Yes, only last week it was Saint Patrick’s Day, but today is already the time to put your casual trousers back on.
Wonder why we jumped from the all things Irish celebration to trousers? Let yourself be surprised, as trousers have much more to do with Ireland than most would suppose. Indeed, the word trousers is a borrowing of Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
Trousers is not among the easily recognisable Irish words encountered in the English language, but the term does originate from the Gaelic word triubhas. Just think of the Scottish Highland dance Seann Triubhas, which literally translates from Gaelic as Old Trousers, does it make sense now? When not, let us follow the meaning of the Gaelic word triubhas, described as: “An item of clothing worn on the lower part of the body and covering both legs separately.”, does it sound familiar enough?
The first written reference comes from 15th century Scottish scholar Whitley Stokes and his Irish Glosses, yet the first written description of full Irish attire, which leaves no place for doubt for the origin of the word trousers, comes from 1581 Calendar of State Papers of Ireland: ”They had each of them a hat, a leather jacket, a pair of hosen, which they called trowes [trousers], and a pair of brogue”
The Irish trousers were adopted into the English language only a few decades later and the first written reference clearly showcases the word’s Irish origins. It was Shakespeare to be the first to embrace the Irish garment in Henry V, 1618, where Dauphin mocked Constable’s appearance with the words: “ you rode like a Kern [a Gaelic soldier] of Ireland, your French Hose off, and in your strait trousers”.
Two and a half centuries later, the trousers were still acclaimed for their Gaelic origin, for example in Edward Gibbon’s, 1776, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the emperor Tetricus was described as: “dressed in Gaelic trousers”.
Yet the most colourful reference comes from a 17th century folklore wit, which goes in the spirit of – A jealous wife is like Irish trousers, always close to a man’s bottom.
We would naturally wonder how a jealous man was described then, as women started to largely wear trousers only in the early 20th century.
