paddyann54
No one heard of the ACT OF PROSCRIPTION ? 1746 ,which banned the wearing of Tartan with a punishment for first offenders of up to 7 years in jail or for second offenders deportation to OZ ? The act was repealed almost 40 years later when the custom of wearing clan tartans was said to have died.Killed at source!
The soldiers who were stationed here to enforce it were apt to put a stop to anything overtly Scottish INCLUDING the language.
Gaelic was NOT just used in the Highlands and Islands it was common as far south as where I live 20 miles from Glasgow and even Glasgow had a large gaelic community .My 2 x great grandfather came from the islands to be a policeman in Glasgow purely because the gaelic language was spoken in many areas.
I have Gaels who live next door who speak only gaelic at home,their children attend gaelic school in Glasgow .
Of course this all depends whose version of events you believe.Neil Oliver who is NOT a historian tells us the Highland Clearances were just economic migration....perhaps he should have been around to tell the families whose homes were destroyed,burned and who were thrown off their crofts to make way for sheep!!
I'm sure they didn't think of themselves as economic migrants when they were in the bowels of ships taking them to countries that knew nothing of .
Yes, paddyann54, I have heard of the Act of Proscription, and (unlike you, it would seem) I have actually read it. To baldly state, as you have, that "it banned the wearing of Tartan.." is grossly to over simplify its directives and mislead the reader. The majority of the Act's provisions concerned banning the possession of armaments ("broad sword or target, poignard, whinger, or durk, side pistol, gun, or other warlike weapon") by people living in the areas of Scotland from whence had come most Jacobite supporters: roughly those counties to the north of a line from Loch Lomond to the River Forth.
There was no all-encompassing ban on wearing Tartan per se. The ban was actually concerned with the types of clothing associated with the Jacobite Rebels, ie "the clothes commonly called Highland Clothes (that is to say) the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, trowse, shoulder belts, or any part whatsoever of what peculiarly belongs to the highland garb" rather than the patterns of the cloth from which they were made. Tartan was banned only for two specific items of clothing: "no tartan, or partly-coloured plaid or stuff shall be used for great coats, or for upper coats". Also, the provisions related only to men and boys; women and girls could wear Tartan unimpeded. Hardly the TOTAL BAN ON TARTAN (if I may borrow your preferred means of emphasis) you postulate. You have also got your sentences for infringement muddled up: they were 6 months in jail (no more; no less) for a first offence, and "transportation to any of his Majesty's plantations beyond the seas, there to remain for a space of seven years" for a second.
And finally, where's your evidence that "The soldiers who were stationed here to enforce it (the Act of 1746) were apt to put a stop to anything overtly Scottish INCLUDING the language"? This same sort of confusion and wishful thinking gives rise to the oft-repeated myth that the Highland Bagpipes were also specifically banned after Culloden. They weren't, but you can tell people that until you are blue in the face, and they still won't believe you - despite being unable to provide any evidence to back up their position.
And - lest anyone think I am an overly touchy Sassenach - I am a Highlander born and bred, whose clan fought on the side of the Government against the Jacobites, but were nevertheless subject to the full weight of the Act of 1746.
