OT: thoughts on MSN article on "Irish Travelers"?

PhilO · Post by **PhilO** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 5:00 pm

Craig - "Snatch" was a great movie! (Ok, maybe more entertaining than memorable, but that's great too).

Philo

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 5:43 pm

IMO, this thread is a bad idea only because I seriously doubt anyone here is talking from experience regarding this topic.

I'll make just a few comments based on having some actual insight regarding the subject - I used to date a woman who had at one time (prior) been part of the Traveller "Family" here in the U.S., so I learned about them from an insider, long before 60 minutes or any other media coverage could have biased me. Keep in mind that I'm part Irish and part Scottish, so if anything, I'd have reason NOT to take a biggoted stance.

Chris, Chuck is correct: The "Irish Travellers" here in the states, the one's that are the subject of the thread that was started, are in fact, people who make their living by taking advantage of others, quite often the elderly, by means of various scams - quite heinous, if you ask me. BTW, this is not to say this is the case with other similar or dissimilar nomadic peoples elsewhere in the world.

The current media coverage is then factual, and doesn't seem any more biggoted to me than if they were reporting on mafia activity - Clearly we all know that that the "Mafia" are not an accurate representation of Italians in general, and very few would get upset and start screaming about bigotted media coverage if this woman were some "Mob" wife, and the media reported about Mob activity as related backround information - That's not coverage about Italians per se, that's coverage about documented criminal activity, and it's the same here with the Travellers. The police aren't making this stuff up, they have to take reports from the poor folks who get ripped off by these people, which happens on a regular basis.

I honestly don't see what purpose this thread will serve - What's to be gained by having a bunch of people with no actual experience or insight throwing around uneducated, speculative opinions?

Wait a minute, so sorry, I forgot......This is the Chiff and Fipple message board - Carry on then!

Loren

ChrisLaughlin · Post by **ChrisLaughlin** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 5:43 pm

Craig -
My girlfriend is not studying them - she's working with the Traveller community to help them out educationally, financially, legally and otherwise because they've been totally disenfranchised for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and because people continue to perpetuate the unfounded myth that when one is born a Traveller he or she is automatically predisposed to prostitution, violence, thievery, dishonesty and any other number of unpleasent traits.

Chris

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 7:30 pm

On 2002-09-25 16:37, ChrisLaughlin wrote:
Gosh folks,
This is, as far as I can tell, a really racist, bigotted thread going on.
It is simply impossible - and just plain wrong - to brand an entire ethnic group or social group as this or that, especially as something bad, because of the actions of some within that group.

Just two comments, Chris, and not in the spirit of argument. In reverse order:

1; We're not talking about an entire ethnic group here, but a small and specific subset of people of Irish ancestry which makes its way through preying on others. So many of us here share at least some Irish ancestry that bigotry in this case is a questionable conclusion.

2: My comments were based on very specific experience in almost twenty years of police employment as a civilian data processing specialist and manager - including working off and on with organized crime and criminal intelligence analysis units and data. Every major police organization in the US and Canada treats the Irish Travellers as a criminal entity, along with gangs and internal terrorist groups. As such, analysts are assigned to track and predict their movements and to share intelligence about anticipated future movements. The files are very thick. This is not because they're Irish, or Roman Catholic, or because they speak a private language. It is because a very large percentage of them are thieves and con artists.

The Italian-American Anti-defamation Society aside, some Americans of Italian descent make their living through organized crime. To say so is hardly a case of anti-Italian bigitry - just simple fact. The same argument applies to the Irish Travellers.

CraigMc · Post by **CraigMc** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 7:41 pm

Chris,

Short answer:
No one said anyone was predisposed to anything but just speaking in general terms about the overall culture of the Irish Travelers.

Long answer:
I think what your girlfriend is doing is awesome and I myself find it interesting. I just think that we need to be careful when throwing around words like racist and biggot. I think people on this board can have a reasonable discussion about particular group of people without having someone throw around accusations.

