Irish travellers and their association with Roma Gypsies

by Faolchu Mon Dec 27, 2004 20:41

It's simple. They led a similar lifestyle to the Romany gypsies of Britain. They travelled in similar wagons and were colourful. So people called them gypsies.

by Cathal Campbell-Shaw Wed Mar 02, 2005 14:39 cathal_campbell_shaw at mail dot ie

I've just read that the goverment will be asked to justify the treatment of Travellers in Ireland by the UN when the latter presents a report on Ireland's record in combatting all forms of racism today.

What have Travellers got to do with racicm? That's basically the jist of my first question.

by MG Wed Mar 02, 2005 14:46

Travellers are an etnic group. Racism isn't only about skin colour.

by Cathal Campbell-Shaw Wed Mar 02, 2005 17:15 cathal_campbell_shaw at mail dot ie

I though racism applied to race, not ethnicity. Can Austrians be racist towards Germans? It seems like poor usage of the term to me.
Also, I wouldn't regard travellers as an ethnic group. Is Ireland not supposed to be a nation with people of different heritages? I would see travellers as having there own heritage, while still being Irish. Same would apply to Norman-Irish, Anglo-Irish, Scots-Irish and Native/Gaelic-Irish etc. I have a Scottish ancestry. Am I ethnically Irish?
If your going to call Travellers an ethnic group, then why not call the working class an ethnic group also. They live in different types of dwellings from middle class Irish, speak differently, have a different type of education, work different jobs.. etc. etc.

by Deirdre Wed Sep 14, 2005 14:51

Just a note to say that Travellers language Cant/Gammon (or Shelta as it is called by academics only) is not a jumbled form of Irish. A couple of words like laicin seem like Irish when reversed but this is not enough to say that a language is a derivative of another. Important to remember. English has words that come directly from other languages and related languages can be linked via cognates but they are defined as being languages in their own right nonetheless. : )

by suspicious Thu Sep 15, 2005 01:22

I wonder how many mortgage holders or their tenants or sub-let tenants care how their capital is traded beyond the mere saving of a deposit and the monthly bill.
you got a clean bank?
no none of you do.
in the greatest scales of good and evil the travellers and roma are right up their on the rightous side along with the homeless. & alas, many will find that funny or even more blindly think it offensive.

by edward connors Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:09 eddybodhran at rock dot com

I am an Irish traveller and reading your comments I can see your lack of understanding of travellers and the travelling life. you all just look from the out side and ask questions to each other not to travellers so what understanding you gain is limited.

you can not put Irish travellers in to a stereotype though we come under the same heading are life’s are as different as yours. people think to be a traveller you must live on the side of the road in a caravan.
that is not what being a traveller is . as soon as you are born in to a travelling family you are a traveller for life no matter what you do.

I feel very blest to be a traveller, as I now who I belong to. I am part of a people that looks after there own I can meet strangers but if there travellers they wont harm me and i wont harm them . the very opposite in fact thell bend over backwards to accommodate me .unlike many young people to day my life has a direction i don’t feel lost and wondering what am i going to do.

traveller have very close families and most if they can help it will live close together. the most important member of a travellers family is the oldest. we look after and treat the old with respect. we lesson to there advise and to the storeys they tell of long ago. as many travellers can not read or write we still pass on storeys though word of mouth. people say that traveller are good at dealing and talking. well if that was the only way you could make a living you’d be good to.

The travellers have there own language that is all ill say about it, as it was kept secret for hundreds of years and only now stupid travellers are writing books or telling every one they meet so that thell feel important. the language will loose it usefulness and there for will be lost.

just some thought from an Irish traveller thanks

by Katharine Sat Feb 17, 2007 09:55

Thank you edward for your comments
Of course some settled people are curious about travellers because your lives are different
and to most of us pretty well unknown
I don't know much but recently begun to appreciate
the strong points of travellers lifestyle

It seems to me that there people have been nomadic for much
longer time (100,000 years) than settled and that
5,000 years of settled life is well on the way
to finishing off the planet as a place to live
I don't see why people assume that Travellers were all forced onto
the road because in past times it was possible to make a
good living Travelling and Travellers were
more welcome to come with their trades, news, music etc.

by martin - western traveller and intercurial development Tue Sep 18, 2007 14:19

I am an Irish traveller and am proud of my Irish Traveller Heritage.Their is doucmented evidence that some Travellers were evicted on to the road side.Wheter by Cromwell or the 1740 famine does not matter at this stage in saying that it is a fact it happened.I come from one of the oldest Traveller families in the country and many of my people were evicted this was a sad chapter in Irish History.

martin

by ciara Wed Sep 19, 2007 00:40

Martin, its good to hear you are proud of your Traveler heritage.

