Cardinal Keith O’Brien and piper Louise Marshall Millington unveil the world’s first papal visit tartan

A new tartan to mark Pope’s visit to Scotland has been unveiled.  This limited edition tartan was designed by Matthew Newsome and created in conjunction with two Scottish companies – Ingles Buchan of Glasgow and Clan Italia of Falkirk.

Mr Newsome said he drew on Roman Catholic and Scottish history to create the blue, white, green, red and yellow design. The meaning behind these colours is:

• White line on blue field – represents Scotland’s national colours

• Green – reflects lichens growing on stones of Whithorn in Galloway

• White lines with red lines – the colours of Cardinal Newman’s crest

• Yellow lines with the white – reflecting colours of the Vatican

Cardinal O’Brien said: “It’s a great honour to be able to hand over the first ever tartan created for a papal visit as a thank you to all the Holyrood parliamentarians who have been so overwhelmingly supportive of this visit, knowing it means so much to the Catholic community and many others in this country.

“I also intend to gift the tartan to the Holy Father only a week from today.

“What could give him a greater Scottish welcome than a new tartan created in honour of this historic visit?”

The Papal Tartan

The Pope is due to begin his visit on Thursday, 16 September in Edinburgh where he will be received by the Queen before celebrating Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.

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