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| (Leprechaun Engraving, c. 1900) |
Leprechauns didn’t always look like they leaped from the depths of a Lucky Charms box. In fact, the green that has become symbolic of their Irish heritage was “historically” red.
Wikipedia cites many examples of leprechauns that were decked out in red.
This 1831 description comes from Samuel Lover:
quite a beau in his dress… for he wears a red-square coat laced with gold… Yeats agreed that solitary leprechauns
wore “red jackets” (each with seven rows of buttons - and with seven buttons per row), yet he described more gregarious leprechauns as wearing green.
McAnally, in his 1888 book Irish Wonders, adds “red breeches buckled at the knee” to the fashion statement. McAnally
also emphasized that style
changed, depending upon which region a leprechaun was from. Leprechauns
from the North wore military red coats and white breeches. Those from Tipperary wore “antique slashed” red jackets “with peaks all round.” Leprechauns from Kerry had “jolly round” faces that were nearly as red as their cut-a-way jackets. Those from Monaghan wore “a swallow-tailed evening coat of red with green vest.”
Although modern-day leprechaun outfits are mostly green, some still see red upon viewing them. In an article
titled Dispelling Irish Stereotypes, Marese
Heffernan cautions against confusing Irish people with the Irish leprechaun stereotypes: Irish people are not
all particularly short, we are not all elderly males,
we incorporate a range of colours into our
wardrobes, we do not carry alcohol wherever we go
and have better things to do than
stand under a fictitious rainbow.
Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun
http://voices.yahoo.com/dispelling-irish-stereotypes-4835078.html
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