ROMA GYPSIES
OF THE U.K.
ROMANY / ROMANICHAL
Romanichal
Romanichal Travellers (UK: /ˈrÉ’mÉ™nɪtʃæl/ US: /-ni-/), (more commonly known as English Gypsies or English Travellers) are a Romani sub-group in the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world.
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Romanichal Travellers are thought to have arrived in the Kingdom of England in the 16th century. They are very closely related to the Welsh Kale, Scottish Lowland Travellers, Norwegian & Swedish Romanisæl Travellers and Finnish Kale.
Etymology
The word "Romanichal" is derived from Romani chal, where chal is Angloromani for "fellow".
Distribution
Nearly all Romanichal Travellers in Britain live in England, with smaller communities in South Wales, Northeast Wales, and the Scottish Borders. They can be found all over these areas, with counties like Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire and Yorkshire have especially high concentrations of Romanichal communities.
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The Romanichal diaspora emigrated from Great Britain to other parts of the English-speaking world. Based on some estimates, there are now more people of Romanichal descent in the United States than in Britain. They are also found in smaller numbers in South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and there is a small Romanichal community in Malta who are descended from British Romanichal migrants who moved there during colonial times. In the US most Romanichal are in the Deep South and New England regions. Most South African Romanichal are in the Cape region, Most Canadian Romanichal are in the Vancouver region, most New Zealand Romanichal are in the Auckland region and most Australian Romanichal are in the Eastern States of Australia.
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In Great Britain, there is a sharp north–south divide between Romanichal Travellers. Southern Romanichal Travellers live in the Southeast, Southwest, Midlands, East Anglia and South Wales, and Northern Romanichal Travellers live in the Northwest, Yorkshire, Scottish Borders and Northeast of Wales. The two groups' dialects differ in accent and vocabulary.
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Language
The Romani people in England are thought to have spoken the Romani language until the 19th century, when it was replaced by English and Angloromani, a creole language that combines the syntax and grammar of English with the Romani lexicon. Most Romanichals also speak English.
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There are two dialects of Angloromani, Southern Angloromani (Spoken in the Southeast, Southwest, Midlands, East Anglia and South Wales) and Northern Angloromani (Spoken in the Northeast, Northwest, Yorkshire, Scottish Borders and Northeast of Wales). These two dialects along with the accents that accompany them have led to two regional Romanichal Traveller identities forming, these being the Southern Romanichal identity and the Northern Romanichal Traveller identity.
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Many Angloromani words have been incorporated into English, particularly in the form of British slang.
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History
The Romani people have origins in India, specifically Rajasthan and began migrating westwards from the 11th century. The first groups of Romani people arrived in Great Britain by the end of the 16th century, escaping conflicts in Southeastern Europe (such as the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans).
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In 1506 there are recorded Romani persons in Scotland, arrived from Spain and to England in 1512. Soon the leadership passed laws aimed at stopping the Romani immigration and at the assimilation of those already present.
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During the reign of Henry VIII, the Egyptians Act (1530) banned Romanies from entering the country and required those living in the country to leave within 16 days. Failure to do so could result in confiscation of property, imprisonment and deportation. During the reign of Mary I the act was amended with the Egyptians Act (1554), which removed the threat of punishment to Romanies if they abandoned their "naughty, idle and ungodly life and company" and adopted a settled lifestyle, but it increased the penalty for noncompliance to death.
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In 1562 a new law offered Romanies born in England and Wales the possibility of becoming English subjects if they assimilated into the local population. Despite persecution and this new option, the Romani were forced into a marginal lifestyle and subjected to continuous discrimination from the state authorities and many non-Romanies. In 1596, 106 men and women were condemned to death at York just for being Romani, and nine were executed. Samuel Rid authored two early works about them in the early 17th century.
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From the 1780s, gradually, the anti-Romani laws were repealed, although not all. The identity of the Romanichals was formed between the years 1660 and 1800, as a Romani group living in Britain.
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Persecution
Racism against Romanichal and other travelling peoples is still endemic within Britain. In 2008 the Romani experienced a higher degree of racism than any other group in the UK, including asylum-seekers, and a Mori poll indicated that a third of UK residents admitted to being prejudiced against Romani.
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Shipments to the Americas, Caribbean and Australia
England began to deport Romanichals, principally to Norway, as early as 1544. The process was continued and encouraged by Elizabeth I and James I.
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The Finnish Kale, a Romani group in Finland, maintain that their ancestors had originally been a Romani group who travelled from Scotland, supporting the idea that they and the Scandinavian Travellers/Romani are distantly related to present-day Scottish Romani and English Romanichals.
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In 1603 an Order in Council was made for the transportation of Romanichal to the Low Countries, France, Newfoundland, Spain, and the West Indies. Other European countries forced the further transport of the Romani of Britain to the Americas.
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Many times those deported in this manner did not survive as an ethnic group, because of the separations after the round up, the sea passage and the subsequent settlement as slaves, all destroying their social fabric. At the same time, voluntary emigration began to the English overseas possessions. Romani groups which survived continued the expression of the Romani culture there.
