers were Scottish and from what parts.
1560: The Reformation in Scotland, and establishment of the Church (or Kirk) of Scotland, under the Reformation Parliament. Many Catholic churches and cathedrals were unfortunately ruined, while others were more sensibly taken over as Presbyterian establishments.
1569–73: The First Desmond Rebellion in Ireland.
1567: The Catholic Mary Queen of Scots (incidentally a fancier of tartan) was forced to abdicate in increasingly Protestant Scotland and flee to England, bringing to an end the Stuart monarchy and beginning a period of political turmoil.
1570s: Another private British colony was established in east Ulster (Northern Ireland today). Presaged but usually not included in accounts of the Plantation of Ulster (1606–1641).
1579–83: The Second Desmond Rebellion in Ireland. Its failure led to more English-imposed social changes, including replacing Gaelic brehon law with English common law, and supplanting clan-elected chieftainships with primogeniture-inherited feudal positions (baron, earl, etc.), that spelled the end of the Gaelic clan (fine) societal system in Ireland.
1580s: Another private British plantation in Ireland was organized in Munster.
1581: The Scottish academic George Buchanan wrote that the Highlanders used tartans that were regionally distinct and that they had done so for a long time.
1588: The Spanish Armada was defeated by the English off the coast of Ireland; surviving Spanish ships received some succour in Ireland and Scotland. Later side effects included increased English control and the expansion of the plantation system in Ireland.
1592: Red Hugh O’Donnell (Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill) in Ireland became Chief of the Name of the O’Donnell dynasty and Lord of Tyrconnell, after escaping a 5-year imprisonment in Dublin. Over successive years, he instigated rebellions against the English (and English-allied fellow Gaelic chiefs), both within and aside from the Nine Years’ War of Ireland. Like his martially active mother, Fiona MacDonald, before him, he relied heavily on gallowglass mercenaries from the Hebrides (mostly) and Highlands. Called “redshanks” in this period, for their ruddy dress, they were described in 1594 as wearing “mottled garment with numerous colors hanging in folds” (probably tartan great-kilts).
1594–1603: The Nine Years’ War of Ireland or Tyrone’s Rebellion. (Not to be confused with the Nine Years’ War of 1688–1697.)
1597: the Fife Adventurers with royal backing from James VI of Scotland set up a Lowland Scots colony on the (Gaelic) Isle of Lewis; reinforced in 1605 and 1609, but ultimately unsuccessful. Nevertheless, this (along with similar de-Gaelicization efforts in Kintyre, Uist, and Skye) was something of the blueprint for later Scots and English colonization of Ulster.
Late 16th century: By this period at the latest (probably considerably ealier) the breacan an fhéilidh (literally ‘wrapped tartan’) or féileadh mór (lit. ‘large wrap’), commonly called the “belted plaid” or (later) the “great kilt” in English, was the typical base garment of Highland dress, and remained so until the mid-18th century. The great kilt is not a tailored garment, but essentially a blanket-like span of cloth wrapped around the body and gathered manually into loose pleats, and belted at the high waist, forming a skirt of kilt material below, with the rest of the material typically being pinned at the shoulder (it could also be wrapped around the upper body or even drawn over the head in inclement weather). The sporran (leather pouch worn at the front of the kilt) also dates to this period. The female version of the great kilt (a longer garment, going to the ankles rather than the knees) is the earasaid. The earliest recorded certain reference to great kilts dates to 1574. The oldest surviving example of a belted plaid dates to 1822, and has sewn-in belt loops for fast pleating. The oldest surviving example of an earasaid dates to 1726. Great kilts fell out of fashion after the introduction of the tailored “small kilt”, but still exist today, primarily reserved for high-formal dress.
Early 17th century: O Clerigh’s Life of Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill says that Irish soldiers (kerns) distinguished Scottish redshanks men in their midst by their “mottled cloaks of many colours … their belts were over their loins outside their cloaks”, which appears to be a reference to the great kilt or belted plaid, and is also evidence that tartan was not in regular use among the Irish of the period.
Early 17th century: Kilts in Scotland that were made of solid colours rather than tartan were attested in period materials; solid-colour kilts were not exclusive to Northern Ireland (where they were popular from the mid-19th century).
1603: Union of the Crowns, in which James VI of Scotland became also James I of England and Ireland, and the three kingdoms merged in a personal union under this monarch, though otherwise remained essentially separate in many ways until 1707. Nevertheless, the union began a period of closer political ties between the three realms.
1603–1760: Formation of the Independent Highland Companies, militia units raised from the Highland clans by the British government to keep the peace in the region. These were the progenitors of the later Highland regiments.
1606–41: The overall period of the Plantation of Ulster, the settlement of British (including Scottish) families into what today is Northern Ireland.
1606–7: Notable Scots (Presbyterian) settlement in Ulster began, including in Antrim and Down.
1607: Flight of the Ulster earls – the earls of Tyrone and Tryconnell fled to continental Europe, after the Nine Years’ War of Ireland, leaving much of Ulster open to seizure (“escheating”) by the British crown and then colonization. This marked the end of what was left of the old Gaelic aristocracy.
1607: Founding of Jamestown colony in Virginia, in what today is the United States. It was the first successful permanent British colony in North America, established 13 years before the Mayflower pilgrims.
1608: O’Doherty’s Rebellion in Ireland. Resulted in more Ulster land being confiscated by the British crown, in what was then Coleraine now Derry/Londonderry.
