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A Brief History of Irish Travellers, Ireland’s Only Indigenous Minority

After a long battle, Irish Travellers were finally officially recognised as an indigenous ethnic minority by Ireland’s government in early March 2017. Here, Culture Trip takes a look at the origins of the Irish Travelling community and how the historic ruling came about. At the time of the 2011 census , there were around 29,500 Irish Travellers in the Irish Republic , making up 0.6% of the population. The community was found to be unevenly distributed across the country, with the highest number living in County Galway and South Dublin. Although – as the name suggests – Irish Travellers have historically been a nomadic people, the census showed a majority living in private dwellings.

Throughout Irish history, the Travelling community has been markedly separated from the general Irish population, resulting in widespread stereotyping and discrimination. The same year as the census, a survey conducted by Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute found that Irish Travellers suffer widespread ostracism; this and other factors have been shown to contribute to high levels of mental health problems among Irish Travellers. Indeed, the 2010 All Ireland Traveller Health Study found their suicide rate to be six times the national average, accounting for a shocking 11% of Traveller deaths.

Through the 2011 census, members of the Travelling community were also found to have poorer general health, higher rates of disability and significantly lower levels of education as compared to the general population, with seven out of 10 Irish Travellers educated only to primary level or lower.

Because of a lack of written history, the exact origins of the Irish Travelling Community have been difficult to clarify. Although it had been hypothesised, until relatively recently, that Irish Travellers may be linked to the Romani people, a genetic study released in February of this year revealed this connection to be false.

The study found that Travellers are of Irish ancestral origin, but split off from the general population sometime around the mid-1600s – much earlier than had been thought previously. In one widely quoted finding, the DNA comparisons conducted in the course of the research found that while Irish Travellers originated in Ireland, they are genetically different from ‘settled’ Irish people, to the same degree as people from Spain.

The results of the study, conducted by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University College Dublin, the University of Edinburgh and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, contributed significantly to Irish Travellers being officially designated an ethnic minority, defined as a group within a community with different national or cultural traditions from the main population.

Speaking to RTE on the day of the ruling, former director of the Irish Traveller Movement Brigid Quilligan said, ‘We want every Traveller in Ireland to be proud of who they are and to say that we’re not a failed set of people. We have our own unique identity, and we shouldn’t take on all of the negative aspects of what people think about us. We should be able to be proud and for that to happen our State needed to acknowledge our identity and our ethnicity, and they’re doing that today.’

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• PHOTOGRAPHY

Life With the Irish Travellers Reveals a Bygone World

One photographer spent four years gaining unprecedented access to this close-knit community.

When Birte Kaufmann first encountered Irish Travellers, she was on a trip with friends in the Irish countryside and saw a girl and her little brother running toward a roadside camp. The caravans and horses reminded Kaufmannn, who is German, of the Romany camps she had seen elsewhere in Europe, but the people looked intriguingly different.

Who were they, she wondered, and how could she delve deeper into their culture?

"People said, You'll never get an insight into that community—forget about it," Kaufmann recalls of sharing with Irish friends her burgeoning plans to photograph the close-knit Travellers.

An ethnic minority in Ireland , the Travellers have lived on the margins of mainstream Irish society for centuries. Efforts have been made to incorporate the nomadic group into mainstream culture by settling them into government housing and enforcing school attendance. But even living among "settled people," they face ongoing discrimination.

Kaufmann describes theirs as a parallel world, where deeply-rooted gender roles and an itinerant lifestyle have kept them apart from the broader Irish community even as their freedom to roam has become increasingly curtailed.

To gain access to the community, Kaufmann first attempted to engage through human rights groups that work with them—to no avail. So she decided to do it "the hard way," she says. She had heard about a “halting site”—walled areas on the outskirts of large towns that contain houses as well as spaces for caravan parking—and on her next trip to Ireland, she simply showed up.

She was met by barking dogs, one of which bit her. A young woman approached, speaking English with an accent so thick that Kaufmann had trouble comprehending. Undeterred, she decided to lay her cards on the table. "I was really honest. I told [her] I was coming from Germany , where we don't have our own traveling community, [that] I knew who they were and was interested in how [they live]," Kaufmann recalls.

The young woman "was totally surprised, but finally they invited me for a cup of tea. I was sitting in a caravan with her grandfather. I asked them if I could come back and stay with them." Kaufmann says they chortled, as if to say, Yeah, right.

When she next returned from Germany, it was with a camper van of her own, so that she could stay alongside the extended family clan that would become the focus of her project. "I knew it was a high risk," she says, “but I gave them some pictures I had taken in the caravan of the grandfather. And they said, 'Ok. Now you're here. We have the images. One cup of tea. Now go. We are busy.'"

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As a photographer, and especially as a woman, Kaufmann was something of a novelty given the strictly defined gender roles of the Traveller community—men tend to the horses and livestock, women to home and family. Girls marry young and only with the blessing of their parents. Men don’t typically speak to women in public.

She slowly gained their trust to the point that one of the family members—a young mother who took a particular shine to her and was perhaps even amused at her struggle to understand what they were saying—began teaching her Gammon, their unwritten language.