You say that the origins of Traveling people could be in their eviction on to the side of the roads some centuries back and you refer to this as a "sad chapter in Irish History". Does this mean that you find it regrettable that these events brought about the existence of a group of people who are considered separate to the rest of the people on the Island of Ireland? (Be it separated by "race" culture or any other socially constructed formation?) Just curious.

Edward Connors - you say peoples' "lack of understanding of travellers" is down to "ask(ing) questions to each other not to travellers". So I would like to pose a question to you as a Traveler and hopefully gain some insight. You say that to be born into a traveling family is what makes one a Traveler, not the actual traveling. Am I getting you correctly? You say that it is not living in caravans or on the side of the road, so what is it that makes one a traveler? Is someone a traveler if there mother but not their father is a Traveler, or the other way round? Or how about if their grandfather was/is one? What is it about Travelers that makes them different? Would very much like to hear an Irish Traveler's view on this.

Thanks

Ciara (a curious Settler)

by sooblic - tlf traveller liberation front Fri Nov 16, 2007 23:59

there is a old belife amongst the wider comunity of ireland that travellers are of a seperate liniage and gene pool they would like to think that travellers some how made thier way to ireland from europe and are of gypsie origin when they are told that is not true they asume travellers were created at the time of the patato famines this is partley true tho alot of people did take to the road at this time in order to survive hunger and hardships but then when they are told travellers go back all the way to the twelfth centurey maybe even earlier thiere mouth drops with astonishtment because they do not want to belive or acsept travellers are the result of war invasion and evictions could it possibley be that travellers are the decendents of the great irish clans who faught the normans and english and were then driven from thier lands and were forced to wonder the with and breth of ireland for hundreds of years still to this day .you see this truth is not acsepted because it would be an admission that settled and traveller people are infact a comon foe and share the same ancestery you can agree or disagre with this coment but remember all you have to do is look at the facts look up historicle records of clans and people being evicted from thier lands or homes they will have the same sunames as travellers living in the same area today

by Sage & Thyme Sat Nov 17, 2007 09:46

A Short History of Gypsies & Travellers in Britain & Ireland

To look at this subject we must first establish the various kinds of Travellers and Gypsies and then look at their origins.

Here follows a list of nomadic people in Britain & Ireland :
Romany Gypsies
Roma
Welsh Travellers, Kale
Irish Travellers
Scottish Travellers
New Travellers
Bargees
Showmen
Circus People

Let us now look at the history and culture of these Travelling groups.