1609: Highland and Island chiefs of Scottish clans were forced to largely accept the Statutes of Iona, a de-Gaelicization effort of James I & VI. It was the beginning of the end for the Highlander way of life. It included a mandate for children of the gentry to be educated in English in England; the injection of Protestant ministers into the Highlands and Hebrides; outlawing of the bards and other bearers of traditional Gaelic language and culture; disruption of Highland trade in whisky; banning of firearms and hunting by commoners; institution of a network of inns that would provide free quarters and provisions to British troops and gentry; criminalization of harboring fugitives from the English; and imposition of a new system of relationships between landholders and tenants, by rewarding compliant chiefs with charters that formalized their personal ownership of clan lands under British law. Seen as something of a blueprint for how the Plantation of Ulster would proceed.
1609: James I & VI’s formal Plantation of Ulster began (Donegal, Derry/Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, Armagh).
1609: Founding of the first successful British colony in the West Indies, at Bermuda. Much early British and Irish immigration was to the West Indies rather than North America proper (thus, e.g., the strong influence of Irish English on Jamaican and related dialects).
1610: The first permanent, non-seasonal British settlement in what is now Canada was established in Newfoundland, though there was already a significant population of seasonal trappers and traders, and the French had permanent settlements in Nova Scotia since 1605 and Quebec since 1608.
1618–48: The Thiry Years’ War in Europe, indirectly impacting Gaelic societies through trade disruptions and political instability.
1622: By this year, there were 6,400 British males living on Ulster Plantation lands, of whom 3,700 were Scottish, with a further 4,000 Scottish men in Antrim and Down (about a total settler population in NI of 19,000).
1624: The Independent Highland Companies began wearing great kilts as part of their uniforms.
1630s: By this decade, about 20,000 British males lived on Ulster Plantation lands. Most of the Scots were from SW Scotland and the Borders counties. McCandlish/McCandless is not among the known names of families moved there during the Plantantion, but these records are woefully incomplete, recording only 422 names out of thousands.)
1631: A German engraving of this year is the oldest surviving artistic depiction of Scottish soldiers in tartan great kilts – worn a variety of ways, with wide flat bonnets (caps) clearly ancestral to the Balmoral style. One figure wears trews, but in a puffy “pantaloon” style that is not commonly found in other illustrations. The men, mercenaries in the service of Gustavus Adolphus (Gustavus II of Sweden) in the Thirty Years’ War, are armed with muskets, bows, and a long sword. Three of the four figures are shod, one barefoot.
German engraving of Scots soldiers of the Thirty Years War in tartan kilts, 1631
1633: Raising of the first Scottish regiment of the British Army, the Royal Scots (Royal Regiment of Foot), a Lowlands regiment (Highlands regiments would not exist until 1739).
1639–53: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, civil wars in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Ulster Scots were on the losing side (against Cromwell’s New Model Army) in 1648–50, providing an early reason to emigrate out (e.g. to North America, though some probably back to Scotland).
1641: Irish Rebellion of 1641, in which Irish Catholics rebelled against English Protestant rule; marked the beginning of the Irish Confederate Wars. After the rebellion, most of Ireland came under the control of the Irish Catholic Confederation.
1645: The Great Plague of 1645.
1649–50: English interregnum after execution of Charles I; the “three kingdoms” became a dictatorial republic (formally Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1653), under Oliver Cromwell.
1649–50: The Cromwellian or Parliamentary Conquest of Ireland, by the forces of the English Parliament under Oliver Cromwell. As punishment for the Rebellion of 1641, most lands owned by Irish Catholics were confiscated and given to British plantationers, with forced resettlement of many Irish Catholics to the west of the country.
1649–51: The Scottish Royalist revolt for Charles II, suppressed by English forces under Cromwell again; the Battle of Dunbar and the Battle of Worcester both went poorly for the Scots. Scotland was put under military occupation, and a line of fortifications sealed off the Highlands (source of much of the Royalist manpower).
1650: The English (and thus Scottish and Irish) monarchy resumed with the Stuart Restoration of Charles II; Cromwell retained his command of the military.
Ca. 1671–1734: Lifetime of Roy Roy, who was to become a romanticized Highland folk hero, mostly due to fictionalized accounts of him in 1723 (when he was still living) and in 1817.
1688: the Glorious Revolution (Catholic James II & VII deposed in November of that year by his Protestant daughter Mary II and her husband, William III of Orange – “William & Mary”, who ruled jointly). Led to consolidation of Protestant power in Scotland and Ireland.
1688–97: The Nine Years’ War or War of the Grand Alliance, between France and the Grand Alliance of England, Holy Roman Empire, Dutch Republic, Spain, and Savoy. (Not to be confused with the 1594–1603 Nine Years’ War of Ireland.)
1688–91: The Williamite–Jacobite war in Ireland (a side conflict of the War of the Grand Alliance), in which the Protestant William of Orange defeated the Catholic James II, culminating in the Battle of the Boyne and the Treaty of Limerick, leading to a Protestant ascendancy in Ireland for some time. The war resulted in around 100,000 deaths, counting famine and sickness. Presbyterians in Ulster (mostly Ulster Scots), though on the winning side of this conflict, were nevertheless excluded from power (along with the losing Catholics) by Anglicans, providing a reason to emigrate to North America and elsewhere.
1688–92: Jacobite uprising in support of James II (another side conflict of the War of the Grand Alliance). The rebellion was eventually suppressed after the Battle of Killiecrankie (Rinroy).
1691: The Scottish clan chiefs were ordered to swear loyalty to William & Mary by 31 December of that year. Failure to comply by MacDonald of Glencoe (MacIain) was what led to the Massacre of Glencoe (12 February 1692) by the Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot under the command of Campbell of Glenlyon (source of treating “Campbell” as a bad name in parts of Scotland).
1695: The Penal Laws enacted in Ireland, which imposed severe restrictions on Catholics and other non-Anglican groups, and led to widespread poverty and emigration.
1690s: Another wave of Scottish immigration to Ulster (tens of thousands) due to a Borders famine. Despite some emigration back out, over 100,000 Ulster Scots Presbyterians were in Ulster in 1700.