"She tried to teach me words to say if the guys are being rude," she says. "And then the father started telling me what I should say. [They] tried to make me feel more comfortable." Her knowledge of words selectively and seldom shared with outsiders demonstrated to other Travellers that one of their own had trusted her enough to share.

And in turn, understanding how they communicate with each other helped her get past the sense of feeling unwelcome and deepened her appreciation of their differences. "At first [the talk] sounds really rough," she says. "Then there was this point at which I realized it was their language. They don't really call anyone by name. It's 'the woman over there,' 'the man over there,' 'the child,'" she explains. "It's not personal, [but] at first it sounds very rude.”

Kaufmann made multiple visits to the family over the course of four years, eventually living with them. The men gradually accepted her and allowed her to photograph them hunting and trading horses at a fair. She was able to blend into the background and photograph them as an unobtrusive observer of their everyday lives—lives, she says, that are filled with a lot of idle time. As Ireland becomes less agrarian, the Travellers’ traditional work as horse traders, farm laborers, tinsmiths, and entertainers has become more scarce.

"The older generations can't read or write," Kaufmann says, "but they have their own intelligence. On the one hand life was so sad and boring because everything their lives were stemming from wasn't there anymore. On the other hand there was this freedom—they live their lives in their own way."

And then, she says, she found herself taking no photographs at all. "One of the boys who really didn't like to be photographed said, 'Do you know what's really strange with Birte now? She's here and she's not really photographing anymore.'"

And that's when she knew her project was done.

Birte Kaufmann's project on the Travellers is now available as a book . You may also see more of Birte Kaufmann's photographs on her website .

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The long road towards acceptance for Irish Travellers

The Irish Traveller community is fighting for official recognition of its ethnic identity and for a way of life.

Avila Park, Dublin, Ireland –   In a wooden shed in his back garden, James Collins sits on a low stool hammering out the final touches on a billy can. At 68, he is one of only two remaining traveller tinsmiths in Ireland.

Above the clutter of well-worn tools and scrap sheet metal hang a dozen or so other cans. Nowadays, he says, there’s precious little demand for his trade, and he largely continues it as a hobby, occasionally selling some of his work at vintage craft fairs.

Since the introduction of plastic homeware in the 1960s and 1970s, tinsmithing – traditionally dominated by the historically nomadic community known as Travellers – has effectively died out. Even the block tin, James originally used, is no longer available.

“It’s more difficult to work with,” he says, holding up a gleaming aluminium can. “You can’t make what you want to make out of it because you have to use solder and that won’t take solder.”

READ MORE: Ballinasloe Horse Fair – An ancient Irish tradition

James was raised on the road in the Irish midlands, a traditional upbringing unknown to most Travellers today. “I was bred, born and reared on the road,” he says, “but the young lads today wasn’t. They all grew up in houses and went to school and all this craic. I never got any education, never went to school in my life.”

Until his late 20s, when he settled in Avila Park, a housing estate for Travellers on the outskirts of Dublin, the Irish capital, James plied his trade for farmers, smithing and repairing buckets. “It never goes out of your mind; you’re always thinking, thinking the whole time about the road,” he says.

In comparison, younger generations have little interest in traditional crafts or the travelling lifestyle – James’ children and grandchildren don’t know how to harness a horse, for example. And anti-trespass legislation introduced in the early 2000s, which was used to disperse encampments by the side of roads or on council-owned land, made a nomadic existence increasingly difficult.

Yet, even as the distinct traditions of Irish Travellers seem to fade into the past, the battle for official recognition of their identity continues.

The search for recognition

Unlike the United Nations and the United Kingdom, Ireland does not recognise Travellers as a separate ethnicity from the non-Traveller community. For decades, human rights organisations and Traveller advocacy groups have been seeking this recognition, but to little avail.

However, on January 26, a parliamentary committee established to investigate the issue stated unequivocally that “Travellers are, de facto, a separate ethnic group”.

“This is not a gift to be bestowed upon them, but a fact the state ought to formally acknowledge,” it further said.

The committee report urged the Taoiseach, Ireland’s prime minister, or the minister for justice to give a statement to the Dail, the Irish parliament, acknowledging this at the earliest opportunity.

This development was welcomed by members of the Travelling community, although some remain cautious in their optimism. It would not be the first time an Irish government has reneged on such commitments – a 2014 parliamentary report made the same recommendation, which was never acted upon.

A history of deprivation and discrimination

An examination of the almost 30,000 Travellers in the Republic of Ireland shows a staggering level of deprivation completely at odds with the non-Traveller community. Another 4,000 to 5,000 Travellers live in Northern Ireland, in a similar situation.

Around half of Travellers have no secondary education and only 1 percent have attended university, according to Pavee Point, a group fighting for the rights of Travellers.

WATCH: Irish travellers facing discrimination

Some 84 percent of Travellers are unemployed, while suicide rates are almost seven times higher than among settled people. A 2010 study found that life expectancy was 15 years lower among men and 11 years lower among women when compared with their settled counterparts.

Discrimination against Travellers remains endemic at social and institutional levels. Being denied entry to businesses is a common occurrence and many try to hide their background when applying for jobs, fearing that potential employers will not hire them.