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In the years following the American War of Independence, Australia was the preferred destination for Romanichal transportation due to its use as a penal colony. The exact number of British Romani deported to Australia is unknown. It has been suggested that three Romanichal were present on the First Fleet, one of whom was thought to be James Squire who founded Australia's first commercial brewery in 1798, and whose grandson James Farnell became the first native-born Premier of New South Wales in 1877. The total Romani population seems to be an extremely low number when we consider that British Romani people made up just 0.01% of the original 162,000 convict population. However, it has been suggested that Romanichal were one of the main target groups and were discriminated against due to the transportation laws of England in the mid-18th century.
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It is often difficult to distinguish British Romani people of Wales and England from the majority of non-Romani convicts at the time, therefore the precise number of British Romanies transported is not known, although there are occurrences of Romani names and possible families within the convict population; however it is unclear if such people were members of the established Romani community. Fragmentary records do exist and it is thought with confidence at least fifty or more British Romanies may have been transported to Australia, although the actual figure could be higher. What is clear is that such deportation (as for all convicts) was particularly harsh:
"For Romani convicts transportation meant social and psychological death; exiled they had little hope of returning to England to re-establish family ties, cultural roots, continuous expression and validation that would have revived their Romani identity in the convict era."
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One, however, is known to have returned. Henry Lavello (or Lovell) was repatriated with a full pardon with a son born to an Aboriginal woman who accompanied him back to England.
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Slavery
In the 17th century Oliver Cromwell shipped Romanichals as slaves to the American southern plantations and there is documentation of English Romanies being owned by freed black slaves in Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, and Louisiana. Gypsies, according to the legal definition, were anyone identifying themselves to be Egyptians or Gypsies. The works of George Borrow reflect the influences this had on the Romani Language of England and others contain references to Romanies being bitcheno pawdel or Bitchade pardel, to be "sent across" to America or Australia, a period of Romani history not forgotten by Romanies in Britain today.
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Culture
Historically, Romanichals earned a living doing agricultural work and would move to the edges of towns for the winter months. There was casual work available on farms throughout the spring, summer and autumn months; spring would start with seed sowing, planting potatoes and fruit trees, early summer with weeding, and there would be a succession of harvests of crops from summer to late autumn. Of particular significance was the hop industry, which employed thousands of Romanichals both in spring for vine training and for the harvest in early autumn. Winter months were often spent doing casual labour in towns or selling goods or services door to door.
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Mass industrialisation of agriculture in the 1960s led to the disappearance of many of the casual farm jobs Romanichals had traditionally carried out.
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During the 20th century onwards Romanichals became, and remain, the mainstay of asphalt paving, hawking, horse dealing, fortune telling, scrap metal dealing, tree surgery, tarmacking, travelling funfairs, and wooden rose making. They have also produced notable boxers such as Henry Wharton and Billy Joe Saunders as well as some notable footballers like Freddy Eastwood Ben Hughes Australian and World Whip Cracking champion, and journalists, psychotherapists, nurses and all manner of professions.
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A didicoy (Angloromani; didikai, also diddicoy, diddykai) is a person of mixed Romany and Gorger (non-Romanichal) blood.
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Travel
Originally, Romanichals would travel on foot, or with light, horse-drawn carts, and would build bender tents where they settled for a time, as is typical of other Romani groups. A Bender is a type of tent constructed from a frame of bent hazel branches (hazel is chosen for its straightness and flexibility), covered with canvas or tarpaulin.
Around the mid- to late 19th century, Romanichals started using wagons that incorporated living spaces on the inside. These they called Vardos and were often brightly and colorfully decorated on the inside and outside. In the present day, Romanichals are more likely to live in caravans or houses.
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Over 60% of 21st-century Romanichal families live in houses of bricks and mortar whilst the remaining 40% still live in various forms of traditional Traveller modes of transport, such as caravans, trailers or static caravans (a small minority still live in Vardos).
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According to the Regional Spatial Strategy caravan count for 2008, there were 13,386 caravans owned by Romani in the West Midlands region of England, whilst a further 16,000 lived in bricks and mortar. Of the 13,386 caravans, 1,300 were parked on unauthorised sites (that is, on land where Romani were not given permission to park). Over 90% of Britain's travelling Romanichals live on authorised sites where they pay full rates (council tax).
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On most Romanichal Traveller sites there are usually no toilets or showers inside caravans because in Romanichal culture this is considered unclean, or 'mochadi'. Most sites have separate utility blocks with toilets, sinks and electric showers. Many Romanichals will not do their laundry inside, especially not underwear, and subsequently many utility blocks also have washing machines. In the days of horse-drawn wagons and Vardos, Romanichal women would do their laundry in a river, being careful to wash upper body garments further upstream from underwear and lower body garments, and personal bathing would take place much further downstream. In some modern trailers, a double wall separates the living areas from the toilet and shower.
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Due to the (British) Caravan Sites Act 1968 which greatly reduced the number of caravans allowed to be pitched on authorised sites, many Romanichals cannot find legal places on sites with the rest of their families.
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Like most Itinerant groups, Romanichals travel around for work, usually following set routes and set stopping places (called 'atching tans') which have been established for hundreds of years. Many traditional stopping places were established before land ownership changed and any land laws were in place. Many atching tans were established by feudal land owners in the Middle Ages, when Romani would provide agricultural or manual labour services in return for lodgings and food.
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Today, most Romani travel within the same areas that were established generations ago. Most people can trace their presence in an area back over a hundred or two hundred years. Many traditional stopping places were taken over by local government or by settled individuals decades ago and have subsequently changed hands numerous times; however Romani have long historical connections to such places and do not always willingly give them up. Most families are identifiable by their traditional wintering base, where they will stop travelling for the winter, and this place will be technically where a family is 'from'.
