Before the Kilt: How the Irish and Scots Dressed in the 16th Century Paperback – August 1, 2011

Paintings and etchings from the period to illustrate clear descriptions of the clothing highlight the clear explanations.

The best collection of art and historical descriptions of Gaelic clothing I have ever found. The author gives great insight and explanation showing clothing as a outward identifier of the Gaelic speaking people of Ireland and Scotland. Excellent cultural history for the first chapter of the book showing the significance of the distinct Gaelic clothing of the 16th century. Very well researched and written.

I bought the book to use as a visual reference for making reenactment clothing and to show the public at reeeactments, this book's pictures are beyond useless for this purpose. How poor is the quality of the images? Well it's as bad as googling "Gallowglass" and finding an image that is 400x300 and blowing it up to full screen on a 1080p monitor, every image is EXTREMELY pixelated. The photos I posted (1-3) might look a little blurry but look how sharp the text is in each and then compare them to picture 4, which is just a photo I took with my phone of my monitor of the Durer drawing from Wikipedia that they used for the cover, see how much more detail it has! I'm not even going to read the book, though it might have good information, the laziness shown in the selection of the images leads me to wonder about the content of the text. I am so very disappointed! Google the information and images yourself, as the author stated in a "rebuttal review" above, there aren't that many period images of Irish and Scots out there, so you will easily find better quality images for free.

for a book that is about clothing, it needs far more illustrations. while a slim volume it could have been easily expanded and more worth the money by that feature alone. a picture is STILL worth a thousand words.

Tá an leabhar seo an-suimiúil. Mínítear ann conas mar a ghléas na hÉireannaigh iad féin fadó. Más mian leat eolas a chur ar conas mar a bhí na Gaeil gléasta, is fiú go mór an leabhar seo a léamh.

Not a lot of information in this book. It is poorly written with very few photos or patterns to learn from. I was expecting a bit more reference but it comes across as opinion. Really not very useful for those looking to do historical costume.

The author did a good job of bringing together illustrations and descriptions of the 16th century clothing. No really new information or revelations.

I am so glad to have this unique information and historical documentation as I seek to recreate my lowland Scots heritage. I've long suspected inaccuracies in the traditions, and now I know the truth.

Very interesting book with good illustrations of how people actually did dress in the olden times. I think the reader will be surprised – as I was – to learn that the past wasn’t exactly as we’ve been led to believe through historic movies and that sort of thing.

Very pleased. This is a very interesting book and very informative.

splendid