McCains and Gaelic Society

One of the harder things to communicate about the McCains is their place within Gaelic society, of how they looked, their physical culture, etc. This is because of Hollywood and it reliance upon Victorian concepts of Gaels, and Victorian development of the stage Irishman or stage Highlander. Hollywood and the media in general picked up these themes to the extent that much of the modern concepts of what is Irish or Scottish or Gaelic, comes not from anything remotely real, but dates to some very silly Victorian era concepts.






















While I do not have the time today write a decent article on this subject, I did want to post the illustration to the left as I thought it communicated so well the Gaelic World that the McCains did live in, the real Gaelic world.

The illustration is done by Angus McBride, noted illustrator of history books, especially those dealing in military history. I like the illustration as in it you see several times of Gaels that you would have normally seen together including the Gallóglaigh class of the McCains.

My son sent me the illustration and I am not sure which Angus McBride book it is from, but it looks to be a gathering of Gaels landing at Dunluce Castle in north Antrim. You can spot the Gallóglaigh in the foreground with the long saffron coloured leine that comes down to his lower calf. You can see the Irish lord, probably a Mac Dónaill, with his red cape looking down on the off-loading of perhaps Spainish wine. Irish and Argyll Gaels are also in the illustration, an obvious Highlander with his belted plaid, then some Irish Gaelis in saffron shirts (i.e. the leine) that are shorted and not a 'fashionable' as is the Gallóglaigh one. The dress of the Gallóglaigh is very much like that of the Irish lord, as his status in Gaelic society was high. If you click on the illustration it will bring up a larger version.

If you would like to know what a McCain would have looked like, he would be dressed in the long saffron coloured leine down at the water's edge, with the brown plaid around his shoulders. That very easily could have been 'an Mac Eáin' or the head of the McCain family in Antrim circa mid 1500s.


Barry R McCain (c) 2008