British acts of legislation
The Enclosure Act of 1857 created the offence of injury or damage to village greens and interruption to its use or enjoyment as a place of exercise and recreation. The Commons Act 1876 makes encroachment or inclosure of a village green, and interference with or occupation of the soil unlawful unless it is with the aim of improving enjoyment of the green.
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The Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 states that no occupier of land shall cause or permit the land to be used as a caravan site unless he is the holder of a site licence. It also enables a district council to make an order prohibiting the stationing of caravans on common land, or a town or village green. These acts had the overall effect of preventing travellers using the vast majority of their traditional stopping places.
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The Caravan Sites Act 1968 required local authorities to provide caravan sites for travellers if there was a demonstrated need. This was resisted by many councils who would claim that there were no Romanichals living in their areas. The result was that insufficient pitches were provided for travellers, leading to a situation whereby holders of a pitch could no longer travel, for fear of losing it.
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The crisis of the 1960s decade, caused by the Caravan Sites Act 1968 (stopping new private sites being built until 1972), led to the appearance of the "British Gypsy Council" to fight for the rights of the Romanichals.
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In the UK, the issue of "Travellers" (referring to Romanichal Travellers, Irish Travellers, Funfair Travellers (Showman) as well as other groups) became a 2005 general election issue, with the leader of the Conservative Party promising to review the Human Rights Act 1998. This law, which absorbs the European Convention on Human Rights into UK primary legislation, is seen by some to permit the granting of retrospective planning permission. Severe population pressures and the paucity of greenfield sites have led to travellers purchasing land and setting up residential settlements very quickly, thus subverting the planning restrictions.
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Romanichal Travellers and Irish Travellers argued in response that thousands of retrospective planning permissions are granted in Britain in cases involving non-Romani applicants each year and that statistics showed that 90% of planning applications by Travellers were initially refused by local councils, compared with a national average of 20% for other applicants, disproving claims of preferential treatment favouring Travellers.
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They also argued that the root of the problem was that many traditional stopping-places had been barricaded off and that the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 passed by the previous Conservative government had effectively criminalized their community, for example by removing local authorities' responsibility to provide sites, thus leaving the travellers with no option but to purchase unregistered new sites themselves.
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Kale (Welsh Roma)
The Kale (also Kalá, Valshanange; Welsh: Roma yng Nghymru) are a group of Romani people in Wales. Many claim to be descendants of Abram Wood, who was the first Romani to reside permanently and exclusively in Wales in the early 18th century, though Romanichal Travellers have appeared in Wales since the 16th century.[2] Welsh Kale are almost exclusively found in Northwest Wales, specifically the Welsh-speaking areas. Romanichal Travellers inhabit South Wales (In and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport) and North East Wales (In an around Wrexham as well as in parts of Wales close to Liverpool and Chester).
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Generally speaking, the Kale have employed a tribal structure in which a group of several family units would be under the authority of a male chieftain. However some Kale families are matriarchal with a senior woman being chosen by consensus among the other women of the family to take the leadership role.
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The Welsh Kale are extremely closely related to English Romanichal Travellers, Scottish Lowland Romany Travellers, Norwegian and Swedish Romanisæl Travellers and Finnish Kale. Many Welsh Kale have migrated to the United States over the centuries. Most Welsh Kale who migrated to the US have become absorbed into the Romanichal communities of the US, with large portions of American Romanichal Travellers claiming Welsh Kale heritage.
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Language
The Kale speak Welsh Romani. Originally the variants of Welsh Romani and the Angloromani of the Romanichal constituted a common "British Romani" language. Both Welsh Romani and Angloromani share characteristics and are closely related to each other and to Romani dialects spoken in Scotland (Scottish Cant), Finland (Finnish Kalo) and Norway and Sweden (Scandoromani). Welsh, English, Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish Romani share common ancestry from a wave of Romani immigrants who came to England in the 16th century. The Welsh Romani language survived in North Wales until at least 1950. A sort of "pidgin" dialect arose in the late 19th century, mostly consisting of Romani, Welsh and English.
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Integration into Welsh culture
While preserving their travelling lifestyle the Kale grew to claim several aspects of Welsh culture, including conversion to Christianity, taking on Welsh surnames, and participating in regional and national eisteddfodau. Notably, John Robert Lewis, the husband of Abram Wood's granddaughter, would win prizes for harping in 1842, 1848 and 1850.
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Another descendant, John Roberts, earned the sobriquet "Telynor Cymru", and taught his whole family various instruments. His illustrious career culminated in a performance before Queen Victoria at the Palé Hall on 24 August 1889 on the occasion of the Royal Visit to Wales. John Roberts played with his nine sons, all of them on the harp.
Scottish Gypsy and Traveller Groups
Scottish Travellers, or the people in Scotland loosely termed gypsies or travellers, consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities that speak a variety of different languages and dialects that pertain to distinct customs, histories, and traditions.
There are four distinct communities that identify themselves as Gypsies/Travellers in Scotland: Indigenous Highland Travellers, Romani Lowland Travellers, Scottish Border Romanichal Traveller (Border Gypsies) and Showman (Funfair Travellers).