I highly doubt anyone would feel the need to study or work with the Irish Travelers if they didn't have certain characteristics, culture or customs that distinguished them from others. I think people should be allowed to discuss those differences even if they are bad. How can anyone help them without understanding what makes them different overall from other social groups? Obviously any social group on closer inspection is a collection of individuals that can be as different from one another as any two individuals can be.

I would just appreciate people giving others on this board the benifit of the doubt and not stifle an interesting cultural discussion with allegations that those involved in said discussion feel they are racially superior.

[ This Message was edited by: CraigMc on 2002-09-25 22:33 ]

MurphyStout · Post by **MurphyStout** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 7:50 pm

I smell another "musical beggers" thread.

CraigMc · Post by **CraigMc** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 8:42 pm

Phil,

I thought Snatch was a great film too. I wonder who trained Brad Pitt to talk like that?

As far as my credentials to discuss the whole Irish Travellers thing.......

I happen to love Planxty's Raggle Taggle Gypsy and I relate more to the passionate Gypsy than the rich and powerful lord.

sa th're ye go....

MurphyStout · Post by **MurphyStout** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 9:08 pm

Look out! Craig is serious; he's quoting Victor Hugo!

CraigMc · Post by **CraigMc** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 10:27 pm

I love to sing-a
About the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a,
I love to sing-a,
About a sky of blue-a, or a tea for two-a,
Anything-a with a swing-a to an "I love you-a,"
I love to, I love to sing!

Give me a song-a
About a son-a gun that went and done her wrong-a.
But keep it clean-a,
With a cottage small-a by a waterfall-a,
Any sob-a that will throb-a to a bluebird's call-a,
I love, I love to sing!

I was born a singin' fool-a,
Lah-de-dah!
Ol' Major Bowes is gonna spot me,
Got through Yale with boula-boula,
Lah-de-dah!
Old microphone's got me!

I love to sing-a,
I love to wake up with the south-a in my mouth-a,
And wave a flag-a,
With a cheer for Uncle Sammy and another for my mammy,
I love to sing!

The swingin'est,
Hot singin'est,
Bell-ringin'est,
Song singin'est
High tootin'est,
Sky tootin'est,
I love to sing!

Ridseard · Post by **Ridseard** » Wed Sep 25, 2002 10:49 pm

On 2002-09-25 15:16, The Weekenders wrote:
I was surprised by article referring to those specific Traveling Folk on the East Coast as Irish as they are usually referred to as Scottish Travelers. But the article claimed they were Catholic so I dunno...

We tend to associate Scotland with Protestantism (or, more specifically, Presbyterianism), but I think Catholicism is fairly strong there nowadays.

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Thu Sep 26, 2002 1:18 am

Chuck you are talking about an entire ethnic group here and if you said what you said here in Ireland ['the men do this .., the women that..' without any reserve] Traveller's rights organisations would have you through the courts before you could blink and rightfully so. A lot of things expressed here are the old worn bigoted perceptions of the Travelling community, the biggest self proclaimed expert having direct experience because he 'dated' a member of the community under discussion once.
Maybe it's also good to look at the social exclusion that led to certain types of behaviour as long as less than 5 percent of Traveller men reach the age of 65[and the women die much earlier still, health statistics that would embarras any third world country] I don't think you can blame them for not wanting to conform to a society that rejects travellers as a group.

Will we go on topic now and have a positive discussion about the music of Johnny and Felix Doran, The Dohertys, The Fureys and Paddy Keenan etc. probably more productive and you may gain some insights from it.

http://w1.461.telia.com/~u46103557/jdoran.html
is worth a look for the Doran's music and some background

Look up the website for Pavee point in Dublin they have sensible information on the subject

http://ireland.iol.ie/~pavee/

[edited to add links]

[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-09-26 04:41 ]

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Thu Sep 26, 2002 2:18 am

[quote]
On 2002-09-26 03:18, Peter Laban wrote:
Will we go on topic and have a positive discussion about the music of Johnny and Felix Doran, The Dohertys and Paddy Keenan etc.

