Irish Garb Part 2
Early Medieval Irish Garb Part 2: Materials & Decoration
To read about the sources for documenting Irish garb, see Irish Garb: Part 1.
Materials
Bast fibers: The Irish grew copious amounts of flax, mostly for the sake of its long fibers. The flax plant, the fibers, and cloth made from the fibers were all called lín (1), or various derivatives of the word—such as linbratt (linen blanket/cloak). Linen was common but was associated with wealth, since producing linen from flax is a labor-intensive process. Because of this, Irish property law regulated values and ownership of flax sheaves, hackled flax fibers, and woven linen fabric. For instance, during a divorce, a farm wife was owed one sixth of any sheaves of flax harvested that year (2).
There have been suggestions that the nettle plant (ramie) was also in use for producing linen in Ireland prior to and contemporary with the rise of flax. Both nettle fiber and flax fiber have similar traits, so it is difficult to discern the difference in the very few extant fragments from the period. Likewise, lexical evidence for nettle fiber in Ireland is hard to isolate from flax linen, if it exists. Pollen analysis, though, proves that flax was being widely cultivated in Ireland at this time, making it the most likely source of linen fiber.
Hemp, however, was clearly in use in Ireland for making cables and sails; it was important enough to have its own name, cnáip, a word found associated with various words for harvesting, scutching, and tow. While it may have been too valuable a fiber for marine purposes to be wasted on clothing, nonetheless, the fiber was present and being processed, spun and woven into fabric in Ireland, and clothing could possibly have been made from it. If it was, however, no evidence of such hemp clothing currently survives.
Very rarely, the Irish tales call a garment, “do cotun,” or 'of cotton.' The Irish did trade for cotton during the medieval period—although their understanding of the fiber was skewed, for they believed that it came from wool that had been planted in the ground and raised like flax; thus they sometimes referred to it as “oland talman” (3), or earth-wool. This may have been the result of propaganda/marketing by the merchants who traded in cotton. Evidence for cotton textiles in Irish archaeology will likely remain scant, due partly to the climate bias, but mostly to the scarcity of this imported good.
Other bast fibers may have been in use, such as linden bark (one of the earliest bast fibers spun in northern Europe) or the inner bark from other trees. No evidence comes through the existing literature, if so. However, bark rope has been found in archaeological digs, so at least for coarse agricultural purposes (such as bucket handles) bark fiber cordage remained common. By the Early Medieval period, however, there is little to nothing to suggest that these fibers saw any mainstream use for textiles or clothing. It is safe to assume that the most common bast textiles were invariably made from flax linen.
All of the known examples of linen surviving from this period were finely spun Z (some tightly, some loosely) and and woven in a tight tabby weave (Z/Z), but very few fragments have lasted in the Irish climate (4). Wool endures the cool, wet conditions better.
Wool: According to Giraldus, the Irish wore thin wool tunics, which were nearly always “black, that being the colour of the sheep in this country” (5). Although he invalidates this critique on Irish sheep and color availability later within his own book (by criticizing the Irish for loving to wear too many colors at once), his commentary on the prevalence of wool may be legitimate.
Wool sheep (6) and wool processing feature prominently in Irish law, more so than the terms associated with flax and linen. All male children of the farming/land-owning classes in fosterage were required to be taught wool combing as one of the essential skills of life (7). Shearing the sheep and processing its fleece were typically male tasks in Ireland. Spinning and weaving the textiles were female tasks, and an Irish marriage law tract specifies the divisions of wool in a divorce based upon the wife's involvement in the labor to produce the goods: one sixth of the fleeces, one third of combed wool, but fully half of any finished cloth (8).
Certainly the majority of surviving textiles from Irish settlements encourage the view that finely spun, well-woven wool was an important and common fabric in Ireland. The majority of such wool was tabby woven (9), often tightly (creating a slightly ribbed weave, or repp (10)), but some twill, such as the fine red 2/1 twill found in Deer Park Farms (11), has survived.
The Irish were accomplished spinners of fine wool threads; the majority of finds where the fiber can be examined show a narrow range of thread twist (between 25º and 45º, a tight spin) and great consistency of spinning (12). This differs from the Hiberno-Norse threads of the Viking period in Ireland, which show much looser spinning, suggesting that the Irish preferred a tighter-spun thread and continued to produce it without change or influence from the Norse. The wool fibers were combed, not carded, producing a worsted roving that highlighted the luster of the thread and produced a smooth, shinier textile. Threads found in textiles from Lough Gara, Lagore and Ballinderry range from 0.3mm to 0.65mm in diameter, with some thicker yarns reaching up to 0.8mm in diameter (12).
The cloth woven from these threads would generally have been tabby, not twill, for the Irish were known for their preference for weaving two-shed textiles, with Z-spun warp and weft singles (13). The fineness of the wool thread varies mostly by purpose of the intended cloth—a coarse weave of thicker threads can be more useful in some contexts than a delicate weave of narrower threads. What is certain is that the Irish specialized in very fine spinning and tabby weaving, which was sometimes exported and appears in wealthy graves in Scandinavia as a luxury good.
Leather: Work aprons, shoes, and other practical garments could also be made of leather. For example, tarbléine (literally, bull-tunic) may translate to a leather tunic, while cennatt refers to some sort of leather hat. With the enormous emphasis on meat in the Irish diet (especially beef, but also pork and small ruminants), animal skins were a common and valuable by-product which could serve many purposes. Valuable here is not to say expensive, since the majority of settlements butchered their own meat routinely and would have generated plentiful skins as a result. The finer skins could be sold to make parchment or vellum, and some hides (especially furs) were exported as trade goods, but there were clearly plenty of hides left for common farmers to make numerous shoes and other hide-goods.
Although the word “leather” often gets applied to anything made from animal hides, especially anything that has come from a bog, it must be noted here that not all Irish hide-goods were tanned (at least, not intentionally). The Irish understood tanning and practiced it where it was needful (14), using either oak bark or tormentil (Potentilla erecta) for tannins. However, tanning was a slow, laborious process and considered low-skill menial work. If an item could function without tanning, or indeed without finer processing at all, the Irish saw no need to waste the effort for something so cheap as, say, farm shoes. Thus, many of the hide-goods at Deer Park Farms “had been poorly prepared and retained some hair” (15).