“Symbolically it would have a profound impact on our collective sense of identity, self-esteem and confidence as a people,” says Martin Collins, the co-director of Pavee Point, on the recognition of Traveller ethnicity.

“Some travellers have internalised [racism] and end up believing that they are of no value, they are of no worth … So that’s the impact. That’s the outcome of both racism and your identity being denied.”

A culture denied

It was a 1963 government report, the Commission on Itinerancy, that has set the tone for the state’s attitude towards Travellers ever since, says Sinn Fein Senator Padraig MacLochlainn, the first person from a Traveller background to be elected to the Irish parliament.

The Committee on Itinerancy ‘s terms of reference defined Travellers as a “problem”, whose social ills were “inherent in their way of life,” and outlined the goal of “promot[ing] their absorption into the general community”.

No Travellers were on the committee, nor were they consulted for its report.

“Our people and our state denied their history and decided that they were criminals and they needed to be immersed in with the rest of us,” says MacLochlainn.

This refusal to acknowledge the community’s rich cultural history – notably their own language, Cant, and significant contributions to Irish traditional music – persists today.

Traveller culture is frequently portrayed in the media as separate and distinct, MacLochlainn says, but almost always in negative terms, in exploitation TV shows   such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and exposes on Traveller criminality.

“You clearly accept them as a distinct group – why are you making these programmes if you don’t? If they’re a distinct group, could you do it now in positive terms?

“When it comes to negative characterisations, the media, the establishment … in Ireland are more than happy for them to be characterised in negative terms,” the senator says.

Behind James’ shed in Avila Park, traditional and modern Traveller accommodation sit side by side. A wooden barreltop caravan, washed green with blue and red embellishments, sits between two mobile home units, where his younger relatives stay.

Only one has both electricity and running water, which were installed by the family. Power is provided from the house by a yellow cable, wound loosely around plastic drainpipes and holes in its pebbledash exterior.

An early morning fire in a nearby prefabricated unit just a few weeks before offered a bleak reminder of the danger these makeshift electrical fixtures pose. A neighbour raised the alarm and the young couple inside escaped before their home was reduced to a charred husk.

Children burned to death

This near disaster has reminded some people of a fire in the south Dublin suburb of Carrickmines more than a year ago, which continues to cast a shadow over relations between the Traveller and the settled communities.

In the early hours of October 10, 2015, a fire ripped through a halting site killing 10 people, including five children, from two families – the Lynch and Gilbert family and the Connors. The youngest victim was five months old. It was one of the deadliest fires in the history of the Republic of Ireland.

Social workers had raised concerns about the site’s substandard prefabricated units to authorities in the months before the fire, but no action was taken. The blaze and its aftermath would, for many, become an example of the pervasive discrimination Travellers face in Ireland today.

Three days after the fire, some locals blockaded land marked for temporary accommodation for the surviving members of the Connors family, preventing construction vehicles from entering. Though the obstruction was condemned by then Environment Minister Alan Kelly and several Traveller groups, the protesters were successful.

OPINION: Catholic Ireland’s saints and sinners

On October 21, one day before the last victims were buried, the county council announced that the Connors family would instead be resettled on a reclaimed dump on council land in a nearby suburb. At the time of writing, the family remain in that location.

Alongside many expressions of grief on social media after the fire were comments highlighting the discrimination towards travellers in Irish society.

On one popular news site, a comment simply wishing that the victims rest in peace received hundreds of thumbs down votes from other readers. “Hundreds of Irish people gave a thumbs down to an expression of sympathy for children who were burned to death,” says MacLochlainn. “That’s terrifying; that’s absolutely terrifying.”

In response to the tragedy, local authorities across the country conducted fire safety audits at Traveller accommodation sites. “All we got was a few fire alarms, a few fire blankets and some carbon monoxide alarms,” says Collins, of Pavee Point.

“That’s like re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic. That’s totally inadequate. These sites need to be completely redeveloped [and] refurbished, because the sites are just inherently dangerous. Getting a few fire alarms and a few hoses will not rectify the situation.”

For Collins, the long overdue recognition of Traveller ethnicity is an important milestone, but as the Carrickmines example shows, a commitment to materially improving the lives of Travellers is also necessary if they are to be truly equal in their own country.

Who are the Irish Travellers in the US?

They're one of ireland's oldest and most marginalized minorities but who are the irish travellers in the us.

One of Ireland's oldest and most marginalized minorities but how much to do you know about Irish Travellers in America?

In Ireland, nearly everybody is aware of the existence of the Irish Travellers  — they’re one of Ireland’s oldest and most marginalized minority groups, known for their itinerant lifestyle, distinct dialects and oft-questioned traditions.

However, many people know that there are also communities of Irish Travellers in America.

A few times each year, a headline will pop up about Irish Travellers in the US. Sometimes it’ll be from a local newspaper in South Carolina or Texas; on rarer occasions, such as the bust of a high-profile rhinoceros horn smuggling ring, it’ll be in Bloomberg Businessweek . Except for the occasional story expressing interest in the culture or history of the Travellers, the articles are typically from the crime section — detailing a theft or scam, or local concern that the Travellers have arrived in the area.