Lowland Travellers and Border Romanichal Travellers (Romani Groups)
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Lowland Scottish Gypsies/Travellers
The ethnic origins of Scottish Lowland Travellers are not clear, but can be categorised into two main theories:
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They are Romani in origin and have a common ancestry with the English Romanichal, and their language and culture simply diverged from the language and culture of the Romanichal like what happened with the Welsh Kale.
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They are a fusion or mix of Romani and an indigenous Lowland Scottish Traveller group, and their roots are just as Romani as they are Scottish.
Regardless of both theories, Lowland Gypsies are still viewed as a Romani group, with Romani culture clearly being a massive part of Scottish Lowland Gypsy culture.
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Lowland Scottish Romani Travellers share many cultural features with other British Romani Travellers (English Romanichal Travellers and Welsh Kale Travellers) such as a belief in the importance of family and family descent, a strong valuing and involvement with extended family and family events, a preference for self-employment, purity taboos (among the Romani people the purity taboos are part of the Romanipen) and a strong commitment to an itinerant lifestyle. They are particularly very closely related to the Romani groups of England, Wales, Norway, Sweden and Finland. They speak Scottish Cant, which is a para-Romani language (similar to Angloromani and Scandoromani) meaning that it is a mixed language. Scottish Cant is a mix of Scots and Romani.
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History
There is written evidence for the presence of Roma travellers in the Scottish Lowlands as early as 1505, when – during the reign of James IV – an entry in a book kept by the Lord High Treasurer records a payment of four shillings to a Peter Ker to take a letter from the king at Hunthall, to the "King of Rowmais". Two days later, the King authorised a payment of £20 to a messenger from the "King of Rowmais".
In 1530, a group of Romanies danced before the Scottish king at the Holyrood Palace and a Romani herbalist called Baptista cured the king of an ailment. Romany migration to Scotland continued during the 16th century and several groups of Romanies were accepted there after being expelled from England. Records in Dundee from 1651 note the migrations of small groups of people called "Egyptians" in the Highlands, and are noted to be of the same nature as the English Gypsies.
By 1612, communities of Romanies were recorded to exist as far north as Scalloway in the Shetland Islands. The Finnish Kale, a Romani group in Finland, maintain that their ancestors were originally a Romani group who travelled to Finland from Scotland, this is because Finnish Kale and Norwegian & Swedish Romanisæl Travellers are distantly related to present-day Scottish Lowland Romani Travellers, English Romanichal Travellers, and Welsh Kale, with all of these groups having common ancestry, being descended from the Romani who arrived in Britain in the 16th century.
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Romani people in the South of Scotland enjoyed the protection of the Roslyn family and made an encampment within the Roslyn castle grounds. However, as with its neighbour England, the Scottish parliament passed an act in 1609 against Romani groups known as the “Act against the Egyptians”; which made it lawful to condemn, detain and execute Gypsies if they were known or reputed to be ethnically Romani. Scotland has had a Romani population for at least 500 years; they are a distinct group from the Highland Travellers. Lowland Gypsies Romani Travellers share a common heritage with English Romanichal Gypsies and Welsh Kale. They enjoyed a privileged place in Scottish society until the Reformation, when their wandering lifestyle and exotic culture brought severe persecution upon them.
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Travelling groups from other parts of Britain often travel in Scotland. These include English Romanichal Travellers, Irish Travellers and Funfair Travellers (Showman). English Romanichal Gypsies/Travellers from the north of England mainly in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Cumbria commonly travel into the Scottish Borders. The annual gathering at Appleby Horse Fair could be considered part of the common culture that Lowland Scottish Travellers living in the Lowlands and Romanichal Border Gypsies living in the Scottish Borders share with the UK's other Travelling groups.
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Scottish Romanichal Travellers (Scottish Border Gypsies)
It is also important to note that Romanichal Traveller communities exist in the Scottish Borders, they are linguistically (Due to speaking Northern Angloromani) and culturally (Due to following Romanichal traditions and customs) identical to the Romanichal Traveller communities in Northern England. They are known locally as Border Gypsies. They live in separate and distinct communities from Scottish Lowland Travellers, although both are Romani groups with Romani cultures, languages and heritage.
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Scottish Romanichal traders were upwardly mobile, by 1830 they travelled to the potteries in Staffordshire and buying china and other goods, selling the items chiefly in Northumberland, while based in Kirk Yetholm in Roxburghshire.
By 1874 these Gypsies were commented on as "Having physical markers in their dusky complexion that is characteristically Gypsy]...and...[a language that is clearly Romani". Some Scottish Romanichal Travellers from the Scottish Borders are even members of Romani organisations based in England. Scottish Romanichal Travellers are known locally as Border Gypsies. Border Gypsies had a 'Royal' family, from an early date. The Faa family occupied this role until 1847 when it passed to the Blyths, commonly called Faa-Blyths. The last 'king' died in 1902 and there has been no more recent claimants. Besides the Faas and Blyths, common Border Gypsy (Scottish Romanichal) surnames include Baillie, Tait, Douglas, Gordon, McDonald, Ruthven, Young and Fleckie.
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Scottish Cant (Also known as Scots-Romani or Scotch-Romani)
The Lowland Gypsies speak a mixed language of Scots and Romani called Scottish Cant (Also known as Scots-Romani or Scotch-Romani) which includes many words of Romani origin, mostly Angloromani origin words. Up to 50% of Scottish Cant originates from Romani-derived lexicon.