According to Lucas, rawhide shoes were common in Ireland (16) and remained so into the 20th century. This may not be as uncomfortable as it sounds. As the Native Americans and other primitive peoples around the world have demonstrated, oil-preservation of softened, stretched hides can create wonderfully flexible, versatile products without the need for tanning. Of course, the addition of smoking the hide creates a chemical reaction within the oil-preserved hide that results in tanning, but which is very difficult to identify in archaeological finds that have been underground, waterlogged or soaking in bogs for a millennium. The small roundhouses of the Early Medieval Irish had central hearths and may indeed have been quite smoky, but even if no smoke-processing occurred, the hides would still have been soft and serviceable in a simple oiled state.
Materials for the Rich
Silk: On occasion the texts describe special outfits (such as those of heroes or unworldly beauties) as sítamail, or síoda, meaning made of síta (silk). Several tunics in one passage, for example, are listed as being made of bright, smooth silk. Silk was an expensive trade item produced in Asia, sometimes woven in Persia or Syria, so the availability of silk for making whole-cloth outfits would have been limited in Ireland (and evidence for wide-cloth silk there is nonexistent). As Elizabeth Heckett points out, “the Irish prized and used silk cloth at that time but at present excavations have not disclosed any remains of silk in what can be identified as specifically vernacular contexts” (17). Silk strips and braids have been a common find in Norse excavations in Ireland, so these may have been a traded commodity for the Irish. While it is possible that a few extremely luxurious tunics might have been entirely made of silk fabric, Irish use of silk was more likely limited to decorative trims and threads.
Patterns: Plaid woolen textiles existed in Ireland, as did checks and stripes, but the scale of the patterns was very, very small compared to popular notions of plaid. Like the Norse, whose taste shifted in the Iron Age to small-scale plaid and intricate weaves, the plaid and checkers in Irish textiles (where any are visible) more resemble the minute, subtle patterns of modern suit fabrics. Textured weaves such as diamond twill have been found but are rare.
Woven-in patterns of color would have been dyed first in the roving or as skeins of thread, prior to warping the loom. Large vats for dyeing whole, finished cloth have been found in Ireland, as well as lexical evidence, so the Irish likely dyed most of their fabric after cutting it from the loom. This corresponds well with their habit of spinning in-the-grease, rather than washing their fleece or roving; the lanolin in the wool helped oil the threads for weaving (and butter could be added as sizing, if needed), and was washed out of the resulting fabric, at which point dyeing would be far more effective. This suggests that most Irish fabrics were single-color cloth. Only the rich would likely have worn patterned fabrics.
Colors: Although Giraldus claims that the Irish sheep are all dark brown or black, the Irish word for unbleached fleece, “lachtna,” is also their word for light grey or the color of milk, so it seems that they kept a variety of sheep colors and had plenty of “bán olaind,” or white wool, that could be dyed in bright colors. The Irish certainly loved vibrant colors and valued the rights to display them. Legend attributes the invention of Irish sumptuary laws to King Tigernmas and King Laighaire (438 CE) (18):
According to Sanas Cormaic: an Old-Irish Glossary (22), bards and poets of certain higher ranks had the reserved privilege to wear cloaks decorated with bird plumage—perhaps drake feathers.
Meanwhile, numerous words for colors have been cited specifically modifying clothing:
Dye available to the Irish in this period would easily have produced a variety of yellow shades (weld, bracken, heather, broom, cleavers, crocus saffron, and onion skins (23)). Reds came mostly from madder, which is well-attested from extant fragments that have been tested. Madder was deliberately cultivated, and considered valuable property. Lichen also provided a red dye, though less popular. Iron, being prevalent, could have adjusted some shades as a mordant or as a modifier.
Blue shades came from woad, again a deliberately cultivated dye plant, particularly valued for its ability to dye linen without fading. Combinations of woad with yellow-producing dyes (especially weld) supplied various green shades.
Brilliant and deep gem tones are the hardest hues to achieve with these dyes, and so crimson, scarlet, purple, deep blue and deep green were all the most treasured of colors for clothing. There is evidence of a purple-scarlet dye made from dog whelk, in Early Medieval Ireland, according to Nancy Edwards, who highlights a workshop discovered in Co. Mayo that engaged in routine dye extraction from the shellfish (24). Purple also came from a lichen that was common on rocks in the northern regions, as well as in Scotland and Greenland; the lichen had to be at least 5 years old and was processed with stale urine into purple dye (25).
There is no evidence for the Irish wearing their tunics divided in color down the middle, particolored. However, the brat could be woven or sewn of many colors. The attached hood on a tunic could be an entirely different color from the rest of the tunic, or simply lined in a contrasting color; according to Giraldus, it could even be made of many strips of different-colored cloth, sewn together. There is also mention of King Domnall attempting to give “t-inar ildatac” (a jacket of many colors) (26) to his estranged foster-son, Prince Congal, so it seems that coats, cloaks and hoods could all be multicolored.
Decoration
Embroidery is mentioned frequently in descriptions of Irish clothing, as in the case of the legendary lady Etain, from Tochmarc Étaine, who appears wearing elaborate finery:
“a kirtle she wore, long-hooded, hard-smooth, of green silk, with red embroidery of gold. Marvelous clasps of gold and silver in the kirtle, on her breasts and her shoulders and spaulds on every side.” (27)
In many narratives, tunics and aprons bear heavy gold or silver thread embroideries as decorations, in addition to buttons, clasps, pins and brooches of fine metals. Details are not usually given about where or what these embroideries are, since the authors focus on the expense of the materials rather than the actual design. However, in carvings and manuscript illuminations, the bottom hem, sleeve hems and necklines show routine decoration, often as broad strips or bands of trim (featuring key, swirl, circle or knot patterns) along the bottom of tunics.