But if you don’t happen to live in those areas or catch those headlines, and if you missed out on that one famous episode of "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding," you’d be easily forgiven for not having any idea that the Irish Travellers have lived in the US for generations. They’re not recognized as a distinct ethnic group by the US Census, and, what’s more, Irish Americans  have never claimed them under the umbrella of the Irish diaspora.

What little we do know about the Irish Travellers here in America comes from those very news articles, and from a scant number of books and documentaries.

There are believed to be anywhere from 7,000 to 40,000 Irish Travellers in the US, though most estimates lie closer to the 10,000 mark. The Travellers here descended from groups who left Ireland around the time of the Great Hunger and settled in the US, carving out a similar lifestyle to the one they followed in Ireland.

Like their counterparts in Ireland, Irish Travellers in the US speak their own dialects of Cant, Shelta, or Gammon, which can include elements of Irish, Gaelic, English, Greek, and Hebrew.

Also similar to their Ireland-based counterparts, the American Irish Travellers identify as strictly  Catholic  and adhere to their own traditions and mores. The men travel and work and the women raise the children. Many of the women are promised to their future husbands in arranged marriages when they are very young.

Their primary trade is repair work, often categorized as dubious in nature (though the fairness of that generalization has been called into question). But the US Irish Travellers have also, over the years, amassed fortunes through a unique internal economy based on life insurance policies.

As Paul Connolly, who made a documentary about Irish Travellers in the US for the Irish channel TV3 in 2013, told The Journal : “Most of the income comes from insurance. . . In America, there’s a clause which allows you to insure anyone with a blood connection — and as they have intermarried for generations, there’s a likelihood there will be a blood connection.

"So they’ve worked out a way of profiting from this, and that, according to the Travellers I’ve spoken to, is how they make their money and how they’re so wealthy. Some of the more morbid characters we came across referred to it as ‘Death Watch’.”

Perhaps the most notorious instance of this system gone awry took place in 2015, when Anita Fox, a 69-year-old Irish Traveller woman in Texas, was found stabbed to death. Police later identified the perpetrators as Gerard and Bernard Gorman, who held a $1 million life insurance policy in Fox’s name.

There are Irish Traveller enclaves in Texas, in the Houston and Fort Worth areas, as well as in South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, with smaller settlements found in rural New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Many of the groups identify based on where in the US their ancestors first based themselves, such as the Ohio Travellers, Georgia Travellers, Texas Travellers, and Mississippi Travellers.

The largest-known Irish Traveller community in the US is in Murphy Village, South Carolina, which, as noted in a report by the Florida Ancient Order of Hibernians, is home to approximately 1,500 people with only 11 different surnames.

According to a 2002 article in the Washington Post , “The Irish Travelers who settled in the United States in the 19th century migrated to different parts of the country and established their own clan groups, often with little intermingling across regions.

“The Sherlocks, O'Haras and others settled [in Murphy Village] in the 1960s, on land around a Catholic church whose pastor, the Rev. Joseph Murphy, became the patron and namesake of the growing community just outside the town of North Augusta.”

Far from a caravan or mobile home community, Murphy Village has become home to an increasing number of suburban “McMansions” in recent decades, as the US Irish Travellers build permanent homes, which they use as a base between travels and for holidays. In this regard, its closest Irish counterpart is Rathkeale, Co. Limerick, which was the subject of a New York Times story in 2012 , chronicling the massive homecoming that takes place every Christmas.

“The Riches,” a serial drama about a contemporary Irish Traveller family in the US, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, aired on FX for two seasons, in 2007 and 2008.

H/T Slate , The Journal , The Washington Post , Florida AOH .

* Originally published in Sept 2016.

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Hidden World Of Girls

For traveller women in ireland, life is changing.

The Kitchen Sisters

Second of a yearlong series

Helen Connors (right), who is part of a Traveller family, says she started school when she was 4 years old. But the community didn't take Traveller girls very seriously — and she says she was called a "knacker" and a "pikey." Nikki Silva hide caption

Helen Connors (right), who is part of a Traveller family, says she started school when she was 4 years old. But the community didn't take Traveller girls very seriously — and she says she was called a "knacker" and a "pikey."

Travellers, "the people of walking," are often referred to as the Gypsies of Ireland. Mistrusted for the most part, their traditions and lifestyle are not well understood within the larger culture. Historically, they were nomads who moved in caravans and lived in encampments on the side of the road. Their tradition as "tinkers" or tinsmiths, and as the breeders and traders of some of Ireland's best horses, goes back hundreds of years.

As times change in Ireland and the notions of private and public space change and contract, the culture no longer accepts the Travellers on public and private lands and has begun to create "halts" where they can settle.

Helen Connors, 21, lives in Hazel Hill, a new government experiment in Traveller housing on the lower slopes of Dublin Mountain, with her husband and two children.

"Travellers got their name because they're so fond of traveling around the world in a caravan," she says. "They'd have their wagons and their horses. You'd see them along the roadside. You could be in Dublin today; you could be in Cork tomorrow. That's how Travellers got their name. We call you 'settled people.' "

"Travelling girls don't really mix much with settled girls," says Shirley Martin, a 23-year-old mother of three. "The way of living, caravans, by the side of the road. A come and go thing. My family is a Travelling family."