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Music and song
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The Raggle Taggle Gypsies (1720)
Donnie Munro's "Where the Roses" and "Queen of the Hill", from the album An Turas, are based on the author's childhood experiences with the Tinker People in the Scottish Highlands.
Irish Travellers Gypsies also known as
Irish Parvee or Mincéirí
Irish Travellers (Irish: an lucht siúil, meaning "the walking people"), also known as Pavees or Mincéirí, are a nomadic Indigenous ethnic group whose members maintain a set of traditions. They are predominantly English-speaking, though many also speak Shelta. Religiously, the majority of Irish Travellers are Catholic.
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Although they are often referred to as "Gypsies", Irish Travellers are not genetically related to Romani Gypsies. Genetic analysis has shown Travellers to be of Irish extraction, and that they likely diverged from the settled Irish population in the 1600s, during the time of the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland. The centuries of separation has led to Travellers becoming genetically distinct from the settled Irish. Traveller rights groups long advocated for ethnic status from the Irish government, succeeding in 2017.
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Irish Travellers mostly live in Ireland, as well as in large communities in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. As of 2016, there are 32,302 Travellers within Ireland. They represent 0.7% of the total population of the Republic of Ireland.
Nomenclature
Travellers refer to themselves as Minkiers or Pavees, or in Irish as an Lucht Siúil ("the walking people").
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"Pikey" or "pikie" is a slang term, which is pejorative and is a derogatory term aimed towards Travellers. It is used in the UK to refer to Travellers. In a pejorative sense it means "a lower-class person", perhaps 'coarse' or 'disreputable'. It is not well received among Irish Travellers, as it is an ethnic slur. In Ireland the derogatory term "knacker" is often used.
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Origins
The historical origins of Irish Travellers as a distinct group is still unknown. It continues to be the subject of academic and popular debate. Research has been complicated by the fact that the group appears to have no written records of its own.
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Deeper documentation of Shelta and the Travellers dates to the 1830s, but knowledge of Irish Travellers has been seen from the 1100s, as well as the 1500s-1800s. Many decrees against begging in England were directed at Travellers, passed by King Edward VI around 1551. One such decree was the “Act for tynckers and pedlers”. The identity of Irish Travellers resembles other itinerant communities, some aspects being self-employment, family networks, birth, marriage, and burial rituals, taboos and folklore. Because they worked with metal, Travellers had to travel throughout Ireland and work on making various items such as ornaments, jewellery and horse harnesses to make a living. As a result, by 1175, they were referred to as “tinkler,” “tynkere,” or Tinkers, as well as Gypsies, all of which are derogative names to refer to their itinerant way of life.
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Origin theories
Many different theories have been put forward to explain the origins of Ireland's itinerant population. It has been suggested Travellers are related to Romani due to a similarly itinerant lifestyle, but genetic testing has shown no evidence for a recent ancestral component between Travellers and Romani Gypsies.
One idea is of their being distantly related to a Celtic group that invaded Ireland. Another theory is of a pre-Gaelic origin, where Travellers are descended from a community that lived in Ireland before the arrival of the Celts. Once Ireland was claimed as Celtic, this group was seen as lower class There is also a theory that an indigenous, itinerant community of craftsmen are the ancestors of Travellers, and they never settled down like the Celts. Other speculations on their origin are that they were descended from those Irish who were made homeless during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the 1650s, or made homeless in either the 1741 or the 1840s famine due to eviction.
According to a 2003 book by Jane Helleiner, current scholarship is investigating the background of Gaelic Ireland before the English Tudor conquest. The mobile nature and traditions of a Gaelic society based on pastoralism rather than land tenure before this event implies that Travellers represent descendants of the Gaelic social order marginalised during the change-over to an English landholding society. An early example of this mobile element in the population, and how displacement of clans can lead to increased nomadism within aristocratic warrior societies, is that of the Clan Murtough O' Connors, displaced after the Norman invasion.
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Population genetics
Present genetic evidence indicates that they are genetically Irish In 2011, researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and the University of Edinburgh analysed DNA samples from 40 Travellers. The study provided evidence that Irish Travellers are a distinct Irish ethnic minority, who have been distinct from the settled Irish community for at least 1000 years; the report claimed that they are as distinct from the settled community as Icelanders are from Norwegians. However, this apparent distance may be the effect of genetic drift within a small homogeneous population and may therefore exaggerate the distance between the two populations. A genetic analysis of Irish Travellers found evidence to support: (1) Irish ancestry; (2) several distinct subpopulations; and (3) the distinctiveness of the midland counties due to Viking influence.
In 2017 a further genetic study using profiles of 50 Irish Travellers, 143 European Roma, 2232 settled Irish, 2039 British and 6255 European or worldwide individuals confirmed ancestral origin within the general Irish population. An estimated time of divergence between the settled population and Travellers was set at a minimum of 8 generations ago, with generations at 30 years, hence 240 years and a maximum of 14 generations or 420 years ago. The best fit was estimated at 360 years ago, giving an approximate date in the 1650s. This date coincides well with the final destruction of Gaelic society following the 1641 Rebellion and during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in which Cromwell's forces devastated the country.
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Irish Travellers are not an entirely homogeneous group, instead reflecting some of the variation also seen in the settled population. Four distinct genetic clusters were identified in the 2017 study, and these match social groupings within the community.