The Irish were also accomplished tablet-weavers and perfectly able to weave patterned trim bands, using bone, wood or leather tablets (as have been found in many Irish excavations, including the recent Drumclay Crannog dig in Enniskillen (28)). Tablet weaving allows stable pattern weaving and brocade decoration with a sturdy ground weave, so this may have been the method for producing gold or silver-worked ornamentation that was then applied to hems. There is some indication that the Irish would have been familiar with direct tablet-weaving on the edges of finished garments. They certainly knew more basic braiding and simple weaving for narrow-wares, any of which might have been used to decorate their garments.
Woven decoration could also include fringe, left hanging on the end of woven cloth or else woven specially into a tablet-woven band (like the wide trim on the Orkney hood). Long tapes or ribbons of woven fringe might have been applied to the edges of a garment, or attached as decoration somewhere on the surface of the cloth—the lexical evidence does not specify. What is clear is that words for the decorated culpait (of the hooded tunic) abound (see Irish Garb: Part 3).
Jewelry and especially pins/brooches were the most conspicuous items of decoration, and indeed have best survived in the archaeological record (thanks to treasure-hunting interest in early historians as well as the durability of the materials). Much has already been written elsewhere on that point, however, so here it will suffice to mention that the wealthy Irish adored beautiful metalwork, enamel, semi-precious and precious stones, amber, glass beads (especially blue rondels), and ivory/bone carving.
Materials for the Poor
Descriptions of poor people's garb in Irish literature are very rare. When it is mentioned, the tales usually call it brown, worn and full of holes. Sometimes they specify cloth and call it thread-bare, as if the poor received secondhand clothing that was falling apart. However, it is not safe to assume that most serfs and slaves received fabric clothing at all. Hide would have been significantly cheaper and more readily available, and longer-lasting, and certainly it played a large role in clothing for manual laborers—so it may have had an even more important role in clothing the poor.
A quick comparison of materials (wool and oiled hide) may help explain why the poor might be expected to wear hide tunics instead of wool, at least in the early period.
As far as labor is concerned, a rawhide tunic can be made in 6 steps: killing an animal (livestock, or hunting deer, elk, etc); skinning and rinsing the hide; fleshing (scraping off fat and muscles from the inner layer); dehairing (soaking it in aged urine, wood ashes, slaked lime or even just water to let the hair slip); stretching the hide (breaking the internal fibers to soften it as the collagen dries); oiling (with the fat or brains of the animal); and sewing the tunic. Adding a smoking step will make this oiled hide water-safe, so that it becomes washable, but living in a smokey house might accomplish this step over time by default. From start to finish, this project might be done in a week, with about 10 hours of labor total.
By contrast, wool requires hundreds of labor-hours to process into cloth. The wool animal must be raised and sheared, and the fleece sorted (sheep tending might take untold hours, but the sheep provided more than just wool, so perhaps it's safest to assign a low number, such as 50 labor hours a year, to this stage). The wool must be combed (the Irish typically did not wash the fleece in this period, but spun and wove in the grease, scouring only the finished fabric (29)), which estimates put at about 25 hours of labor per fleece, if not too dirty. The combed wool must be spun with distaff and spindle, which can take hundreds of hours of labor per fleece, even if spinning a coarser yarn than was normal in Ireland. Eve Fisher (30) estimates that for 4 yards of 36” wide cloth, at 25 threads per inch (very coarse), a weaver would need about 9,000 yards of thread—at least 500 hours of spinning. Then the spun wool thread must be warped onto a loom (in Ireland, this usually meant the two-beam vertical loom) and woven into fabric, steps which are both tedious and time-consuming (about 100 hours to warp, tie heddles, and weave 36” wide tabby, if the weaver is efficient). Finally, the finished fabric must be washed and stretched (another hour) and sewn into clothing (7+ labor hours, plus more thread, so more spinning). Thus a conservative estimate puts about 700 hours of labor into one coarse tunic, assuming that the family already owns the sheep flock, shears, combs, distaff, spindles, loom/weaving accessories, sewing needle and detergent. Making enough fabric just for the nuclear family occupied the whole family all year long (children and adults combed wool, men raised and sheared the sheep, women spun and wove the fabric year-round).
When time spent processing fiber meant time not spent processing food (gathering or butchering and preserving the harvest), this meant that everyone generally wore hide outfits, whether in the Neolithic period or just buckskin-wearing fur trappers in the American pioneer days. However, agricultural prosperity and food surpluses made time that could be spent making luxuries, like fabric and books and chairs and such. Fabric was definitely the preferred material for making clothing in the Early Medieval Period of Ireland, since it remained soft even when rained on, it was easy to wash, and it was softer and more breathable to wear. However, that disparity in labor cost (700 hours as opposed to 10) meant that a fabric tunic was far more precious than a hide tunic.
Giraldus Cambrensis confirms this notion later in the medieval period, when describing the men of Connaught, who were isolated enough to have avoided contact with the Normans. He claims these Irish go naked in good weather, and wear animal skins in cold weather, but they have no fabric and make no clothes (31). He also notes that they made no bread nor cheese, but lived on meat, fish and milk. Although Giraldus wrote with a bias, it does seem plausible that the most rural and isolated communities in Ireland were indeed still wearing hides, not textiles, even as late as the 1180's, simply from a practical standpoint. In rocky, hilly, isolated northwestern regions, where sheep did not thrive and flax could not grow, animal skin would indeed be the most sensible material.
Conclusion
The reenactor wishing to portray someone from Early Medieval Ireland should first consider the status and wealth that they wish to represent. Irish garb may have been quite stable over centuries, but it was not at all consistent over classes. The materials of the garment will inevitably say much about the status of the wearer.
From a pragmatic perspective, most reenactors in warm climates should consider 100% linen as the basic material for their tunic, ideally either in white or blue. Thin, fine wool (such as tropic weight suiting wool) is a reasonable alternative, but is probably a better choice for the trews than for the tunic, since it is likely that nobles and royalty wore linen tunics. Thicker wool (though still finely woven) should be used for making the coats and cloaks, while very fine gauze wool or linen should be chosen for veils. Belts were likely narrow, made of wool or leather, and furnished with metal buckles and tips.