Life In School Hard For Travellers

There are similarities between Traveller and Romany Gypsy culture, but Travellers do not define themselves as Romany, says Mary Burke, associate professor of Irish literature at the University of Connecticut.

For many generations, Travellers -- the nomadic, indigenous Irish minority -- provided services to an Ireland that was predominantly agricultural: seasonal farm labor, tinsmithing, horse-trading, hawking, music and entertainment.

The Irish government is experimenting with housing for Travellers — the Gypsies of Ireland — on the lower slopes of Dublin Mountain. The houses are called "halts." Today, the majority of Travellers either live in houses permanently or live in houses at certain times of the year. Gerry O'Leary hide caption

The Irish government is experimenting with housing for Travellers — the Gypsies of Ireland — on the lower slopes of Dublin Mountain. The houses are called "halts." Today, the majority of Travellers either live in houses permanently or live in houses at certain times of the year.

In the early days Travellers moved from place to place with horses and carts. British Romany introduced Travellers to wagons. The wagons were overtaken by caravans, and the caravans were overtaken by mobile homes. But today the majority of Travellers either live in houses permanently or live in houses at certain times of the year.

"But that doesn't mean that prejudice or identity disappear when they settle in houses," Burke says.

Connors started school when she was about 4 years old. She says the community didn't take educating Traveller girls very seriously.

"I didn't learn very much in school because I was bullied a lot," Connors says. "You were a 'knacker' or a 'pikey.' That's all you'd hear every day. You'd be in trouble nearly every day for fighting. If I said to the teacher, 'I can't do that; can I have some help?' she'd say, 'Here's paper; just go down to the back of the class and draw whatever you want.' I had one teacher that said to me, 'Well, a Traveller won't do nothing with their life. Why would you want to know how to read and write? You're going to go off and marry young and have loads of children.' So I was just put down to the end of the class and everyone else was up on top."

Because school in Ireland is set up for kids who live in a house year-round, Burke says, a cultural attitude developed toward Traveller kids who moved around a lot for not being capable of -- or interested in -- learning.

"And that carries over into today," Burke says.

Traveller Girls Marry Young

Traveller families are especially strict with girls, according to Martin.

"Some mothers and fathers is too strict where you wouldn't be allowed to go anywhere," she says. "This is why most Travelling girls get married young, because they want to get away from that. Travelling girls, most of them today would be 16, 17, 18, which will want marriage."

Tell Us Your Stories

This year, NPR and The Kitchen Sisters will bring you stories of girls and the women they become. You can follow them on Twitter by going to @kitchensisters. You can send suggestions to our listener comment line at (202) 408-9576.

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The girls travel in a pack, promenading.

"They look very glamorous," Burke says. "Lot's of makeup and heels and long hair."

Terry McCarthy, 16, was recently married.

"When I was 13, I met my husband at a festival," she says. "And the minute I met him, I knew I was in love. I got engaged when I was 15. I had a big do for that. I had a big engagement party. Just went from there then. I got married last month. I had a lovely big huge white dress."

"Whatever you want on your wedding day you have to get," Connors says. "When I got married, I got to design my own wedding dress -- my dream dress. It had a 50-foot train. It was all diamonds and lace. Travellers, too, they have a mini-bride. That's a girl you just dress up to look just like yourself for the day. Your mini-bride has to look like you."

Theresa Hughes and daughter Jennifer have been sewing wedding dresses for Traveller girls for more than 10 years.

"The Travelling community, they come over to us to get their outfits made for going to weddings -- even the mothers and grannies want bling," Theresa says. "Thick pink satin, sequins, beads, glitter. They go all out."

Jennifer shows off a white miniskirt with beads on it.

"I just go all out; I go for extremes," she says. "I kind of used Elvis as an inspiration -- Elvis' white Lycra suit, the flared one that he wears to his last concert."

There is a lot of money involved in Traveller weddings, both in terms of substantial dowry payments and in terms of putting on a good show.

Traveller Women Gain Power

As women age in Traveller culture, they gain power. They often outlive the men. They can become matriarchs in the culture, particularly if they have a large family. And there's prestige attached to being the mother of many.

Shirley Martin, 23, a resident at Hazel Hill, says that Traveller families are especially strict with girls — and that's why they marry young. Nikki Silva hide caption

Shirley Martin, 23, a resident at Hazel Hill, says that Traveller families are especially strict with girls — and that's why they marry young.

"When I was a kid, the Travellers, they used to come around our houses making pots and pans and doing odd jobs," says Paul Connelly, the caretaker of the Hazel Hill halting site. "And in return for that, they may get milk and bread and potatoes. People will not tolerate Travellers living on the side of the roads now. It's dangerous for themselves. The country's trying to get them settled. Set up halting sites and trying to get them to live in them."

Traveller life has changed, Helen Connors says.

"My mother and father had 17 children -- nine boys and eight girls," she says. "Myself, I left school when I was 11, but then I started a trainer course where I learned how to read and write. Then I did a child care course, and I passed all my exams. Now I can read and write what I never learned in school. I learned it by myself. Travellers are speaking up for themselves and being heard."

Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva) in collaboration with Dublin producer, Nuala Macklin; mixed by Jim McKee

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Celtic Junction Arts Center

Best cultural center in north america, – irishcentral, a 501(c)(3) organization, 836 prior avenue,, st. paul, mn, 55104, celtic junction arts review, irish travellers work to define the road ahead in contemporary times.

Jane Kennedy

Over the past half century, many ethnic groups have experienced social advances that improved their quality of life. Irish Travellers are no exception to this in some ways. Modernization since the 1960s has brought a sea change to the Irish ethnic group that has existed for centuries. But, to borrow a line from past U.S. presidential campaigns, are Travellers better off today than they were say 50 years ago (or longer)?

The history of Irish Travellers goes back centuries. Their itinerant nature came about when the demand for their skills waned, and they were unable to make a living in their typically small towns. This led them to an itinerant existence; eventually, they developed an ethnic identity as Travellers.

“There is a lot of ignorance about Travellers as an ethnic group,” notes Fergal O’Brien of Armagh, No. Ireland, a licensed social worker who has researched Irish Travellers and today performs musically with them. “You have to be born a Traveller,” he recalls telling singer Sinead O’Connor who once inquired if she could become a Traveller simply by pulling up her trailer alongside a Traveller community.

Travellers have their own shared culture that includes a separate language, matched marriages, the trades they practice, and more. In 1997, the No. Ireland Race Relations Order recognized Irish Travellers as a racial group within the meaning of the law. This was a momentous acknowledgment considering how long Travellers existed in Ireland. It took yet another 20 years before the Republic of Ireland gave such recognition to Travellers.

Making a living

Aside from the term Travellers, research refers to this community as “tinkers” “Gypsies” or “itinerants.” They prefer to be called Travellers and find the phrase “tinkers” to be pejorative. Gypsies refer to Roma people who are an Indo-Aryan group.

The name “tinkers” originated from their trade as tinsmiths. The sound of a hammer hitting metal was called tinkering and therefore the name became synonymous with Travellers because not only was tin smithing a popular trade among the men, but it was also one of the more highly regarded types of work. Using new sheets of tin or empty biscuit containers, tinsmiths made cups, kettles, milk pails, lanterns, buckets, and more.

Travellers also were knowledgeable horsemen and adept at horse and donkey trading. This skill earned them a good income when they would ply their trade at country fairs. Travellers were known to drive horses from the west coast of Ireland and bring them to Dublin and surrounding areas where the animals were sold at a good price.

Travellers also took on work as chimney sweeps, peddlers, and fortune tellers. It was typically the women Travellers who would peddle the merchandise created by their husbands, going into the Irish settled communities and earning money. Many describe the rural farm families and Travellers as having a symbiotic relationship – the farmers needed the wares the Travellers sold, and the Travellers needed an income.

Typically, Traveller families would go from one rural community to the next in groups of three families. Once they had called on the residents of one area, they would pull up stakes and move to the next. Travellers did not wander aimlessly; instead, they planned their routes and moved from one location to another in an ordered manner.

Wagons: a place to call home

Almost a century earlier, Travellers roamed throughout Ireland in colorful covered wagons. They resided in tents in the early years but that changed after World War I when Gypsies in England were threatened with conscription, and they fled to Ireland. Irish Travellers were intrigued by this type of transportation/ home on wheels; after purchasing some covered wagons, it didn’t take long for Travellers to begin constructing their own. By the mid-1930s, about half of the Irish Traveller population owned covered wagons. As recent as 1960, some 61% of the then 6.5 thousand Travellers still lived in wagons. 1

The covered wagons were but one symbol of the Traveller culture. Irish Travellers were also considered gifted musicians and storytellers, two aspects that, unlike covered wagons, allow their culture to be preserved and sustained.

Volunteers with the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1930s ventured into the countryside to capture local storytellers using a heavy and bulky recording device, the Edison Ediphone. One individual, Páidraig Mac Gréine, is estimated to have transcribed 10,000 pages of folklore material in the course of his work .2  After the folktales were recorded, Mac Greine and other field workers transcribed the recordings in the exact words of the recorder.

Many of the folk tales of that era were published in Bealoideas , a journal of folklore that began in 1927. Today, folktales recorded by Irish Travellers in the 1930s are available in Bealoideas accessible through JSTOR, a digital library that includes journals in the social sciences and humanities.

In describing Bealoideas in the early- to mid-1930s, author Bairbre Ni Fhloinn writes, “Certainly, no other body was then engaging with Travellers in an attempt to document their history, their life experience and their wealth of oral tradition.” 3

Music continues to be an important aspect of Traveller culture. After a long day of working at their craft and services, and selling their wares, Travellers would gather around campfires in the evening and engage in storytelling and music. The songs also served to preserve the history of this itinerant community.

Today there are a number of musicians influenced by Irish Travellers of the past. Some well-known contemporary Irish Traveller musicians include Paddy Keenan who was born in Co. Meath. He hails from a line of musicians who are steeped in traditional music. Keenan has even performed several times at the Celtic Junction, the last time being June 18 of 2022.