Late 17th – early 18th centuries: By this period, some regional uniformity of tartans is believed to have been achieved, with particular tartans being associated with particular islands and inland districts. However, the 1703 A Description of the Western Islands in Scotland makes it clear that inhabitants of a locale were not dressed alike as if in uniform; rather, the setts and colours of tartans varied from place to place (i.e., any given area might have several characteristic tartans or styles of tartan).
Late 17th – early 18th centuries: The modern, tailored kilt developed. Known in Gaelic as the fèileadh beag (lit. ‘small wrap’), anglicized as “filibeg” or “philabeg” and later called the “small kilt” or “walking kilt” in English, it is basically the bottom half of a great kilt, with the pleats sown in permanently. It was popular in the Highlands and northern Lowlands by 1746. A 1768 letter by an Evan Baillie claimed (and others, like the controverial Hugh Trevor-Roper, have since uncritically repeated) that the design was invented in the 1720s by an Englishman from Lancashire, one Thomas Rawlinson, as a less cumbersome outfit for his Scottish labourers in Invergarry. However, there is no evidence at all of this in Rawlinson’s detailed papers, and there is counter-evidence of short-kilt wearing by Highlanders possibly as early as the 1690s (though perhaps without sewn-in pleats). Regardless, the tailored kilt was adopted by Scottish regiments; civilian usage was common by the early 19th century. The earliest surviving example of a small kilt dates to 1792.
Ca. 18th century: Irish, Scottish, and Manx Gaelic, once mostly mutually intelligible (all having developed from the Middle Irish of ca. 900–1200), became distinct languages. Earlier, Gaelic in Scotland had often been referred to as Erse (i.e. ‘Irish’) in Middle English.
1703: The Laird of Grant summoned Clan Grant to what appears to have been a contest of arms, a precursor of the modern Highland games events.
1706–07: Treaty and Acts of Union; formed a single Kingdom of Great Britain, under Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland, and a single parliament for England and Scotland. As one reaction to this, tartan was for the first time adopted by Lowlanders in large numbers, as a symbol of defiance of the union.
1710–75: More than 100,000 Ulster Presbyterians of Scottish origin left for America in this date range (see details below). It was the largest British migration to North America in the 18th century. The bulk of British Isles immigrants to American colonies were from N. Ireland (about 150,000 to 200,000 in that date range), Scotland, and English Borders counties. The N. Ir. ones mostly went to Pennsylvania and western Virginia, and the Carolinas, thence southwest to the South, Ozarks, Appalachians. One large group went to New Hampshire.
1710: By this year, despite some emigration out, Presbyterians in Ulster had quickly gone from a semi-oppressed 20% to a majority, up to 50,000, accounting for about half of the newcomers (most of the rest were English).
Ca. 1712: Earliest known portrait that shows a small kilt.
1715: The ’15, the Jacobite revolt for James Francis Stuart (“James III”), in which mostly Scottish supporters of the exiled Stuart dynasty attempted to overthrow the new Hanoverian-English monarchy; the Scots were ultimately defeated at the Battle of Sheriffmuir.
1715: After the ’15, the Disarming Act (formally the Highlands Services Act 1715, in effect in 1716) prohibited Highlanders and some other Scots from possessing “warlike weapons”, including the traditional Highland dirk. This resulted in the confiscation of large numbers of weapons, and resulted in the Scots having comparatively antiquated weaponry by the 1745 uprising, but was not effective in generally disarming them all.
1717: The Indemnity Act 1717 pardoned all the surviving Jacobite rebels except for Clan Gregor.
1717–75: At least 275,000 emigrants from the British Isles arrived in North America, mostly from Ulster, the Scottish Lowlands, and Northern England, especially to the Applachian Mountains across what are now Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, western Maryland, Mississippi, New York state, North Carolina, Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, western Virgina, and West Virginia; some also into what is now Ontario (then Upper Canada). A consequence of this was a strong influence of Scottish English, and the Scots-Irish English and Ulster Scots dialect continuum, on Appalachian and Ontario English.
1725: The Disarming Act was reinforced with more legislation, but still not very effective.
1725–29: There is some evidence that by this date-range of the re-raising of the Independent Highland Companies, they may have come to wear the first official uniform tartan, to avoid association with any particular district or clan. As Scottish regiments multiplied in later years, their distinct tartan uniforms became a precursor to the idea of clan tartans.
Ca. 1730s–40s: John M’Candlish was Provost of Whithorn in Wigtownshire.
1730–1830: Lowland Clearances – tens of thousands re-settled in purpose-built agricultural villages; moved to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and northern England; or emigrated, mostly to Canada.
1739: Ten of the Independent Highland Companies were merged into the Earl of Crawford’s Highland Regiment, or “Black Watch”, numbered the 43rd Regiment of Foot (later 42nd). This was the first true Highland regiment of the British Army. It was expanded in 1881 by amalgamation with another unit. Various other Highland regiments were to follow, eventually distinguished by separate tartans; the regiments were raised principally to send fighting-age men away from Scotland and into combat in India, North America, and elsewhere. The use of Highland garb by these regiments marked the beginning of “institutionalization” of the kilt; its use in military uniforms did much to preserve it over the coming centuries, and to standardize kilt length, sporran usage, and other elements of now-traditional kilt attire.
ca. 1744: The Balmoral or Kilmarnock bonnet (the more beret-like of the traditional Highland caps) is clearly illustrated, complete with ribbon cockade and small toorie (pompon), in a painting of Highland soldiers in great kilts and tartan hose. A portrait of Jacobite general Lord George Murray from around the same time shows a similar cap, in black. The Balmoral developed from the larger blue bonnet or scone cap, the everyday headwear of civilian Scots (which in turn had derived from the medieval flat cap). In the period discussed here, there is no clear dividing line between the blue bonnet and the Balmoral.