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Genetic disease studies
Genetic studies by Miriam Murphy, David Croke, and other researchers identified certain genetic diseases such as galactosemia that are more common in the Irish Traveller population, involving identifiable allelic mutations that are rarer among the rest of the community.
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Two main hypotheses have arisen, speculating whether:
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this resulted from marriages made largely within and among the Traveller community, or
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suggesting descent from an original Irish carrier long ago with ancestors unrelated to the rest of the Irish populationThey concluded that: "The fact that Q188R is the sole mutant allele among the Travellers as compared to the non-Traveller group may be the result of a founder effect in the isolation of a small group of the Irish population from their peers as founders of the Traveller sub-population. This would favour the second, endogenous, hypothesis of Traveller origins."
More specifically, they found that Q188R was found in 100% of Traveller samples, and in 89% of other Irish samples, indicating that the Traveller group was typical of the larger Irish population.
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Language
Irish Travellers speak English and sometimes one of two dialects of Shelta—Gammon (or Gamin) and Irish Traveller Cant. Shelta has been dated back to the 18th century but may be older. Cant, which derives from Irish, is a combination of English and Shelta. Jean-Pierre Liégeois [fr] writes that the Irish Traveller Gammon vocabulary is derived from pre-13th-century Gaelic idioms with ten per cent Indian origin Romani language vocabulary. Since Shelta is a mixture of English and Irish grammar, the etymology is not straightforward. The language is made up mostly of Irish lexicon, being classified as a grammar-lexicon language with the grammar being English-based. Gaelic language expert Kuno Meyer and Romani language linguist John Sampson both asserted that Shelta existed as far back as the 13th century, 300 years before the first Romani populations arrived in Ireland or Britain.
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Shelta is a secret language. Irish Travellers do not like to share the language with outsiders, named “Buffers”, or non-Travellers. When speaking Shelta in front of Buffers, Travellers will disguise the structure so as to make it seem like they are not speaking Shelta at all. There is fear that if outsiders know the entirety of the language, it will be used to bring further discrimination to the Traveller community.
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The Irish state and Irish Travellers
There was no specific state focus on Travellers prior to the creation of an independent Irish state in 1922. Issues with traditionally travelling groups came under loosely defined vagrancy laws, originating from when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. In 1959 the 1959–63 government of Ireland established a "Commission on Itinerancy" in response to calls to deal with the "itinerant problem". This was made up of senior representatives of the Irish state, judges, Gardaí, religious organisations and numerous farming lobby groups such as Macra na Feirme. The Commission had no Traveller representatives, neither were they consulted. The Commission had the following terms of reference:
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to enquire into the problem arising from the presence in the country of itinerants in considerable numbers;
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to examine the economic, educational, health and social problems inherent in their way of life;
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to consider what steps might be taken—
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to provide opportunities for a better way of life for itinerants,
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to promote their absorption into the general community,
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pending such absorption, to reduce to a minimum the disadvantages to themselves and to the community resulting from their itinerant habits and
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to improve the position generally; and
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to make recommendations.
The Commission's 1963 report defined "itinerant" as "a person who had no fixed place of abode and habitually wandered from place to place, but excluding travelling show-people and travelling entertainers". It recommended assimilation of travellers by settling them in fixed dwellings, viewing the Netherlands' approach to its travelling minority as a model. This assimilation was to be achieved by the effective criminalisation of nomadism, and the report paved the way for an increasing state emphasis on criminal laws and penalties for trespass.
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At the time, about 60% Irish travellers lived in barrel-roofed horse-drawn wagons, with almost 40% still using tents in summer (fewer in winter).
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The Travelling People Review Body (1981–83) advocated integration rather than assimilation, with provision for serviced halting sites. The Body's membership included travellers. The Task Force on the Travelling Community (1993–95) moved to an intercultural paradigm.
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On 30 May 2019 the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) established a joint committee "on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community".
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Population They have a much higher fertility rate than the general Irish population; the Central Statistics Office of Ireland recorded in 2016 that 44.5% of Traveller women aged 40–49 had 5 or more children, compared to 4.2% of women overall in this age group.
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Ireland
The 2016 census in the Republic of Ireland reported the number of Irish Travellers as 30,987, up from 29,495 in 2011. In 2006 the number was 22,369. A further 1,700 to 2,000 were estimated to live in Northern Ireland.
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From the 2006 Irish census it was determined that 20,975 dwell in urban areas and 1,460 were living in rural areas. With an overall population of just 0.5% some areas were found to have a higher proportion, with high Traveller concentrations in Clare, Dublin, Galway and Limerick. There were found to be 9,301 Travellers in the 0–14 age range, comprising 41.5% of the Traveller population, and a further 3,406 of them were in the 15–24 age range, comprising 15.2%. Children of age range 0–17 comprised 48.7% of the Traveller population.
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Following the findings of the All Ireland Traveller Health Study (estimates for 2008), the figure for Northern Ireland was revised to 3,905 and that for the Republic to 36,224.
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Diaspora
United Kingdom
In 2011, for the first time, the census category "Irish Traveller" was introduced as part of the broader Gypsy/Traveller section. The self reported figure for collective Gypsy/Traveller populations were 63,193 but estimates of Irish Travellers living in Great Britain range are about 15,000 as part of a total estimation of over 300,000 Romani and other Traveller groups in the UK.