Anyone wishing to portray a lower status should choose dusky colors of browns, greys, duns and black for their woolen tunics. Anyone wishing to portray poor, or very rural and isolated Irish, should wear brown, thread-bare wool tunics, or buckskin loincloths or buckskin tunics. Anyone wishing to go naked (however documentable) should consider modern decency laws in their area!
Silk, cotton, hemp, jute, and mixed-fiber textiles are not good choices for authentic clothing from this period and culture, as their presence in Ireland is either legendary or vanishingly rare.
Decoration should be either embroidered along hems, or consist of narrow woven trim bands or fringe. Appliqué, dramatic prints and patterns, large-scale plaids, wide brocades and lace are not attested in Early Medieval Ireland at this time.
To continue reading about Early Medieval Irish garb, go to Irish Garb: Part 3.
Sources
1) eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, edited by Gregory Toner, Máire Ni Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf and Dagmar Wodtko. <www.dil.ie> Updated 2019. Unless specified, all Irish words in this research have come from the eDIL.
2) Eska, Charlene [ed.]. Cáin Lánamna. An Old Irish Tract on Marriage and Divorce Law. Medieval Law and its Practice 5, Leiden. Brill, 2010.
3) Olann. 2013. In Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language. <dil.ie/33776>
4) Lynn, C.J. and J.A. McDowell. Deer Park Farms: The Excavation of a Raised Rath in the Glenarm Valley, Co. Antrim. Baird, 2011.
5) Giraldus Cambrensis. Topographia Hiberniae. 1188. Royal MS 13 B VIII f.1r-34v digitized by the British Library.
6) Kelly, Fergus. Early Irish Farming. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2000. p. 67-77
7) Hennessy, William, and Bartholomew MacCarthy [ed.]. “Annála Uladh: Annals of Ulster i-iv.” Dublin, 1887. ii 152.10
8) Binchy, D. [ed.] Corpus iruris hibernici, i-vii. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1978. Vol ii, 510.15-17
9) Hencken, Hugh. “Lagore Crannog: an Irish Royal Residence of the 7th to 10th centuries AD.” PRIA V.53, Section C, p. 1-247. 1950. p. 209
10) Ingstad, Anne Stine. “Textiles from the Oseberg, Gokstad and Kaupang.” Jorgensen et al, 1988. p.135
11) Lynn, DPF p. 354-358
12) Fitzgerald, Maria Amelia. Textile Production in Prehistoric and Early Medieval Ireland. Vol 1. Manchester Metropolitan University, 2000. p. 81
13) Ingstad, Anne Stine. Scott-Moncrief, C. K., trans. “The Functional Textiles from the Oseberg Ship.” Jorgensen and Tidow, Textilsymposium, p.85-94 (see also, Christensen, A. and Ingstad, Anne Stine. Oseberge Dronnings Grav – Vår Arkeologiske Nasjonalskatt i Nytt Lys. Oslo, 1992.)
14) Kelly, EIF p. 54-55
15) Lynn, DPF p. 368
16) Lucas, A. “Footwear in Ireland.” The Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol. XIII, No. 4, 1956. p.369
17) Heckett, Elizabeth Wincott. “Irish Viking Age Silks and Their Place in Hiberno-Norse Society.” Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, Paper 427, 2002.
18) MacAlister, R. A. Stewart, trans. Lebor Gabala Erenn. Irish Texts Society, Dublin, 1956. p. 208
19) Ancient Laws of Ireland: V.II: Senechus Mor pt.2: Laws of Distress, Laws of Hostage-sureties, Fosterage, Saer-stock Tenure, Daer-stock tenure and of Social Connexions. Thom; Longman, 1869. p.148
20) Kinsella, Thomas. The Tain. Oxford UP: Oxford, 1990.
21) Stokes, Whitley, trans. “Togail Bruidne Da Choca.” Revue Celtique. Ed. Emile Bouillon. Paris: Kraus Reprint, 1900. p.155
22) Sanas Cormaic: an Old-Irish Glossary compiled by Cormac ua Cuilennáin, King-Bishop of Cashel in the Ninth Century. Editor: Meyer, Kuno, 1912.
23) Kelly, EIF p. 263-269
24) Edwards, Nancy. The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland: Critical Social Thought. Routledge, 2013. p. 82-83
25) Østergård, Else. Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland. Aarhus University Press, 2009. p. 90
26) O'Donovan, John. The Banquet of Dun Na N'Gedh: and the Battle of Magh Rath, an Ancient Historical Tale. Irish Archaeological Society, 1842. p.38
27) Stokes, Whitely, trans. "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel." Epic and Saga. Harvard Classics no. 49. New York, P. F. Collier & son, 1910.
28) “Ministers Launch Crannog Finds,” Fermanagh Herald, June, 2013.
29) Lynn, DPF p. 363
30) Fisher, Eve. “The $3,500 Shirt—a History Lesson in Economics.” SleuthSayers Blog <www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html> 2013.
31) Giraldus Cambrensis. Forester, Thomas, trans. The Topography of Ireland. Medieval Latin Series, In Parenthesis Publications, Ontario, 2000. Original from 1196.
To read about the sources for documenting Irish garb, see Irish Garb: Part 1.
Materials
Bast fibers: The Irish grew copious amounts of flax, mostly for the sake of its long fibers. The flax plant, the fibers, and cloth made from the fibers were all called lín (1), or various derivatives of the word—such as linbratt (linen blanket/cloak). Linen was common but was associated with wealth, since producing linen from flax is a labor-intensive process. Because of this, Irish property law regulated values and ownership of flax sheaves, hackled flax fibers, and woven linen fabric. For instance, during a divorce, a farm wife was owed one sixth of any sheaves of flax harvested that year (2).
 |
| Book of Kells f.183r depiction of an angel wearing a blue leine and a red bratt. |
There have been suggestions that the nettle plant (ramie) was also in use for producing linen in Ireland prior to and contemporary with the rise of flax. Both nettle fiber and flax fiber have similar traits, so it is difficult to discern the difference in the very few extant fragments from the period. Likewise, lexical evidence for nettle fiber in Ireland is hard to isolate from flax linen, if it exists. Pollen analysis, though, proves that flax was being widely cultivated in Ireland at this time, making it the most likely source of linen fiber.
