There has been a widely accepted story that the kicking or sweeping movements of the legs in the first step represented the attempt of the dancer to shake off the "despicable" trews, but D. G. MacLennan wrote in Traditional Highland and Scottish Dances that "this first step has nothing to do with the idea of kicking off the trews, but ... is new to the dance and was composed by myself".
[1] The seann triubhas, then, is simply about a pair of old trews which may or may not have been a subject of distaste or fun to the wearer, and may or may not have something to do with the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.
In her Memoirs of a Highland Lady, Elizabeth Grant recounted that in 1805 she "danced my Shean Trews ... in a new pair of yellow (!)
Other steps have been published by G. Douglas Taylor,[7] William Cameron,[8] D. G. MacLennan,[9] and Joan & Tom Flett.
At the higher levels the SOBHD will release a different order of steps for each year to be danced in championship competitions.