Sharyn Ward is another successful Traveller singer and songwriter. Born in Longford and the mother of two children, she made it to the “Ireland’s Got Talent” final with her rendition of “One Starry Night.” She notes that “the song makes me proud to be a Traveller.” 4

Keenan and Ward are but two of successful singers/musicians. Others include Michael O’Connell, Co. Clare; Pat Broderick, East Galway; and Martin Nolan, Dublin, (pipes).

Contemporary Irish Traveller music tends to focus on the hardships experienced in the past and the discrimination and isolation felt by Travellers today. In the stirring song, “Move Along,” written by Finbar Magee, singer William Dundon laments,

While this song speaks to how Travellers have been treated both in the past and presently, singer Dundon displays a positive outlook for his family. “I’m settled now,” says Dundon. “My kids are settled. They’re going to school to have a good education to have all the means to survive and have a happy life.”

A personal ambition for Dundon, who works in security, is to own his security company. But he says if that doesn’t work out, “I’m going to go into music.” According to Dundon, when it comes to music, being a Traveller doesn’t really matter. He notes, “When you’re a musician, everyone wants you.”

One of his greatest accomplishments was a trip to China a few years ago when his musical group was invited by Simon Coveney, the deputy leader of Fine Gael since 2017, to perform in Beijing. Dundon said it was incredible enough to play in China, but then he was given the opportunity to play music on the Great Wall of China – something less than 100 musicians have ever been allowed to do. It’s opportunities like these that give Dundon hope for a brighter future for Travellers as they make their way into the 21 st century.

But yet there are many hurdles to deal with in contemporary times. Irish Travellers have undergone a major shift in their lifestyle within the past half century. While “modernization” is generally a positive concept that brings with it a more prosperous and enlightened society, for Travellers, the change hasn’t necessarily been positive.

A recent article in the Irish Times 5 points to a report published in February 2023 that shows how suicide is impacting Travellers in South County Dublin and Ballyfermot:

• Travellers have a suicide rate six times that of the general population 
• Over two-thirds of Travellers have lost a loved one to suicide
• Almost 90 percent of Travellers are worried about suicide in their community

These shocking statistics go hand in hand with the reality that a large percentage of Irish Travellers cannot find employment and are then forced to live in government-funded housing. To add to this, their children tend to leave school early for a variety of complex reasons.

Some countries struggle with itinerants who come from ‘outside.’ But in Ireland, “the itinerants are their own people with Irish names,” notes Aimee L’Amie, editor of The Irish Travelling People: A Resource Collection.

Discrimination, the feeling of not fitting in with the “settled” Irish population, and poverty may seem like insurmountable problems facing today’s Irish Travellers. But one needs only look at their many contributions over centuries to recognize how vital this ethnic community is to the Republic of Ireland and No. Ireland. People like musician Dundon can see a brighter life ahead. While it’s true the itinerant lifestyle may be coming to an end for many Irish Travellers, their past will always remain a vital piece of Irish history.

1 George Gmelch. Shorten the Road, (Dublin: The O’Brien Press, 19xx) p. 18 2 The Irish Times, “Folklore Collector Who Specialised in Traditions of Travelling Community,” March 3, 2007.  3 “On the Edge: Portrayals of Travellers and Others in Irish Popular Tradition, Bairbre Ni Fhloinn, Bealoideas , Iml. 83, p. 5. 4 Traveller Collection website, https://travellercollection.ie/items/628370a5be5aff4ed2883074 5 “The Irish Times View on Suicide in the Traveller Community,” Editorial, The Irish Times , Feb. 23, 2023 6 “ The Irish Traveling People: A Resource Collection,” Aileen L’Amie, Volume 2: The Republic of Ireland 1951-81. Part F: Galway 1967-70 . 1984. JSTOR , https://jstor.org/stable/community.

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Past Issues

'Distinct identity': Irish Travellers celebrate day they were recognized as ethnic minority

This day six years ago, the Irish Traveller community was recognized by the Irish State as an ethnic group

• 16:45, 1 MAR 2023
• Updated 16:49, 1 MAR 2023

In Ireland, today marks Irish Traveller Ethnicity Day: a celebration of the moment Irish Travellers were officially recognized as an ethnic group in the Irish state.

On March 1, 2017, Taoiseach Enda Kenny made a statement in the Dáil formally recognizing the ethnic status of the Traveller community in Ireland. After a campaign spanning multiple decades, the date meant that the contributions made and challenges faced by the Traveller community would now be recognized at state level.

"The Traveller community has for many years campaigned to have their unique heritage, culture and identity formally recognized by the Irish state," the Taoiseach said at the time. "And in this state, they make their contribution as gardaí, doctors, members of the Defence Forces, prison officers."

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The Taoiseach continued: "So there should be no surprise that a person can identify as Irish and as Traveller. This is a deep and personal issue for many Travellers."

The Irish Traveller community has long faced discrimination in Ireland , with the group largely excluded from settled society over generations. The life expectancy of Irish Travellers is lower than their settled peers, and the community's suicide rate is six times the national average.