Hemp, however, was clearly in use in Ireland for making cables and sails; it was important enough to have its own name, cnáip, a word found associated with various words for harvesting, scutching, and tow. While it may have been too valuable a fiber for marine purposes to be wasted on clothing, nonetheless, the fiber was present and being processed, spun and woven into fabric in Ireland, and clothing could possibly have been made from it. If it was, however, no evidence of such hemp clothing currently survives.
Very rarely, the Irish tales call a garment, “do cotun,” or 'of cotton.' The Irish did trade for cotton during the medieval period—although their understanding of the fiber was skewed, for they believed that it came from wool that had been planted in the ground and raised like flax; thus they sometimes referred to it as “oland talman” (3), or earth-wool. This may have been the result of propaganda/marketing by the merchants who traded in cotton. Evidence for cotton textiles in Irish archaeology will likely remain scant, due partly to the climate bias, but mostly to the scarcity of this imported good.
Other bast fibers may have been in use, such as linden bark (one of the earliest bast fibers spun in northern Europe) or the inner bark from other trees. No evidence comes through the existing literature, if so. However, bark rope has been found in archaeological digs, so at least for coarse agricultural purposes (such as bucket handles) bark fiber cordage remained common. By the Early Medieval period, however, there is little to nothing to suggest that these fibers saw any mainstream use for textiles or clothing. It is safe to assume that the most common bast textiles were invariably made from flax linen.
All of the known examples of linen surviving from this period were finely spun Z (some tightly, some loosely) and and woven in a tight tabby weave (Z/Z), but very few fragments have lasted in the Irish climate (4). Wool endures the cool, wet conditions better.
Wool: According to Giraldus, the Irish wore thin wool tunics, which were nearly always “black, that being the colour of the sheep in this country” (5). Although he invalidates this critique on Irish sheep and color availability later within his own book (by criticizing the Irish for loving to wear too many colors at once), his commentary on the prevalence of wool may be legitimate.
Wool sheep (6) and wool processing feature prominently in Irish law, more so than the terms associated with flax and linen. All male children of the farming/land-owning classes in fosterage were required to be taught wool combing as one of the essential skills of life (7). Shearing the sheep and processing its fleece were typically male tasks in Ireland. Spinning and weaving the textiles were female tasks, and an Irish marriage law tract specifies the divisions of wool in a divorce based upon the wife's involvement in the labor to produce the goods: one sixth of the fleeces, one third of combed wool, but fully half of any finished cloth (8).
Certainly the majority of surviving textiles from Irish settlements encourage the view that finely spun, well-woven wool was an important and common fabric in Ireland. The majority of such wool was tabby woven (9), often tightly (creating a slightly ribbed weave, or repp (10)), but some twill, such as the fine red 2/1 twill found in Deer Park Farms (11), has survived.
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| Deer Park Farms: red twill fragment (4) |
The Irish were accomplished spinners of fine wool threads; the majority of finds where the fiber can be examined show a narrow range of thread twist (between 25º and 45º, a tight spin) and great consistency of spinning (12). This differs from the Hiberno-Norse threads of the Viking period in Ireland, which show much looser spinning, suggesting that the Irish preferred a tighter-spun thread and continued to produce it without change or influence from the Norse. The wool fibers were combed, not carded, producing a worsted roving that highlighted the luster of the thread and produced a smooth, shinier textile. Threads found in textiles from Lough Gara, Lagore and Ballinderry range from 0.3mm to 0.65mm in diameter, with some thicker yarns reaching up to 0.8mm in diameter (12).
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| MS 13B VIII f.19r The bearded lady is spinning thread with a waist distaff (which might just be a Norman artistic choice) and a top-whorl spindle. |
The cloth woven from these threads would generally have been tabby, not twill, for the Irish were known for their preference for weaving two-shed textiles, with Z-spun warp and weft singles (13). The fineness of the wool thread varies mostly by purpose of the intended cloth—a coarse weave of thicker threads can be more useful in some contexts than a delicate weave of narrower threads. What is certain is that the Irish specialized in very fine spinning and tabby weaving, which was sometimes exported and appears in wealthy graves in Scandinavia as a luxury good.
Leather: Work aprons, shoes, and other practical garments could also be made of leather. For example, tarbléine (literally, bull-tunic) may translate to a leather tunic, while cennatt refers to some sort of leather hat. With the enormous emphasis on meat in the Irish diet (especially beef, but also pork and small ruminants), animal skins were a common and valuable by-product which could serve many purposes. Valuable here is not to say expensive, since the majority of settlements butchered their own meat routinely and would have generated plentiful skins as a result. The finer skins could be sold to make parchment or vellum, and some hides (especially furs) were exported as trade goods, but there were clearly plenty of hides left for common farmers to make numerous shoes and other hide-goods.
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| Book of Kells f29v depiction of fancy leather shoes (most of the figures in the Book of Kells go barefoot). |
Although the word “leather” often gets applied to anything made from animal hides, especially anything that has come from a bog, it must be noted here that not all Irish hide-goods were tanned (at least, not intentionally). The Irish understood tanning and practiced it where it was needful (14), using either oak bark or tormentil (Potentilla erecta) for tannins. However, tanning was a slow, laborious process and considered low-skill menial work. If an item could function without tanning, or indeed without finer processing at all, the Irish saw no need to waste the effort for something so cheap as, say, farm shoes. Thus, many of the hide-goods at Deer Park Farms “had been poorly prepared and retained some hair” (15).
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| Drumclay Crannog shoe sole (photo from The News Letter article on Nov 29, 2012) |
According to Lucas, rawhide shoes were common in Ireland (16) and remained so into the 20th century. This may not be as uncomfortable as it sounds. As the Native Americans and other primitive peoples around the world have demonstrated, oil-preservation of softened, stretched hides can create wonderfully flexible, versatile products without the need for tanning. Of course, the addition of smoking the hide creates a chemical reaction within the oil-preserved hide that results in tanning, but which is very difficult to identify in archaeological finds that have been underground, waterlogged or soaking in bogs for a millennium. The small roundhouses of the Early Medieval Irish had central hearths and may indeed have been quite smoky, but even if no smoke-processing occurred, the hides would still have been soft and serviceable in a simple oiled state.