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The London Boroughs of Harrow and Brent contain significant Irish Traveller populations. In addition to those on various official sites there are a number who are settled in local authority housing. These are mostly women who wish their children to have a chance at a good education. They and the children may or may not travel in the summer but remain in close contact with the wider Irish Traveller community.
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There are also a number of Irish Traveller communities in the Home Counties.
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United States
An estimated 10,000 people in the United States are descendants of Travellers who left Ireland, mostly between 1845 and 1860 during the Great Famine. However, there are no official population figures regarding Irish Travellers in the United States as the US census does not recognise them as an ethnic group. While some sources estimate their population in the US to be 10,000, others suggest their population is 40,000. According to research published in 1992, Irish travellers in the US divide themselves up into groups that are based on historical residence: Ohio Travellers, Georgia Travellers, Texas Travellers, and Mississippi Travellers. The Georgia Travelers' camp is made up of about eight hundred families, the Mississippi Travelers, about three hundred families, and the Texas Travelers, under fifty families."
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The largest and most affluent population of about 2,500 lives in Murphy Village, outside of the town of North Augusta, South Carolina. Other communities exist in Memphis, Tennessee, Hernando, Mississippi, and near White Settlement, Texas, where the families stay in their homes during the winter, and leave during the summer, while smaller enclaves can be found across Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
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Irish Travellers in the US are said to speak English and Shelta, a form of Cant. The Cant spoken in the US is similar to the Cant spoken in Ireland, but differs in some respects in that the language has transformed into a type of pidgin English over the generations. They typically work in asphalting, spray-painting, laying linoleum, or as itinerant workers to earn their living.
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Religion
Travellers have a distinctive approach to religion; the vast majority of them are practising Roman Catholics and they also pay particular attention to issues of healing.They have been known to follow a strict code of behaviour that dictates some of their moral beliefs and influences their actions.
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Education
Traveller children often grow up outside educational systems. The Irish Traveller Movement, a community advocacy group, promotes equal access to education for Traveller children.
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In December 2010, the Irish Equality Tribunal ruled in favour of a traveller child in an anti-discrimination suit which covered the admission practices of CBS High School Clonmel in County Tipperary. In July 2011, the secondary school in Clonmel successfully appealed the decision of the Equality Tribunal that its admission criteria were indirectly discriminatory against children from the Traveller community.
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Sports
Irish Travellers have a long history of bare-knuckle boxing. Toughness and the ability to fight are viewed as particularly important among Traveller men, and their involvement in boxing has extended to traditional amateur and professional boxing. Irish Traveller Francie Barrett represented Ireland at the 1996 Olympics, while Andy Lee fought for Ireland at the 2004 Olympics and later became the first Traveller to win a professional boxing world championship when he won the WBO middleweight title in 2014. Tyson Fury is of Irish Traveller heritage and defeated long-reigning Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 to become the unified heavyweight world champion.
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In the Traveller community, bare-knuckle boxing is seen as a way to resolve disputes and uphold family honour, as shown in the 2011 documentary Knuckle. This behaviour can lead to injuries, notably "fight bite" where, when punching an opponent, a tooth may cut the hand and bacteria in the opponent's mouth may infect the wound. This infection can lead to permanent disability if the afflicted is not provided treatment.
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Apart from boxing, Irish Travellers, including women, are involved in sports such as football (soccer) and Gaelic handball.
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Health
The health of Irish Travellers is significantly poorer than that of the general population in Ireland. This is evidenced in a 2007 report published in Ireland, which states that over half of Travellers do not live past the age of 39 years. (By comparison, median life expectancy in Ireland is 81.5 years.) Another government report of 1987 found:
From birth to old age, they have high mortality rates, particularly from accidents, metabolic and congenital problems, but also from other major causes of death. Female Travellers have especially high mortality compared to settled women.
In 2007, the Department of Health and Children in the Republic of Ireland, in conjunction with the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland, commissioned the University College Dublin's School of Public Health and Population Science to conduct a major cross-border study of Travellers' welfare. The study, including a detailed census of Traveller population and an examination of their health status, was expected to take up to three years to complete. The main results of the study were published in 2010.
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The birth rate of Irish Travellers has decreased since the 1990s, but they still have one of the highest birth rates in Europe. The birth rate for the Traveller community for the year 2005 was 33.32 per 1,000, possibly the highest birth rate recorded for any community in Europe.
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On average there are ten times more driving fatalities within the Traveller community. At 22%, this represents the most common cause of death among Traveller males. Some 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday, compared to just 1% of the general population. In Ireland, 2.6% of all deaths in the total population were for people aged under 25, versus 32% for the Travellers. In addition, 80% of Travellers die before the age of 65.
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According to the National Traveller Suicide Awareness Project, Traveller men are over six times more likely to kill themselves than the general population.
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Marriage
Teenage marriage is common among Irish Travellers. Couples tend to marry very young. According to Judith Okely, "there is no large time span between puberty and marriage" of Travellers. Okely wrote in 1983 that the typical marriage age for females was 16–17 and the typical marriage age for males was 18–19. As of the Census of Ireland 2011 the average age of an Irish Traveller was 22.4 and 52.2% were aged under 20. Yet only 252 15–19-year-old enumerated Irish Travellers identified themselves as married.
In contrast, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government (DEHLG) "definition of a [Traveller] family includes unmarried Traveller men over 18 as a unit" because, according to Abdalla et al., "it is understood that they will marry at this age and require an additional unit of accommodation."