1745–46: The ’45, the Jacobite rising for Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”); sought to restore the exiled Stuart dynasty to the British throne. The first significant engagement was the Battle of Prestonpans; rebel forces reached as far south as Derby in England. Their eventual defeat would lead to later suppression of Highland clan systems and Highland culture. Highland dress had become integral to the Jacobite identity by the ’45 (including kilts and “suits” of tartan trews and coats, commonly with the blue bonnet or Balmoral bonnet, which were not clearly distinguishable yet).
Advance of the Highlanders at Prestonpans (1745)
from British Battles on Land and Sea, 1873
1745–46: The Act of Proscription was drafted and enacted. It was a restatement of the Disarming Act, with greater penalties, with the goals of disarming and punishing the Scots, especially the Highlanders. It also proscribed clan gatherings and (see below) Highland dress. The act was repealed in 1782.
1746: Battle of Culloden; England defeated Scotland; end of the Jacobite uprisings and further erosion of the Highland clan system and way of life.
1746: After Culloden, the Dress Act or Disclothing Act (passed as part of the Act of Proscription but not in effect until 1 August 1746) made the male wearing of Highland dress, including the kilt, illegal north of the Highland line, except in the British army and among the landed gentry. This infuriated Scots nationwide, as it applied equally to Jacobites and British loyalists, and inspired great outcry in prose, poetry, and song. Contrary to popular belief, it did not ban all tartan, or bagpipes, or Gaelic. The act was repealed in 1782. Enough time had passed that kilts, trews and tartan coats, and plaids (as wraps or as great kilts) were no longer ordinary dress even in the Highlands, but a resurgence adopted them as something of a symbolic national Scottish attire, against the “Saxon” dress of the English; this was popularized further in 1822.
Mid-18th century: The noun kilt entered the English and Scots languages, referring to the garment; it derived from a 14th-century verb in Northern English and Scots, to kilt, meaning ‘to tuck up, to gird, to hang’, ultimately from a Norse word for ‘skirt’.
1750–1860: Highland Clearances – some continuing to 1886 (Crofter’s Act) after the Highland Land League and so-called Crofters’ War of the 1880s. First phase ca. mid-18th century. Second phase ca. 1815–20 to 1850s. Mostly affected the n. and w. Highlands and Islands. Highlanders moved to the coast, the Lowlands, North America (more Canada than the US in this period), and Australia. Especially: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, parts of Ontario; the Carolinas.
ca. 1750–1800: Between 12,000 and 20,000 Scots relocated to the West Indies.
1756–63: The Seven Years’ War.
1756–1815: Highlands men were recruited in large numbers into the British Army and sent to fight and die in foreign wars; estimates range from 40,000 to 75,000 in this time period.
1761: A group of N. Irish immigrants to New Hampshire moved on from there to Nova Scotia, Canada. Around the same time, a Highland regiment garrison in New Brunswick began attracting Scots settlers, who increased by thousands of loyalists during and after the American Revolution.
1761–63: James Macpherson’s “Ossian” poems were published to international popularity, and were influential on the development of the Romantic movement and the late 19th-century Gaelic Revival.
1772: Many Gaels went to Prince Edward Island.
1773: 200 more came from the Highlands to Nova Scotia.
1775–83: The American Revolution.
1780s: Gaelic immigration to the US resumed after the American Revolution, especially to Pennsylvania and New York.
1781: The earliest known organized pipe band competition was arranged by the Royal Highland Society of London, at the Cattle Tryst in Falkirk.
1782: Ireland gained parliamentary independence from England in the Constitution of 1782.
1782: The Act of Proscription was repealed and the Dress Act with it, on 1 July. With Jacobitism no longer an actual threat of civil unrest, it was viewed with a sense of nostalgia, which commingled with “noble savage” idealism about Highlanders, and romanticism of things Gaelic, leading to a resurgence of tartan and kilt wearing, and the founding of various Highland Societies and Gaelic Societies to promote this idealism. It is believed that at this time, Highland games events in some form resumed from whatever undocumented folk traditions had preceded them. Little is known of the games until the 19th century. Today, 1 July is the date of International Tartan Day in Australia and New Zealand.
1783: More Scottish loyalists left the US for Ontario and Nova Scotia.
1788: British penal colony founded in New South Wales in present-day Australia.
1789–99: French Revolution, which along with the American one sent shockwaves through European monarchies (and the peoples subject to them).
1790: The first US census showed a full 12% of the population to be of Scottish or Scots-Irish descent (today it is 2% or less).
1790s: By this decade, there were about 400,000 Americans of Irish descent, half from Ulster; and Cape Breton Island was almost entirely Gaelic-speaking (Scottish), while many Catholic Highlanders moved to Prince Edward Island to escape post-Culloden religious persecution.
1794: Formation of the Glengarry Fencibles corps by Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry. This unit is commonly believed to have introduced the Glengarry bonnet to Highland attire (an adaptation from the standard “side cap” military bonnet of the period), but this is actually disputed, as period illustrations are not clear (the Glengarry may really date to 1841).
1795–1803: The British came to control Cape Town in what is now South Africa.
1798–1803: Rebellions in Ireland and the Newfoundland Colony, organized by the Society of United Irishmen, inspired by the American and French Revolutions, and with military support from France. The Society was actually founded by Scots-Irish Presbyterians and later swelled by Ireland’s majority Catholics, as both groups had reason to oppose control by Anglican English. The rebellions were swiftly repressed.
Early 19th century: Believed to be the period of the adoption of the first clan tartans. The idea was not intitially popular, but took off in 1822. Before clan tartans, clan members were usually identified by the type of plant sprig stuck into the cockade of the bonnet and/or by the color of the ribbon or cockade on the bonnet.