Materials for the Rich
Silk: On occasion the texts describe special outfits (such as those of heroes or unworldly beauties) as sítamail, or síoda, meaning made of síta (silk). Several tunics in one passage, for example, are listed as being made of bright, smooth silk. Silk was an expensive trade item produced in Asia, sometimes woven in Persia or Syria, so the availability of silk for making whole-cloth outfits would have been limited in Ireland (and evidence for wide-cloth silk there is nonexistent). As Elizabeth Heckett points out, “the Irish prized and used silk cloth at that time but at present excavations have not disclosed any remains of silk in what can be identified as specifically vernacular contexts” (17). Silk strips and braids have been a common find in Norse excavations in Ireland, so these may have been a traded commodity for the Irish. While it is possible that a few extremely luxurious tunics might have been entirely made of silk fabric, Irish use of silk was more likely limited to decorative trims and threads.
Patterns: Plaid woolen textiles existed in Ireland, as did checks and stripes, but the scale of the patterns was very, very small compared to popular notions of plaid. Like the Norse, whose taste shifted in the Iron Age to small-scale plaid and intricate weaves, the plaid and checkers in Irish textiles (where any are visible) more resemble the minute, subtle patterns of modern suit fabrics. Textured weaves such as diamond twill have been found but are rare.
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| Book of Kells f.129v showing an angel with a patterned blue leine (possibly just artistic rendering) |
Woven-in patterns of color would have been dyed first in the roving or as skeins of thread, prior to warping the loom. Large vats for dyeing whole, finished cloth have been found in Ireland, as well as lexical evidence, so the Irish likely dyed most of their fabric after cutting it from the loom. This corresponds well with their habit of spinning in-the-grease, rather than washing their fleece or roving; the lanolin in the wool helped oil the threads for weaving (and butter could be added as sizing, if needed), and was washed out of the resulting fabric, at which point dyeing would be far more effective. This suggests that most Irish fabrics were single-color cloth. Only the rich would likely have worn patterned fabrics.
Colors: Although Giraldus claims that the Irish sheep are all dark brown or black, the Irish word for unbleached fleece, “lachtna,” is also their word for light grey or the color of milk, so it seems that they kept a variety of sheep colors and had plenty of “bán olaind,” or white wool, that could be dyed in bright colors. The Irish certainly loved vibrant colors and valued the rights to display them. Legend attributes the invention of Irish sumptuary laws to King Tigernmas and King Laighaire (438 CE) (18):
- “áen dáth i n-edach mogad,” one color in the clothing of slaves (slaves: mogaid)
- “dá dath i n-édaigib aithech,” two colors for peasants (base clients: aithech)
- “trí datha i n-édaigib ogláech,” three colors for soldiers (vassals: óclach)
- “ceithri datha i n-édaigib óigthigen,” four colors for freemen (commoners: ócaire)
- “cóic datha i n-édaigib táiseach,” five colors for chieftains (wealthy class: aire)
- “sé datha i n-édaigib ollaman,” six colors for educated men. (experts, teachers, bards, scientists, judges and lawyers of the rank ollam)
- “seacht ndatha i n-édaigib ríg i rígan.” seven colors for royalty (king: rí)
According to Sanas Cormaic: an Old-Irish Glossary (22), bards and poets of certain higher ranks had the reserved privilege to wear cloaks decorated with bird plumage—perhaps drake feathers.
Meanwhile, numerous words for colors have been cited specifically modifying clothing:
- Purple: “purpuir,” Latin loan-word
- Red: “derg”
- Very red: “comderg”
- Crimson: “crón” from corcair, the lichen that renders crimson dye
- Magenta? Crimson: “corcorglan” sometimes glossed purple
- Reddish: “rú” or “roid” = red from madder (“madra”)
- Green: “glas”
- Very green: "forglass"
- Blue: “gorm” from woad (“glasen”)
- Yellow: “buide” or “buidhe” or “-bude”
- Saffron: “cróchdae” from the crocus (“cróch”)
- Dun: “donn”
- Shiny: “taídlech”
- Bright: “gel” (may mean vibrant or white)
- White: “finn”
- Very white: “abbán” or “adbán” or “airfind”
- Chalk white: “áel”
- Pure white: “bán”
Dye available to the Irish in this period would easily have produced a variety of yellow shades (weld, bracken, heather, broom, cleavers, crocus saffron, and onion skins (23)). Reds came mostly from madder, which is well-attested from extant fragments that have been tested. Madder was deliberately cultivated, and considered valuable property. Lichen also provided a red dye, though less popular. Iron, being prevalent, could have adjusted some shades as a mordant or as a modifier.
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| The Irish Evangelary in the Library of St. Gallen, Cod. Sang. 51, p.128 |
Blue shades came from woad, again a deliberately cultivated dye plant, particularly valued for its ability to dye linen without fading. Combinations of woad with yellow-producing dyes (especially weld) supplied various green shades.
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| Cod. Sang. 1395 p.418 |
Brilliant and deep gem tones are the hardest hues to achieve with these dyes, and so crimson, scarlet, purple, deep blue and deep green were all the most treasured of colors for clothing. There is evidence of a purple-scarlet dye made from dog whelk, in Early Medieval Ireland, according to Nancy Edwards, who highlights a workshop discovered in Co. Mayo that engaged in routine dye extraction from the shellfish (24). Purple also came from a lichen that was common on rocks in the northern regions, as well as in Scotland and Greenland; the lichen had to be at least 5 years old and was processed with stale urine into purple dye (25).