Irish Travellers generally marry other Irish Travellers. Consanguineous marriage is common among Irish Travellers.
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Irish Travellers lived as cohabiters who "married at one time without religious or civil ceremony." Into the early 20th century about one-third of Irish Travellers were "married according to the law."
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According to Christopher Griffin, arranged Irish Traveller marriages in the early 21st century "safeguard the girl's [interests] by securing a man who won't mistreat her." According to Julie Bindel, in Standpoint, some Irish Traveller females in the UK are forced into marriages, but Bindel points out that data is difficult to obtain because "the line between an arranged marriage and a forced one is not always clear."
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Social conflict and controversies
Discrimination and prejudice
Travellers are often reported as the subject of explicit political and cultural discrimination, with politicians being elected on promises to block Traveller housing in local communities and individuals frequently refused service in pubs, shops and hotels.
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A 2011 survey by the Economic and Social Research Institute of Ireland concluded that there is widespread ostracism of Travellers in Ireland, and the report concluded that it could hurt the long-term prospects for Travellers, who "need the intercultural solidarity of their neighbours in the settled community. ... They are too small a minority, i.e., 0.5 per cent, to survive in a meaningful manner without ongoing and supportive personal contact with their fellow citizens in the settled community." The general prejudice against Travellers hinders efforts by the central government to integrate Travellers into Irish society. Because Travellers are a minority group within Ireland and the United Kingdom, they have always faced discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity as Travellers. They experience discrimination in not having equal access to education, being denied service in pubs, shops, and hotels, and being subject to derogatory language.
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In 2016, the USA's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for the United Kingdom stated that Irish Travellers (among other groups) widely reported discrimination in the country, and highlighted that the High Court had ruled the government had illegally discriminated against Travellers by unlawfully subjecting planning applications to special scrutiny.
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Pejorative names
Travellers are often referred to by the terms tinkers, gipsies/gypsies, itinerants, or, pejoratively, they are referred to as knackers in Ireland. Some of these terms refer to services that were traditionally provided by the group: tinkering or tinsmithing, for example, being the mending of tinware such as pots and pans, and knackering being the acquisition of dead or old horses for slaughter. The term gypsy first appears in records which date back to the 16th century when it was originally used to refer to the continental Romani people in England and Scotland, who were mistakenly thought to be Egyptian. Other derogatory names for itinerant groups have been used to refer to Travellers including the word pikey.
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Work and income
According to the 2002 Irish census, "the labour force participation rate for male Travellers (72%) slightly exceeded that for total males (70%) while the rate for female Travellers (38%) was considerably below that for females in general (47%). Unemployment among male Travellers measured 73 per cent according to the self-assessed principal economic status question on the census form. The national measure of unemployment for males on a comparable basis was 9.4 per cent according to the 2002 census results. Corresponding rates for females were 63 per cent for female Travellers and 8 per cent for the female population overall."
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Many Travellers are breeders of dogs such as greyhounds or lurchers and have a long-standing interest in horse trading. The main fairs associated with them are held annually at Ballinasloe (County Galway), Puck Fair (County Kerry), Ballabuidhe Horse Fair (County Cork), the twice yearly Smithfield Horse Fair (Dublin inner city) and Appleby (England). They are often involved in dealing scrap metals, e.g., 60% of the raw material for Irish steel is sourced from scrap metal, approximately 50% (75,000 metric tonnes) segregated by the community at a value of more than £1.5 million. Such percentages for more valuable non-ferrous metals may be significantly greater.
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Since the majority of Irish Travellers' employment is either self-employment or wage labour, income and financial status varies greatly from family to family. Many families choose not to reveal the specifics of their finances, but when explained it is very difficult Irish Travellers are recognised in British and Irish law as an ethnic group. An ethnic group is defined as one whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry. Ethnic identity is also marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and by common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioural or biological traits.
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The European Parliament Committee of Enquiry on Racism and Xenophobia found them to be among the most discriminated-against ethnic groups in Ireland and yet their status remains insecure in the absence of widespread legal endorsement. Travellers are often viewed by settled people in a negative light, perceived as insular, anti-social, 'drop-outs' and 'misfits', or believed to be involved in criminal and mendicant behaviour, or settling illegally on land owned by others.
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Violence and crime
In 1960 a government body was set up to conduct research into the Travelling Community in the Republic of Ireland. The Commission on Itinerancy operated under the auspices of the Department of Justice, the persons were appointed by the Junior Minister Charles Haughey. One finding was: that "public brawling fuelled by excessive drinking further added to settled people's fear of Travellers". Furthermore "feuding was felt to be the result of a dearth of pastimes and [of] illiteracy, historically comparable to features of rural Irish life before the Famine."
In 2008 a faction fight riot broke out in D'Alton Park, Mullingar involving up to 65 people of the Nevin, Dinnegan and McDonagh families. The court hearing in 2010 resulted in suspended sentences for all the defendants. The cause may have been an unpaid gambling debt linked to a bare-knuckle boxing matchA 2011 report, conducted by the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain, Voices Unheard: A Study of Irish Travellers in Prison (Mac Gabhann, 2011) found that social, economic and educational exclusion were contributing factors to the "increasingly high levels of imprisonment" of Irish Travellers.
In 2016, Irish Travellers from the southern East Coast of the United States pled guilty to charges of perpetrated scams on homeowners and government agencies. By 2017, 52 had pled guilty to violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).