Early 19th century: The Balmoral became an official Highland regiment military uniform cap. It was replaced in the mid-19th century in most Highland regiments by the Glengarry bonnet, and retired completely from British military use in 2006, but remains in more popular civilian use with Highland dress than the Glengarry, and remains official uniform gear of several Canadian Highlanders units today. Typically black or navy blue, it is also available in muted green or red to better go with some kilts, and can also sometimes be found in bright colours (even white) for Highland dancer outfits.
Ca. early 19th century: The Highland regiments’ “kit” of kilt, particular jacket styles, sporran styles, bonnet forms, footwear, etc. became standardized, and largely set the style of what passed into civilian usage to the present day. This is the reason the regulation, Sherrifmuir, and Prince Charlie jackets have a rather old-timey appearance, while the more elaborate pipe band constuming has the look of antique military uniforms. Modernization of actual military duty uniforms in the 20th century had virtually no effect on the by-then-traditional nature of Highland formalwear (even among military pipe bands).
Ca. early to mid-19th century: the modern Highland games developed. Their exact history is not well recorded. Perhaps the most famous is the Braemar Gathering and Games, formally organized in 1832 by the Braemar Royal Highland Society; it is traditionally attended by the British royal family since Queen Victoria, and has had permanent dedicated grounds since 1906, attracting around 12,000 spectators annually.
Ca. 1800–1825: Glasgow’s population boomed from 70,000 to 170,000 in a single generation.
1801: Act of Union, which merged the parliaments of Ireland and Great Britain. It marked the end of Irish independence and the beginning of modern Irish nationalism.
1803: 800 Highlanders relocated to Prince Edward Island, and another large group that year came to PEI from the Isle of Skye.
1803: British colony founded in Tasmania.
1803–15: Napoleonic Wars.
1803: Castle Hill Rebellion in Ireland, organized by Society of United Irishmen.
1806: British regained control of Cape Town; it was ceded to Great Britain at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
Ca. 1806: The Black Watch or Old Campbell tartan was adopted by Clan Campbell, as so many of its men were already wearing it as a regimental uniform. This may have been the first informal clan tartan.
1810s: Australian transition began from penal to civil colonization in New South Wales.
1811: More Highlanders came to Manitoba.
1812–15: War of 1812, between the United States and Canada (then British North America).
1815: The Highland Society of London (founded 1778) solicited the Scottish clan chiefs to furnish the society with samples of clan tartans. As these largely did not exist yet, it spurred several clans to adopt specific tartans as official (often selecting one from among portaits of old clan chiefs, adopting a regimental tartan, or in other cases inventing new ones). Some did not respond and remained without clan tartans until later in the 19th century or even into the early 20th.
1815: By this time, Scots and some Scots-Irish (mostly farmers) were one of the three major ethnic groups in the Maritimes, and a Canadian dialect of Scottish Gaelic was the third-most-spoken language in Canada in the mid-19th century.
Ca. 1815–45: a pre-Famine wave of emigration from Ireland, guestimated at 250,000 to 1.5 million between these years. A fairly conservative estimate is that around 500,000 Irish and Scots-Irish arrived in the US in this range.
1815–70: Approx. 50,000 Scots moved to Nova Scotia alone between these years, due to late Highland Clearances and destitution that followed.
1815–1915: This century saw some 13 million Scots arriving in the US, 4 million more in Canada, and another million and a half in Australia.
1817: The Celtic Twilight or Celtic Revival, a period of rewewed (if romanticized) interest in things Celtic and Gaelic, began in earnest with the publication of Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (followed by Waverly in 1822), which popularized a romantic image of the Highlands. Scott also founded the Celtic Society of Edinburgh in 1820. By some definitions, the Celtic Revival is still ongoing.
Ca. 1818: Organized British immigration to southern Africa began.
1819: William Wilson & Sons of Bannockburn (main tartan weaver for the British military since around 1770) published a collection of “perfectly genuine patterns” from the Highlands, recording over 200 setts. These tartans were numbered or given fanciful names, and not associated with any particular clans.
1820: “The 1820 Settlers”: around 4,000 colonists from Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales arrived in southern Africa, especially the Eastern Cape area.
1820s: Probably time of adoption of the McCandlish coat of arms, crest, and motto (first attested in heraldic sources in 1830).
1820s–1841: Irish (especially Northern Irish) seasonal workers in Britain shot up in number from around 7,000 per year to 58,000 in a generation. In 1841, some 126,000 Irish-born people lived in Scotland, making up about 5% of the population (much higher in Galloway and Glasgow, e.g. 16.5% in Wigtownshire).
1822: “The King’s Jaunt”: King George IV’s visit to Scotland (the first monarchical visit in 171 years) became a large public affair marked by tartan pageantry, largely at the instigation of Walter Scott’s Celtic Society. The Hanoverian king himself wore full Highland regalia, and caused quite a fad of “tartanry” (in a population that by this period was about 90% located in the Lowlands). The event led to sudden demand for tartan cloth and made it effectively the national dress of all Scotland, not just the Highlands and Islands, and even inspired kilt-wearing among social elites of continental Europe. Many clan-specific tartans were created and adopted around this time, an “invented tradition”.
Portrait of George IV in Highland dress
by David Wilkie. The king’s 1822 visit to
Scotland set off a wave of “tartanry”.
1825: The Cockburn Collection of tartan samples was completed (begun possibly in 1810 but more likely 1815) by Lt.-Gen. Sir William Cockburn; he recorded 56 samples (some of them duplicates) and many were assigned names, probably after prominent invididuals. Those that are today used as clan tartans generally have completely different names, sometimes more than one, in the Cockburn Collection.
1825–1914: In this span, some 1.84 million people left Scotland for non-European destinations; more than half the people born in Scotland emigrated out during this period. About 44% went to the US, 28% to Canada, and 25% to Australia or New Zealand.
1827: Britain claimed the entirety of Australia, and colonization (primarily coastal) increased throughout the century.