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| MS 60 f.193 showing a blue leine and a purple bratt. |
There is no evidence for the Irish wearing their tunics divided in color down the middle, particolored. However, the brat could be woven or sewn of many colors. The attached hood on a tunic could be an entirely different color from the rest of the tunic, or simply lined in a contrasting color; according to Giraldus, it could even be made of many strips of different-colored cloth, sewn together. There is also mention of King Domnall attempting to give “t-inar ildatac” (a jacket of many colors) (26) to his estranged foster-son, Prince Congal, so it seems that coats, cloaks and hoods could all be multicolored.
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| Cod. Sang. 51 p.208 |
Decoration
Embroidery is mentioned frequently in descriptions of Irish clothing, as in the case of the legendary lady Etain, from Tochmarc Étaine, who appears wearing elaborate finery:
“a kirtle she wore, long-hooded, hard-smooth, of green silk, with red embroidery of gold. Marvelous clasps of gold and silver in the kirtle, on her breasts and her shoulders and spaulds on every side.” (27)
In many narratives, tunics and aprons bear heavy gold or silver thread embroideries as decorations, in addition to buttons, clasps, pins and brooches of fine metals. Details are not usually given about where or what these embroideries are, since the authors focus on the expense of the materials rather than the actual design. However, in carvings and manuscript illuminations, the bottom hem, sleeve hems and necklines show routine decoration, often as broad strips or bands of trim (featuring key, swirl, circle or knot patterns) along the bottom of tunics.
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| The Cross of Muiredach: the arrest of Christ |
Woven decoration could also include fringe, left hanging on the end of woven cloth or else woven specially into a tablet-woven band (like the wide trim on the Orkney hood). Long tapes or ribbons of woven fringe might have been applied to the edges of a garment, or attached as decoration somewhere on the surface of the cloth—the lexical evidence does not specify. What is clear is that words for the decorated culpait (of the hooded tunic) abound (see Irish Garb: Part 3).
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| Deer Park Farms: glass beads (4) |
Jewelry and especially pins/brooches were the most conspicuous items of decoration, and indeed have best survived in the archaeological record (thanks to treasure-hunting interest in early historians as well as the durability of the materials). Much has already been written elsewhere on that point, however, so here it will suffice to mention that the wealthy Irish adored beautiful metalwork, enamel, semi-precious and precious stones, amber, glass beads (especially blue rondels), and ivory/bone carving.
Materials for the Poor
Descriptions of poor people's garb in Irish literature are very rare. When it is mentioned, the tales usually call it brown, worn and full of holes. Sometimes they specify cloth and call it thread-bare, as if the poor received secondhand clothing that was falling apart. However, it is not safe to assume that most serfs and slaves received fabric clothing at all. Hide would have been significantly cheaper and more readily available, and longer-lasting, and certainly it played a large role in clothing for manual laborers—so it may have had an even more important role in clothing the poor.
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| MS 13B VIII f.21r Saint Colman feeding the ducks |
A quick comparison of materials (wool and oiled hide) may help explain why the poor might be expected to wear hide tunics instead of wool, at least in the early period.
As far as labor is concerned, a rawhide tunic can be made in 6 steps: killing an animal (livestock, or hunting deer, elk, etc); skinning and rinsing the hide; fleshing (scraping off fat and muscles from the inner layer); dehairing (soaking it in aged urine, wood ashes, slaked lime or even just water to let the hair slip); stretching the hide (breaking the internal fibers to soften it as the collagen dries); oiling (with the fat or brains of the animal); and sewing the tunic. Adding a smoking step will make this oiled hide water-safe, so that it becomes washable, but living in a smokey house might accomplish this step over time by default. From start to finish, this project might be done in a week, with about 10 hours of labor total.
By contrast, wool requires hundreds of labor-hours to process into cloth. The wool animal must be raised and sheared, and the fleece sorted (sheep tending might take untold hours, but the sheep provided more than just wool, so perhaps it's safest to assign a low number, such as 50 labor hours a year, to this stage). The wool must be combed (the Irish typically did not wash the fleece in this period, but spun and wove in the grease, scouring only the finished fabric (29)), which estimates put at about 25 hours of labor per fleece, if not too dirty. The combed wool must be spun with distaff and spindle, which can take hundreds of hours of labor per fleece, even if spinning a coarser yarn than was normal in Ireland. Eve Fisher (30) estimates that for 4 yards of 36” wide cloth, at 25 threads per inch (very coarse), a weaver would need about 9,000 yards of thread—at least 500 hours of spinning. Then the spun wool thread must be warped onto a loom (in Ireland, this usually meant the two-beam vertical loom) and woven into fabric, steps which are both tedious and time-consuming (about 100 hours to warp, tie heddles, and weave 36” wide tabby, if the weaver is efficient). Finally, the finished fabric must be washed and stretched (another hour) and sewn into clothing (7+ labor hours, plus more thread, so more spinning). Thus a conservative estimate puts about 700 hours of labor into one coarse tunic, assuming that the family already owns the sheep flock, shears, combs, distaff, spindles, loom/weaving accessories, sewing needle and detergent. Making enough fabric just for the nuclear family occupied the whole family all year long (children and adults combed wool, men raised and sheared the sheep, women spun and wove the fabric year-round).
When time spent processing fiber meant time not spent processing food (gathering or butchering and preserving the harvest), this meant that everyone generally wore hide outfits, whether in the Neolithic period or just buckskin-wearing fur trappers in the American pioneer days. However, agricultural prosperity and food surpluses made time that could be spent making luxuries, like fabric and books and chairs and such. Fabric was definitely the preferred material for making clothing in the Early Medieval Period of Ireland, since it remained soft even when rained on, it was easy to wash, and it was softer and more breathable to wear. However, that disparity in labor cost (700 hours as opposed to 10) meant that a fabric tunic was far more precious than a hide tunic.
Giraldus Cambrensis confirms this notion later in the medieval period, when describing the men of Connaught, who were isolated enough to have avoided contact with the Normans. He claims these Irish go naked in good weather, and wear animal skins in cold weather, but they have no fabric and make no clothes (31). He also notes that they made no bread nor cheese, but lived on meat, fish and milk. Although Giraldus wrote with a bias, it does seem plausible that the most rural and isolated communities in Ireland were indeed still wearing hides, not textiles, even as late as the 1180's, simply from a practical standpoint. In rocky, hilly, isolated northwestern regions, where sheep did not thrive and flax could not grow, animal skin would indeed be the most sensible material.