What's your hurry? But let's edge in that direction.

I was surprised to read that there is an identifiable traveller group in the US. As far as I know, there is no such group in Australia although I'd be delighted to be contradicted on that. Swagmen—our 'travellers', were itinerant males generally travelling around looking for whatever work they could find in hard times.

I've wondered for a while who the Irish and Scottish travellers are and got even more interested when I read recently that most Stewarts are descended from Scottish travellers and that most are partly of Rom (Gypsy) descent. If you have some Stewart in you then that's you buddy. It also happens to be me. The Scots travellers and gypsies are distinct groups but there's a lot of interrelatedness there. According to the article I read, the Irish travellers are probably not of Rom descent. So, probably indiginous clans in both countries initially.

As for the puzzlement about Scottish catholics: many parts of the highlands held out for quite a while against protestantism and the Southern Hebrides never gave in to 'subtle' English and lowland pressure to change. Further north, change came slowly and reluctantly—heard of the Jacobites? The recent increase has to do with Irish migration and intermarriage with highlanders who were already catholic.

Now music: amongst Scottish musicians who are from traveller families we have Belle Stewart, Davey Stewart, Jeannie Robertson and, today, the wonderful Andy M. Stewart—obviously on any sane shortlist for greatest singer in the tradition active today. Well, if I'm even distantly related to that lot then I'm a happy little wombat.

I tried recently to order some Johnny Doran CDs without success. Anybody know of an outlet? Hey, we're OT at last.

[ This Message was edited by: Wombat on 2002-09-26 04:29 ]

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Thu Sep 26, 2002 5:04 am

Peter,

You don't what you're talking about. You may know something about what goes on or doesn't in Ireland, but you clearly have no knowledge about the Travellers here in the U.S.

By the way, in addition to my experience having been directly involved with someone from this group, I have knowledge, like Chuck, from the law enforcement side as well: For a number of years I provided Defensive Tactics Training to City, State, and Federal Law Enforcement Officers and Agencies. During that time I had many disucussions with Law Enforcement personell regarding a wide variety of crime related topics, in cluding Traveller Crime.

Generally speaking, the information from both my professional and personal sources matched.

You want to disagree with me out of ignorance, Peter? Fine. However, if you want to imply that I (or Chuck for that matter) have little idea what I'm talking about, then you are simply wrong.

I'm done with this thread, folks are going to believe what they want, regardless of the actual facts.

Loren

[ This Message was edited by: Loren on 2002-09-26 07:16 ]

Roger O'Keeffe · Post by **Roger O'Keeffe** » Thu Sep 26, 2002 6:08 am

Glad you got in there, Peter, and tried to get this thread back on topic, because I'm very uncomfortable with it, both for what some people are saying and about the fact that it's on C&F at all.

I'm the first to recognise that the Irish Travellers can be their own worst enemies, but the sort of generalisations which are being made here about them are disgraceful, and I doubt if anyone in the US would dare to make them (at least publicly) about groups such as Jews or black people.

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Thu Sep 26, 2002 6:15 am

On 2002-09-26 07:04, Loren wrote:

You want to disagree with me out of ignorance, Peter? Fine. However, if you want to imply that I (or Chuck for that matter) have little idea what I'm talking about, then you are simply wrong.

In an interview with The Piper's Review last year Paddy Keenan spoke freely of how it was to grow up as a traveller in Ireland, how it was to step out of the door and have the law enforcement officers onto them who 'knew from experience' they couldn't be any good, how it was being picked at for being a 'knacker' or a 'tinker' and all the prejudices they had to suffer.
He also spoke about the Travelling communities he found in the US, how he immediately felt at home with them, how they had retained customs and traditions that have been lost by the travelling people of Ireland. I think he even travelled with them for a whiile [I don't have the interview here so I have to rely on memory]. My impression then was that the Travellers in the US were not that different from those here. It is obvious from this thread the problems and the prejudices are very much the same.

[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-09-26 11:12 ]