Romany Gypsies are, by far, the largest group of Travelling people in the UK. They were thought to have originated from Egypt, hence the name Gypsy. However the studies of English Romany in the 19th century lead to the conclusion that their origins were from northern India. Scholars such as John Samson realised that English Romany language was mainly Sanskrit with foreign words added. These words would have been picked up along the way and incorporated into their native tongue. It is possible to track their progress through Europe by the words they now speak. There are still Roma tribes living in India who share the same linguistic and cultural roots. We know now that they left India about 1000 A.D. They arrived in Western Europe about 1300 and crossed over into Britain about 1514 when we have the first record of them. By then many of them had accepted the Catholic faith mainly because they could mask themselves as pilgrims and could travel anywhere in Europe without hindrance. When they arrived in Britain, it was at the time of the protestant reformation and Henry V111 thought of them as dangerous spies for the Roman Church. In 1530 Henry forbade Gypsies to come into the country. In 1554 Mary 1 passed a law in England making it a crime, punishable by death, to enter the country as a Gypsy. Elizabeth 1 passed a law, that if Gypsies did not give up their way of life they would be put to death and their belongings taken away. The Romany Gypsies survived all of these persecutions and became a useful part of country life. The farming community used Gypsies and Travellers for many years to harvest the crops. They were useful in that, they were itinerant and after their work was done were happy to move on elsewhere. The word Romany comes from the word Rom which means in Romany, man or human being. Romany people have a strong family based culture where the family is very much their support system. Romany people are from birth to death, governed by strict hygiene laws known as Mochadi which can be translated as unclean. Romany’s believe cleanliness to be of great importance and strict principles have been laid down. Washing one’s hands is very important:
*Prior to handling food or dishes,
*After getting dressed in the morning
*Before going to the kitchen.
To a Gypsy, bodily fluids are thought to be “Dirty”, therefore latrines are to be well away from the living area. This is why Gypsies find modern housing very difficult as it breaks Mochadi. To the Romany a house is a dark and depressing place because they are very much out of doors people.
Roma are Romany Gypsies who have arrived here in the last century mainly as refugees from Eastern Europe. Under Stalin the Roma as they call themselves, were forced to settle, they literally took the wheels off their caravans and in some parts of Eastern Europe they are still living in those vans. However Stalin set up Roma schools all over the Soviet Union and wrote down Romany in Russian script. He wanted to create a Roma communist elite and in some circumstances he succeeded. Many of the children in these schools became high up officials in government and the Red Army. At the collapse of the Soviet State the Roma became the target for racial abuse and this continues to this day.
Welsh Romany’s or Kale as they call themselves, are mostly the descendants off Abram Wood, who was a talented violinist. They entered Wales about 1700 and until recently they spoke their own type of Romany which is very much more like continental Romany and was of great interest to the linguist John Samson. He thought of it as being a purer language and thought it was far closer to the original language of those who left India a thousand years ago.

The Irish Travellers are one of the oldest Travelling people of the British Isles and some scholars believe them to be the descendents of the original hunter gatherer people of these islands. They speak two languages, Gammon and Cant . They were at one time tin smiths, tinkers and peddlers and also brought information from place to place. This was valued because before 1700 Dublin was the only Irish town to have its own news paper. In culture they have the same hygiene laws as the Romany Travellers, which is very much a mystery to anthropologists as they have little to do with each other and intermarriage is rare even to this day.
Groups of Scottish Travellers developed between 1500 and 1800 from Scottish craft workers, who married into immigrant Romany groups from France and Spain. In 1969 one third of them were still living in tents. Much of Scotland’s traditional music has been collected from Traveller families. They have their own language which is known as Cant. To this day the Scottish Parliament refuses to count them as an ethnic minority.
New Travellers or as some quite wrongly call them New Age Travellers started to form in the 1970s. Most of them come from the settled community and there are many reasons for this. Some chose the way of life because they thought it was better for the environment, being that they used less of the worlds depleting energy stocks. Others however are just poor people who have been forced through economic circumstances to live on the road. In the dark old days of unemployment and the poll tax, many young people from the North and from the Midlands where poverty and unemployment were at there highest, groups of homeless young people simply did what the then minister told them to do, they bought old vehicles such as Buses, Lorries and took to the road to live like Gypsies. Today many of those people would like to come off the road but because they are being constantly moved on they have no chance of getting into council housing.
Bargees are a distinct group of Travellers who live and work on barges. There are now very few Bargees in Britain as canals are no longer usually used to carry freight. However some New Travellers wishing to get away from constantly being moved on by local authorities have bought up old narrow boats and travel on the canals. Recently this has come under fire from the water authority, who again want to move them on.
The Showmen and Circus people probably travel the most out of all these groups. The word fair comes from the Latin word Feria meaning holiday. There were probably fairs in Britain before the Roman invasion. In the middle ages, traders from Europe brought goods to trade from all over the world. Travelling entertainers such as jugglers, musicians and tumblers performed wherever people gathered to buy their goods. Rides first appeared in the 1800s. In 1889 the fair ground people formed the Showmen’s Guild. Some of the guild members are from Gypsy decent, others are not but this made them distinct from all other Travellers.
The first Circuses were travelling shows with musicians, jugglers and acrobats performing in open spaces and collecting money for acts. Later circuses were held in enclosed spaces and people paid to watch. The first modern circus was held in London in 1768, but tents were probably not used until the 1820s.