1831: James Logan published The Scottish Gael, a romanticized work that inspired some commercial weavers to invent a number of “clan tartans”.
1836: The first known Highland games event of the United States (and of North America) took place in New York.
1840s–1860s: Queen Victoria often dressed her sons in kilts, further popularizing the look.
1840: Britain declared sovereignty over New Zealand, after unofficial “trickle-in” settlement, since the 1770s, by European (and North American) missionaries, traders, whalers, and others. The next year, it was declared its own colony, separate from the administration of New South Wales (Australia).
1841: By this year, some 4.8 percent of the Scottish population were working-class Irish immigrants.
1841: The Glengarry bonnet (which might date to 1794) was very certainly in use in 1841, adopted by the pipers of the 79th Foot. It rapidly was adopted by most other Highland regiments, besides the Black Watch, and eventually became the standard British undress military cap for all units from 1868 to 1897. It is today the standard cap of all units of the Royal Regiment of Scotland since their amalgamation in 2006.
1842: Publication of the Vestiarium Scoticum, purportedly a 16th-century manuscript on clan tartans; now known to be a forgery, it nevertheless caused a resurgence of interest in the Highlands, clans, tartan, and kilts, and established many of the “official” clan tartans still in use today.
1843: The Great Disruption and the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland, the largest of the sectarian splits away from the presbyterian Kirk of Scotland. The schism was led primarily by Thomas Chalmers and Robert Smith Candlish.
1843: By this year, there were over 30,000 Scots and Scots-Irish in New Brunswick alone. There was organized movement, until 1850, of Scots to Canada, as part of the Clearances.
1844: Publication of another highly dubious work, The Costume of the Clans, which purported to reveal a number of “clan tartans” without any evidence behind it. Many of the proposed tartans were nevertheless enthusiastically adopted, as happened earlier with the Vestiarium Scoticum.
Ca. 1845–55: Irish potato famine. First major potato crop failure was in 1846, and 1846–52 was the worst of it. Produced an estimated 2–3 million refugees and 1 million deaths. The emigrés mostly went to the US, Canada, and Australia, but many also went to Britain, some 75,000 to Scotland (7.2% of the Scottish population at that time).
1846–61: Highland Potato Famine; peak famine from 1846 to roughly 1856; after-effect emigration was due to destitution.
1848: The Young Irelander Rebellion.
Ca. 1850s: Irish Nationalists, especially in Scotland-influenced Northern Ireland, began wearing kilts (in solid colours rather than tartans) as a symbol of Gaelic identity. They were also adopted by some of the Irish regiments of the British army, and were also poular among participants in the 19th-century Gaelic Revival; today they are not generally associated with nationalist (i.e. anti-British) causes. Popular colours include saffron yellow and black, as well as both green and orange which often indicate Irish nationalism or British loaylism respectively (especially within Northern Ireland, where this colour-signalling is common for various forms of dress). They are regularly available in other colours, like red, grey, and purple. Some modern Irish tartans also exist, both regional and for specific families (historically, some Irish chieftains had access to imported Scottish tartan, but there is no evidence they were used for kilts or that there were Irish clan tartans). Irish kilt black-tie formalwear includes a so-called Brian Boru jacket (and waistcoat), a variant of the Highland Prince Charlie coatee but with shawl collar, chain closure, and round buttons.
1851–99: Another 900,000 Irish and Scots-Irish came to the US. Many had also been coming directly to Canada for some time as noted above.
1857: McCandless Township was incorporated, in north-central Pennsylvania.
1859: Wilson McCandless became a judge of the US Federal Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania.
1861: Margaret Ann McCandless of Northern Ireland published Arthur, or The Choirister’s Rest in London.
1861: David Colbert McCanles was killed by “Wild Bill” Hickok in Nebraska.
1863: The first Highland games of Canada took place in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
1866: Establishment of the Scottish Highland Gathering and Games in Pleasanton, California, which has become the largest such annual gathering in the world in terms of spectators (reaching nearly 50,000 in 2015).
1866: John Candlish became Member of Parliament for Sunderland, Durham, England.
1866–85: The Fenian raids, rising, and bombing campaigns, in Ireland, Canada, and the UK; organized by the Fenian Brotherhood.
1867: William “Buck” McCandless elected to Pennsylvania State Senate; later, state Secretary of Internal Affairs, 1875.
1871: The Cowal Highland Gathering was established, in Dunoon, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It was by no means the first Scottish games event, but today it is the largest in the world in terms of number of competitors (around 3,500 annually, with about 23,000 spectators).
1872: James Smith Candlish became Professor of Systematic Theology at the Free Church College in Glasgow, Scotland.
1879: Potato blight returned to Ireland as the Famine of 1879.
1879: The British consolidated power over most colonies in southern Africa after the Anglo-Zulu war.
Ca. 1880s: The late-Victorian solidification of upperclass men’s dress into defined “day”, “white-tie formal”, and “black-tie semi-formal” outfits also resulted in the establishment of the various different informal, formal and semi-formal Highland dress “kits”. The more formal jackets, worn with white tie or with a jabot (lacy ascot), are the Sherrifmuir, regulation, Montrose, or Kenmore doublets, while the Prince Charlie coatee and the Argyll jacket are worn black-tie (sometimes also the regulation doublet and Braemar jacket are used for black-tie). All of these are worn with a matching waistcoat (vest), though the Prince Charlie can also be paired with an evening belt (cummerbund). In modern times the Argyll jacket (the most similar to a modern “Saxon” sport jacket) is also informally often worn with a regular necktie, and sometimes without the waistcoat; same goes for the rather militaristic-looking day doublet, and the other less common day-wear jacket styles Crail and Braemar.
1880: Clan Originaux was published in Paris by J. Claude Fres. Several more purported clan tartans were adopted by clans from this work.