Being recognized as an ethnic minority means Irish Travellers (who are separate from but often confused with the Romani people due to similarities in their historically nomadic cultures) are now included in Ireland's anti-racism and integration policies. It also recognizes the unique culture and history of the Traveller community, who have, according to scientists, been genetically distinct from settled Irish people for at least 1,000 years.

The day doesn't just celebrate Irish Travellers based in Ireland, but their international diaspora. The community spans the UK, where they are also recognized as an ethnic minority, as well as Canada and the US .

It's difficult to guess how large the diaspora of the Irish Traveller community is in the US, as the US Census does not recognize them as an ethnic group. Estimations range their US population to be anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000.

The vast majority of this population is thought to have arrived in the US between 1845 and 1860 as a result of the Great Famine. Here, Irish Traveller communities mostly reside in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The largest is around 2,500 people, who live in Murphy Village, SC.

Like Irish Travellers in Ireland, Irish Travellers in the US have a unique cultural identity. This includes practicing devout Catholicism, a strong emphasis on family and community, and some usage of Cant, a language of mixed Irish and English origin spoken by Travellers.

"Our Traveller community is an integral part of our society for over a millennium, with their own distinct identity – a people within our people," the Taoiseach said this day six years ago. "...It is a historic day for our Travellers and a proud day for Ireland."

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Travellers as ‘genetically different’ from settled Irish as Spanish

Study finds travellers emerged as distinct group up to 200 years before great famine.

John Ward, a Traveller making tinware near Galway, in 1971. Photograph: Pat Langan.

The emergence of Irish Travellers as a distinct group occurred long before the Great Famine, a genetic analysis shows.

The study also indicates that while Travellers originally descended from the general Irish population, they are now very distinct from it.

DNA analysis allowed the researchers to track when and how quickly Travellers arose. This occurred between eight and 14 generations ago, with the best fit suggesting 12 generations or 360 years ago, said Prof Gianpiero Cavalleri, who conducted the study with colleagues at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the University of Edinburgh.

The 12 generations would push the emergence of Travellers back to 1657. This significantly predates the Great Famine of 1845-52, an event long thought to have caused the formation of a migratory community that became the Travellers.

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The research suggests that Traveller origins may in fact date as far back as 420 years to 1597. The Plantation of Ulster began around that time, with native Irish displaced from the land, perhaps to form a nomadic population.

Ethnic status

The findings provide strong evidence that Travellers should receive some form of ethnic status, according to Prof Cavalleri.

“We think this is a nice piece of evidence for that complex debate,” he said. The research group “would be supportive of some form of ethnic status”.

Travellers are now as genetically different from the settled Irish as are the Spanish, he said. And if the small Traveller population is taken into account, they are still as different from the Irish as are the Scots.

“Travellers cluster with the Irish but they are very definitely distinct from the Irish. There is a considerable genetic distance between them.”

The far-reaching study sought to understand the genetic connections between Travellers, the settled Irish and people further afield. It involved looking at the DNA of more than 11,000 people including Travellers, Roma Gypsies, settled Irish, British, Continental Europeans and individuals from the rest of the world.

It also sought to set a time for when the Traveller community began to form as a distinct and separate population.

Today there are between 29,000 and 40,000 Travellers in Ireland, representing 0.6 per cent of the total population.

The researchers did not try to connect the emergence of Travellers with any one historical event. “We tried to avoid speculating. You could point to Cromwellian times but it is speculation,” Prof Gianpiero said.

They did not however have to speculate about the genetics including an important analysis of the interrelatedness of Travellers, something the researchers say could have implications for disease mapping within Ireland.

It is common practice for Travellers to marry first and second cousins, leading to a situation where they have some of the highest rates of duplicated DNA in the world.

"The isolation and consanguinity (marrying cousins) have in turn led to an increased prevalence of recessive diseases, " the authors said.

They published their findings on Thursday in the Nature journal Scientific Reports , with the RCSI's Edmund Gilbert as lead author.

Genetic clusters

The DNA analysis also revealed that there are four “genetic clusters” or subdivisions within the Traveller community. These in turn tend to match up with their social grouping and use of language.

One cluster is associated with the “Rathkeale group” of Travellers. Two other clusters are linked to whether the Traveller speaks the Cant or Gammon dialects of the Traveller language Shelta.

The study clearly showed there was no significant genetic contribution made by Roma Gypsies to Traveller DNA. This disproves a view held by some that the two groups were genetically related.

Traveller origins have long been a “source of considerable debate” the authors write. There is also a lack of documentary evidence that reveals the history of the Irish Traveller population.

Dick Ahlstrom

Dick Ahlstrom, a contributor to The Irish Times, is the newspaper's former Science Editor.

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Welcome to The Irish Traveller Movement

The irish traveller movement ( itm ) is a national membership organisation representing travellers and traveller organisations across ireland since its establishment in 1990. we work collectively to represent the views of travellers and to develop policies, actions, and innovative programmes to bring about change for travellers in ireland. the irish traveller movement holds strongly to the principle of solidarity and is a partnership between travellers and non-travellers committed to seeking full equality for travellers in irish society..

Policy and Political

The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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• Location: Moscow Oblast, Russia
• Latitude: 55.79. Longitude: 38.46
• Population: 144,000

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Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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