The plight of Gypsies Travellers today is not easy. In 1968 a law was passed saying that each council had an obligation to provide a site for every Traveller. This promise was never honoured and the sites that were provided were often old rubbish tips or even under flyovers, places no one else would want to live. In 1994 the conservative government abolished the Caravan Sites Act and took away the obligation for local councils to provide sites. At least 5000 families were left without any legal home. The Gypsies and Travellers were told that they should look for their own sites and that councils would give them planning permission. Again this never happened and families were forced to either go into housing or apply for planning permission retrospectively, because no Gypsy could ever get planning permission granted because of local prejudice. In recent years many of the old traditional stopping places such as commons, old roads etc. have been sealed up and this has made it more difficult to live on the road. Those who have chosen the housing route have often found hostility from the settled population and many of these folk forced to live in houses have landed up clinically depressed. Young people living on these estates have lost their cultural roots and have ended up with a dysfunctional family life. It is difficult to count how many Gypsy Travellers there are in the UK because they move so often. It is thought that at the least there are 120,000 of them. It would not be greatly difficult to solve this problem, if only the settled population were less prejudiced. It costs the tax payer £20,000,000 a year to just evict these people from one place to another and make their lives a misery. That money could build many sites and solve the problem. However; there is a lack of political will to do this, because the settled community are so hostile to the Travelling community. This hostility comes from fear and ignorance and until this is addressed, as the Gypsies would say- We are on a puckering cosh to nowhere- (a sign post to nowhere.)

by martin lacey - none Sat Nov 17, 2007 12:15 mlacey at oceanfree dot net

there is no evidence that the irish travellers are a seperate ethnic group. this was an invention by john o'connell of pavee point,. for example the word cant is simply the gaelic word caint. this cant/ gamman or shelta is simply an argot or slang used to confuse or keep secrets from settled people. there used to be a homosexual argot in london (ive forgotten the name) so that gay people could talk together secretly. travellers did have an economic status and purpose in the past but so did coopers, dockers, blacksmiths and other fairly obsolescent trades. are people on the east wall a separate ethnic group. its time travellers and their so called supporters grew up and integrated into this new ireland.with friends like these - the travellers dont need enemies.
integration for all is a 2 way process . see ya, martin

by Phyl.B Mon Jan 14, 2008 15:37 phylbranch at postmaster dot co dot uk

I have just read your very interesting notice, about Gypsies and Travellers, dated 17th Nov.2007.
You have it seems done a lot of research into the history of said subject, this is the reason I am writing to you.

My mother used to tell us little about her life with the circus in Ireland, in fact all we really know is that either
her great grandparents, or her grandparents had the first travelling circus in Ireland.

I believe the name was TURNBULL. Other than that we have no idea, and my Brothers and Sisters would love to know
more about our history'

Is there any way that you may be able to help us to trace the family?

Thanking you for your time

Phyl.B

by Sage & Thyme Mon Jan 14, 2008 19:00

I am sorry the name Turnbull is I believe an English name which has it's origins in Northhumbria ? if not then definitely in the border regions of England and Scotland. Which is where I suggest you start your search.

by Pyre Wed Aug 20, 2008 22:38

Tinkers were travellers long before the Famine, for the simple reason that no single village needed enough metalwork done to support families of metalworkers year-round -- but by touring around villages, Tinkers could find enough work to get by.

Also, it's a survival skill not to depend only on one trade, but to have several in hand, so breeding and trading horses, or collecting and trading scraps of everything from cloth to metal, have at time been Traveller trades.