1880: First Anglo-Boer War – the British essentially lost, and Boers retained self-rule in the South African Republic (Transvaal), i.e. much of what today is South Africa.
1881: The “Black Watch”, the Royal Highland 42nd Regiment of Foot, was merged with the Perthshire 73rd, to form the modern Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, today part of the Scottish, Welsh and Irish Division. It is the most famous of the Scottish regiments, and its tartan, a dark version of what was later called Old Campbell, is one of the most popular tartans.
1887: John MacGregor McCandlish became the first president of the Society of Actuaries, Scotland.
1899–1902: Second Anglo-Boer War, at the conclusion of which the British Empire absorbed the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
Charge of the Highlanders (an Anglo-Boer War scene)
by Frank Algernon Stewart, 1900
Late 19th – early 20th centuries: The Gaelic Revival, a literary, artistic, musical, sporting, and general cultural renewal of interest in things historically considered Gaelic (especially but not exclusively Irish).
Late 19th – early 20th centuries: Concurrently, the Scottish Renaissance and Irish Revival began, a flowering of modernized Gaelic literature, music, visual art, politics, and language preservation that is still ongoing.
Eary 20th century: By this era, virtually all Scottish clans had adopted at least one clan tartan.
1906: A pipe-band competition was added to the Cowal Highland Gathering, and may have been the first major organized event of this sort since 1781. It remained the premier such competition until the 1947 institution of the World Pipe Band Championships.
1907: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and New Brunswick (not yet part of Canada) became self-governing dominions.
1910: British and Boer colonies in southern Africa were united as a self-governing dominion, the Union of South Africa.
1912: McCandlish Hall was constructed in Straiton, South Ayrshire, Scotland.
1914: S.C. “Jack” McCandless was signed as an outfielder to the major league baseball team Baltimore Terrapins (Federal League).
1914–18: World War I.
1916: The Easter Rising in Dublin, in which Irish republicans staged an armed insurrection against British rule. The beginning of the Irish War of Independence.
1919: Patrick Dalmahoy McCandlish of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regiment was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of British Empire) and was made the Assistant Quartermaster-General for the British Army.
1919–22: The Anglo-Irish War, or War of Irish Independece. Ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Partition of Ireland, which led to the creation of the Irish Free State in the south (with dominion status, like Australia, et al.) and Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom in the north.
1920: Timothy Quinlisk, an Irish Brigade member who informed to the British, was executed by the Irish Republican Army.
Ca. 1920s: In a peak of Scottish emigration, some 363,000 left Scotland for the United States in a single decade.
Ca. 1922: James Sutton McCandless was Imperial Potentate of Masonic organization Shriners North America.
1925: William Leslie McCandlish became chairman of the presigious Kennel Club (UK), the first dog breeders’ and fanciers’ organization.
1926: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations (formalized in 1931 and again in 1949) and the beginning of British de-colonialism.
1927: Coleraine Football Club was co-founded in Northern Ireland by John (Jack) McCandless.
Late 1930s: Books of clan tartans, with colour plates, were first published and mass-produced (”The Clans and Tartans of Scotland”, Robert Bain, 1938; ”The Scottish Clans & Their Tartans”, W. & A. K. Johnston, 1939) and many more would follow. These did much to cement the idea of clan tartans in the public imagination, as well as to consistently anchor particular tartans to particular clans (most of which had no chiefs, while few with chiefs had made “official” proclamations as to their clan tartans).
1933: Veteran player Billy McCandless began a long second career phase of football (soccer) management across Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, first with Ballymena F.C. in Northern Ireland.
1933: Link McCandless (Republican of Hawaii) elected to US House of Representatives.
1936: Benjamin Vaughan McCandlish became Naval Governor of Guam.
1937: Ireland declared itself an independent country, but was still considered a British dominion by the UK. This political conflict did not resolve until 1949.
1937: Cdre. Byron McCandless became commanding officer of the US Navy Destroyer Base, San Diego, California (where a street is now named after him).
1939–45: World War II.
1944: Cmdr. (later RAdm.) Bruce McCandless I took command of the US Navy destroyer USS Gregory, shortly after being awarded the Medal of Honor.
1945: Brig. Gen. John Edward Chalmers McCandlish became Deputy Adjutant-General of the British Army of the Rhine.
1945–present: Acceleration of British de-colonialism.
1947: Establishment of the World Pipe Band Championships, by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association.
1949: Republic of Ireland Act, which declared Ireland a republic and ended the country’s status as a British dominion; Ireland left the British Commonwealth of Nations.
Mid-20th century – present: The rise of interest in Celtic and even a pan-Celtic social identity has led to enthusiasts adopting kilts and creating (mostly regional) tartans beyond Scotland and Ireland in the “Celtic nations” of Wales, Cornwall (now part of Devonshire, England), the Isle of Man, and Brittany (now part of Armorica, France), as well as in formerly Celtic areas including Northumbria in England, Galicia and Asturias in Spain, and as far away as Austria. It is surely no coincidence that all of these areas have long retained their own distinctive bagpiping traditions, and that pipe bands are probably involved in the kilt and tartan interest. Similarly, there are many kilt wearers, as well as new regional and military tartans, among the Gaelic diaspora in the United States, Canada, and Australia, with these places also retaining a tradition of Scottish games and piping events, which notably ramped up from the 1950s onward.
1960s–1990s: “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, a period of sectarian conflict between Catholic and Protestant communities. The Troubles mostly ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
1967: James Conlisk Jr. became head of the Chicago Police Department.
1969: John Louis Conlisk became Professor of Economics at University of California San Diego.
1970: Woodwind and horn player Paul McCandless co-founded the jazz band Oregon, with Ralph Towner, Glen Moore, and Collin Walcott.
1971: Launch of the US Navy destroyer escort/frigate USS McCandless (in active service 1972–1994).