Conclusion
The reenactor wishing to portray someone from Early Medieval Ireland should first consider the status and wealth that they wish to represent. Irish garb may have been quite stable over centuries, but it was not at all consistent over classes. The materials of the garment will inevitably say much about the status of the wearer.
From a pragmatic perspective, most reenactors in warm climates should consider 100% linen as the basic material for their tunic, ideally either in white or blue. Thin, fine wool (such as tropic weight suiting wool) is a reasonable alternative, but is probably a better choice for the trews than for the tunic, since it is likely that nobles and royalty wore linen tunics. Thicker wool (though still finely woven) should be used for making the coats and cloaks, while very fine gauze wool or linen should be chosen for veils. Belts were likely narrow, made of wool or leather, and furnished with metal buckles and tips.
Anyone wishing to portray a lower status should choose dusky colors of browns, greys, duns and black for their woolen tunics. Anyone wishing to portray poor, or very rural and isolated Irish, should wear brown, thread-bare wool tunics, or buckskin loincloths or buckskin tunics. Anyone wishing to go naked (however documentable) should consider modern decency laws in their area!
Silk, cotton, hemp, jute, and mixed-fiber textiles are not good choices for authentic clothing from this period and culture, as their presence in Ireland is either legendary or vanishingly rare.
Decoration should be either embroidered along hems, or consist of narrow woven trim bands or fringe. Appliqué, dramatic prints and patterns, large-scale plaids, wide brocades and lace are not attested in Early Medieval Ireland at this time.
To continue reading about Early Medieval Irish garb, go to Irish Garb: Part 3.
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| IE TCD MS 56 f.22r |
Sources
1) eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, edited by Gregory Toner, Máire Ni Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf and Dagmar Wodtko. <www.dil.ie> Updated 2019. Unless specified, all Irish words in this research have come from the eDIL.
2) Eska, Charlene [ed.]. Cáin Lánamna. An Old Irish Tract on Marriage and Divorce Law. Medieval Law and its Practice 5, Leiden. Brill, 2010.
3) Olann. 2013. In Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language. <dil.ie/33776>
4) Lynn, C.J. and J.A. McDowell. Deer Park Farms: The Excavation of a Raised Rath in the Glenarm Valley, Co. Antrim. Baird, 2011.
5) Giraldus Cambrensis. Topographia Hiberniae. 1188. Royal MS 13 B VIII f.1r-34v digitized by the British Library.
6) Kelly, Fergus. Early Irish Farming. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2000. p. 67-77
7) Hennessy, William, and Bartholomew MacCarthy [ed.]. “Annála Uladh: Annals of Ulster i-iv.” Dublin, 1887. ii 152.10
8) Binchy, D. [ed.] Corpus iruris hibernici, i-vii. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1978. Vol ii, 510.15-17
9) Hencken, Hugh. “Lagore Crannog: an Irish Royal Residence of the 7th to 10th centuries AD.” PRIA V.53, Section C, p. 1-247. 1950. p. 209
10) Ingstad, Anne Stine. “Textiles from the Oseberg, Gokstad and Kaupang.” Jorgensen et al, 1988. p.135
11) Lynn, DPF p. 354-358
12) Fitzgerald, Maria Amelia. Textile Production in Prehistoric and Early Medieval Ireland. Vol 1. Manchester Metropolitan University, 2000. p. 81
13) Ingstad, Anne Stine. Scott-Moncrief, C. K., trans. “The Functional Textiles from the Oseberg Ship.” Jorgensen and Tidow, Textilsymposium, p.85-94 (see also, Christensen, A. and Ingstad, Anne Stine. Oseberge Dronnings Grav – Vår Arkeologiske Nasjonalskatt i Nytt Lys. Oslo, 1992.)
14) Kelly, EIF p. 54-55
15) Lynn, DPF p. 368
16) Lucas, A. “Footwear in Ireland.” The Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol. XIII, No. 4, 1956. p.369
17) Heckett, Elizabeth Wincott. “Irish Viking Age Silks and Their Place in Hiberno-Norse Society.” Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, Paper 427, 2002.
18) MacAlister, R. A. Stewart, trans. Lebor Gabala Erenn. Irish Texts Society, Dublin, 1956. p. 208
19) Ancient Laws of Ireland: V.II: Senechus Mor pt.2: Laws of Distress, Laws of Hostage-sureties, Fosterage, Saer-stock Tenure, Daer-stock tenure and of Social Connexions. Thom; Longman, 1869. p.148
20) Kinsella, Thomas. The Tain. Oxford UP: Oxford, 1990.
21) Stokes, Whitley, trans. “Togail Bruidne Da Choca.” Revue Celtique. Ed. Emile Bouillon. Paris: Kraus Reprint, 1900. p.155
22) Sanas Cormaic: an Old-Irish Glossary compiled by Cormac ua Cuilennáin, King-Bishop of Cashel in the Ninth Century. Editor: Meyer, Kuno, 1912.
23) Kelly, EIF p. 263-269
24) Edwards, Nancy. The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland: Critical Social Thought. Routledge, 2013. p. 82-83
25) Østergård, Else. Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland. Aarhus University Press, 2009. p. 90
26) O'Donovan, John. The Banquet of Dun Na N'Gedh: and the Battle of Magh Rath, an Ancient Historical Tale. Irish Archaeological Society, 1842. p.38
27) Stokes, Whitely, trans. "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel." Epic and Saga. Harvard Classics no. 49. New York, P. F. Collier & son, 1910.
28) “Ministers Launch Crannog Finds,” Fermanagh Herald, June, 2013.
29) Lynn, DPF p. 363
30) Fisher, Eve. “The $3,500 Shirt—a History Lesson in Economics.” SleuthSayers Blog <www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html> 2013.
31) Giraldus Cambrensis. Forester, Thomas, trans. The Topography of Ireland. Medieval Latin Series, In Parenthesis Publications, Ontario, 2000. Original from 1196.
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