Now, should it be a surprise that families in widespread trades sometimes wish to communicate privately amongst themselves, despite curious crowds surrounding them? I assure you the Florentine noble families used codes in trading, as the great corporations of the early 20th century relied on huge volumes of commercial code books for telegraphed messages. Even the medieval stonemasons, another travelling trade, had their secret codes, as their latter-day inheritors the Freemasons are famed for using. So why should poor Tinkers be looked askance at for doing likewise?

by tomeile Thu Aug 21, 2008 15:21

Anybody interested in Irish Travellers and their traditions could do worse than tune into Lyric FM on Saturday . The station is broadcasting three programmes -starting this week - on the Irish Travellers , their songs and culture recorded (mainly in London) (1973-2004). see
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=113575&messag...es=32

by Bernard Kenna - iam An Irish Traveller Fri Nov 14, 2008 12:24

Hi i i am an irish traveller i have not got refuseed admission but a member of my family was not let in to a night club she was with a friend thats not a traveller she was asked for ID she had not got it on her at the time but she got it takeing up to her and then she was still not allowed in her friend was allowed in with out haveing to give ID also they said that she was in thery befor and was put out but this was the frist time she was in the night club i beleave this was a form of discriminate as the owener knows who she is and what that she is a traveller from what iam saying i beleave that it is worng to be refused from any where no matter what you are traveller, a setteld person or a none national you should be thared the same i would like to add on that all travellers are not the same as each other everyone is diffrent no matter what you are

by pavee sooblic - the pavees Sat Jan 03, 2009 15:50 tomconnors at ymail dot com

i would just like to say if a group of travellers from one part of ireland cause truble then why do another harmless group get slated for it i often went to a pub or a disco and the management could say sorry lads not tonite i would ask why not and they would reply we had some of your people in here the other day and they caused truble when id tell them it wasant me and the other people are no relation and not from the same town or county theyd reply well look yous are the same people because u are a traveller just like the others that caused truble were travellers ' so acording to that if i opend up a disco or a pub and some settled people caused trouble would it be fair if i turned away another group settled people just for being who they are

by henry cooper Wed Jan 28, 2009 15:49

the situation of irish travellers in ireland reminds me of south africa when the white ruling class had a aparthied in place well basicly thats what is going on in ireland only the irish travellers are white not black another thing barrack obama is now the president of america would the irish public ever allow a traveller to run for president of ireland ha i dont think so

by O D B Thu Jun 04, 2009 01:08 eoai.oe at gmail dot com

I find it unusual that many of the comments in this thread lack any genuine review and exploration into the topic at hand, some simple time researching any academic studies of the tradition will unearth the agreed truth that the linguistic formation of the Pavee language is recognised as being distinct onto itself, the post colonial adoption has certainly left it's mark but the essence and origins are well maintained and encased within the earlier Celtic conciseness.

The same goes for the savage and relentless protection of heritage, to such a degree that it is becoming eroded and lost to the hungry hands of time – in not sharing and expressing the unique variation of Irish society it is stolen away, not only from those that will, in the coming dawns be reared beneath the title of Pavee but from the greater communal body in which it exists within.

Much akin to Martin lancys comments Irish Travellers do not need enemies, but I deeply differ on the reasoning of why there is a need for such integration at the risk of genuine and authentic lineage – the claims for a cited ethnic presence is one not held by the majority of Irish Travellers and has it's placement among the political fractions of the tradition and not the heritage itself, it is somewhat arrogant and contemptuous to thrust the blunt of a unwavering ideal that the tradition itself is not of value, worth and deserving of respect.

Discrimination is a vile and reckless aspect of our human identity and being born within a certain lineage does not make one untouched by the ignorance and idiotic trends that run deep in our veins – the attempt to focus on discrimination as a means of defence or progressive attack is one of common folly, as us mere mortals will always attempt to superimpose a egotistic superiority above others though any medium at hand.

Regardless of origins the Tradition is never the less in existence, and it is manifesting itself in a ever evolutionary flux and will certainly be going no where for a very long time – so if we are to move forward we can only do so, by not bickering and lashing out through word and deed but in the process of understanding that there is no greater kinship then that of basic humanality and that our futures just like our past is a shared on.

Daylon derehl

O

by Ethnic Human. Thu Jun 04, 2009 07:57

"Some scholars believe them to be the descendents of the original hunter gatherer people of these islands."

Which scholars?

There is plenty of evidence that they are the descendents of ordinary Irish people who travelled from town to town selling goods like leather and tin utensils (hence "tinker") etc.

Nothing more romantic than travelling salesmen.

This happened throughout Europe.

