CLAN DONALD TARTAN GALLERY

The  age of tartans has been the subject of much debate ever since the 1782 lifting of the 35 year government ban on wearing tartan.   The fact that arguments against the antiquity of tartan were not silenced by the Urumchi archaological digs of 1995 exposes the anti-Celtic bias among British scholars.  Similar bias was cited by early Clan Donald historians and it remains to this day.   Finding well preserved remnants of Bronze Age tartan clad mummies in 1995 along the "silk route" firmly establishes that tartans were worn by Celtic people in the very time & locations Celtic legends ascribe to our ancestors, the age of Egypt's pharaohs.

The Gaelic word used for tartans is breacan which is the same word used to describe a hill with patches of heather or someone with freckles (multi colored).  One source for tartans claims that the word tartan refers to the way the thread was woven to make the cloth with each thread passing over two threads then under two threads, and so on. This tartan weave gives a distinctive pattern that includes the twill (short diagonal stripes that make up a straight line) and the blending of colors as they cross (however  Peter MacDonald points out there are tartans that lack these traits). You can actually see the tartan weave in the samples below. The different tartans are distinguished by their "sett".  A sett is the single crossed pattern that when repeated makes up the tartan. Setts can be as simple as one stripe crossing one background color or as complicated as several colors and several different stripe widths. MacDonald of Donald is one of the more complicated tartans.  Most tartans are a mirror image half sett (meaning one half is a reflection of the other).  Some MacDonald tartans (such as the dress tartan) are not mirror image half setts.  This is an important characteristic to determine before making a kilt from any tartan.  Another characteristic to consider is the size of the sett.  It can totally change the look of the tartan. One oft quoted source suggested that the more ancient tartans were less complicated.  Another "Internet legend" is that anciently the number of colors of a tartan was determined by the wearer's social status.  Sixteenth & seventeenth century  paintings of several clan chief's tartans are less complicated patterns which disputes the "number of colors" theory. The older paintings of Clan Donald chiefs have them wearing a tartan more like the Keppoch, Sleat, or Red MacDonald of the Isles tartan shown below.

Some tartans are available in a variety of colors such as MacDonald of Donald which is the most recognized Clan Donald tartan.  It is available in modern colors, ancient colors, and muted colors, but it is the same tartan weave.  The dress MacDonald tartan actually has a different weave because it introduces the broad, white stripe.  Narrow white stripes make the Clanranald and Glengarry tartans distinct from MacDonald of Donald.  There are at least 27 different tartans associated with Clan Donald.  When you pass the curser over the tartan "swatches" below you will see the official name of the tartan and the date that pattern was first recorded.