1983: Al McCandless, Republican of California, elected to US House of Representatives.
1984: Navy pilot and NASA astronaut Capt. Bruce McCandless II took the first untethered spacewalk with a jetpack.
Bruce McCandless II’s untethered
spacewalk, 11 January 1984
1987: The first “Tartan Day” celebration was inaugurated in Nova Scotia, Canada. By the 1990s, it spread throughout Canada and to the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, and since then to other countries including Argentina and France, and Scotland itself.
1990s–present: A fashion niche has been filled with the development of the contemporary, modern, fashion, or utility kilt, an informal modern adaptation (in various divergent designs) of the traditional Scottish style but of simpler construction, usually made of cotton or a poly-cotton blend (but available in everything from leather to corduroy). They typically feature pockets (thus “utility”) and may be worn with or without a sporran. They are usually in solid colours, though some are in tartan, or a hybrid mix of tartan and solild panels. Traditionalists, of course, detest these “pseudo-kilts”, but they are growing in popularity especially among the younger generations, even in Scotland (though the majority of their wearers and manufacturers are in the US and Canada). Also in this time period, a type of contemporary kilt, often worn with sport shorts underneath, has become popular in women’s sport, especially lacrosse and field hockey, but is increasingly supplanted by the more streamlined “athletic skirt”.
1992: American traveller and do-it-yourselfer Chris McCandless starved at his homestead in Alaska; his misadventure is the subject of the 1996 documentary film ”Into the Wild”.
1997: Scottish referendum for a separate parliament from that of England; passed by a 3/4 margin. The Scottish Parliament convened in 1999 for the first time since 1707.
2014: Scottish independence referendum (“Should Scotland be an independent country?”), in which the “No” vote won by only 55.3%.
2019: Louise Candlish won “Crime & Thriller Book of the Year” at the British Book Awards for her novel ”Our House”, adapted into a TV series in 2021.
2023: As much as 20% of the population of New Zealand claim Scottish descent; around 15% in Canada; between 8% and 9% in Australia; about 2.7% to 4.5% (depending on survey), including Scots-Irish/Ulster Scots, in the US. For Irish descent: over 20% of Americans claim it; Canada comes in at 14%, Australia around 7% to 10.4%; figures for New Zealand were not readily available.

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Key Wikipedia articles relied upon (several of which I have improved while working on this timeline): 1820 Settlers; 1907 Imperial Conference; 42nd Regiment of Foot; Act of Proscription 1746 Ancient Roman military clothing; Auld Alliance; Australia; Bagpipes; Balmoral bonnet; Battle of Carham; Battle of Clontarf; Battle of Largs; Battle of Moira; Battle of Tara; Belgae; Bell Beaker culture; Belted plaid; Black Watch; Blue bonnet (hat); Braemar; British Empire; British Iron Age; Bruce campaign in Ireland; Bruce McCandless II; Celtic Revival; Celts; Celts (modern); Cherchen Man; Church of England; Church of Ireland; Clan Mar; Connachta; Constantine II of Scotland; Cowal Highland Gathering; Cromwellian conquest of Ireland; Cruthin; Dál nAraidi; Dál Riata; Danelaw; Davidian Revolution; Declaration of Arbroath; Dress Act 1746; Duchy of Normandy; Earasaid; English invasion of Scotland (1482); Flight of the Earls; Gaelic revival; Gaels; Galloway; Gallowglass; Glengarry; Glorious Revolution; Great Famine (Ireland); Great Highland bagpipe; Hallstatt culture; Highland Clearances; Highland dress; Highland games; Highland Potato Famine; History of the British Isles; History of Ireland; History of Ireland (1169–1536); History of Scotland; History of the kilt; History of the Scots langauge; Hugh Roe O’Donnell; Independent Highland Companies; Irish Army (1661–1801); Irish clans; Irish clothing; Irish Confederate Wars; Irish diaspora; Irish Literary Revival; Kern (soldier); Kilt; Kingdom of Alba; Kingdom of Ireland; Kingdom of Scotland; Kingdom of Strathclyde; La Tène culture; List of Irish uprisings; Lordship of Ireland; Lowland Clearances; Military history of South Africa; Monarchy of the United Kingdom; Nechtan mac Der-Ilei; New Zealand; Nine Years’ War; Nine Years’ War (Ireland); Norman invasion of Ireland; Óengus I; Oliver Cromwell; Origins of the Kingdom of Alba; Pictish language; Picts; Pipe band; Plantation of Ulster; Prehistoric Britain; Prehistoric Ireland; Prehistoric Scotland; Redshank (soldier); Reformation; Rober II of Scotland; Roman Britain; Rulers of Bamburgh; Scotch-Irish Americans; Scottish Canadians; Scottish clan; Scottish diaspora; Scottish Gaelic Renaissance; Scottish names in Ulster; Scottish Renaissance; South Africa; Spanish Armada; Statues of Iona; Surrender and regrant; Synod of Whitby; Tarim mummies; Tartan; Tartan Day; Tartanry; The Pale; Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare; Treaty of Berwick; Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton; Treaty of Limerick; Treaty of Perpetual Peace; Treaty of Perth; Treaty of Union; Treaty of York; Treaty of York (1464); Uí Ímair; Uí Mháine; Uí Néill; Ulaid; Vestiarium Scoticum; Viking Age; Visit of George IV to Scotland; Wars of Scottish Independence; Williamite War in Ireland; World Pipe Band Championships.
Some line-items were generated by ChatGPT, though fact-checked with other sources and rewritten as appropriate.

Like everything else on this site, this timeline is released under the Creative Commons CC-By-SA 4.0 license, so you are free to re-use the content, including removing entries that don’t suit your purposes, as long as you credit this original page as a source for the content.

Last modified 2024-03-14 by SMcCandlish.