For instance Norway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Norwegian_Trave...llers

The Irish version are not Firbolgs, De Danaans or Roma...they are as Irish as the Murphys or O'Connors or Ahernes.
.

by Historyman Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:25

It's an interesting point of view, to suggest that Irish Travellers are a race unto themselves; it's a coy political move, but it bears no relation to socio-historic facts. There would be numerous PR and political advantages in Irish Travellers being designated as separate race or some-such: but they are Irish and that's that, subject to the laws of the country.

by rambler Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:51

The word gypsies, which people in my village used as a polite alternative to tinkers thirty years ago, comes from a widespread British belief that they originated from Egypt.

I think some Irish travellers may be descended from some of the many tenants who were evicted after the Famine by landlords who decided ruthlessly to clear their estates in grim efforts to ward off bankruptcy.
That theory would only account for some of the travellers, for folklore suggests that 'na tinceiri ' existed and tramped the dirt roads of Eirin for several centuries before the Famine. Among the contemporary travellers there appears to be no folk memory of their origins.

by redjade Fri Jun 05, 2009 13:20

read Angus Fraser's 1992 book, 'The Gypsies'
for a thorough and academic explanation of the stories of the Roma/Gypsies.

95% of the book is about the Roma (and other groups with them) that traveled from the Punjab area of today's India more than a thousand years ago. He basically says that other than some inter-marriage between the Irish/UK travelers on an individual level, there is no past connection. But he also says there had been many 'nomadic' groups all over europe that of today's knowledge are lost to history. These people were ignored by the literate of the time and were (mostly) not written about.

The term 'nomadic' should also be challenged - are Poles in search of work in Ireland from a 'nomadic' culture?

and looking at some of the comments above, some people really really need to let go of these genetic-based ideas regarding cultural identity - it's the 21st century fer christ's sake!

read some samples of 'The Gypsies' at....
http://books.google.com/books?id=qHUdwpiYCtIC&dq

also listen to my MP3 of a lecture by Janos Barsony about the history of the Roma
MP3: International Roma Day 2009, Budapest
http://lmv.hu/node/3805
{with photo series}

Janos Barsony wrote Pharrajimos: The Fate of the Roma During the Holocaust
which is widely considered to be the best english book on the Roma Holocaust

read samples here: http://books.google.com/books?id=N00MTd_7hLIC&dq

and, while you're at it!...
listen to my MP3 of Flamenco at Budapest's Roma Parliament
http://lmv.hu/node/3964
no, Flamenco is not a hungarian roma dance, but it is a roma neighborhood and the local kids were fascinated with it!

Angus Fraser's 1992 book 'The Gypsies'

Flamenco at Budapest's Roma Parliament

by Anne Marie Doyle - Student Thu Jul 09, 2009 01:46 anne_marie_doyle at hotmail dot com

Hi,

I am a Primary School Teacher and I am currently teaching a mainstream class, however, I have taught as a Resource Teacher for Travellers in the past.

I am currently doing further study on the Travelling Community's experiences of compulsory education. I am going to do some 30 minute interviews with the Travelling Community about their experiences. Although I will have questions to ask, I am mostly interested in peoples own thoughts and experiences. It is an opportunity to for individuals to tell their own stories.

I am based in Galway city and if any members of the Travelling Community are interested in meeting me in a cafe that's convenient for you in Galway for lunch (on me) I would be very interested in hearing your views. The interviews must be individual (not a group) and they will be taped using a dictaphone (not a camera). This is not for commercial benefit for me, as it is an assignment I am doing for university.

I hope it's ok to put this up here. My email address is anne_marie_doyle@hotmail.com

by Eleanor Wed Nov 11, 2009 23:15 eleanorphillips at eircom dot net

Could everyone who is so sure of the origins, historical or otherwise, please check out this link: www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume12/issue4/features/?id=114362 for a more up-to-date and well researched article by Prof. Sinead Ni Suinear. And please stop saying tinker, in Gaelic Travellers were originally known as Lucht Siuil - "The Walking People".
Just read the article and be amazed.

by Fred Johnston Thu Nov 12, 2009 14:49 westernwriters at eircom dot net Canavan House, Nuns Island, Galway 087.2178138

The Western Writers' Centre some years back had a project of working with the Galway Travellers' Support Group (as it was then) and a play, subsequently produced by Galway Bay FM radio, was came out of this.