Irish Travellers are not related to gypsies

Here we go again, on Facebook people are madly conflating Roma “Gypsies” with Irish Travellers, two itinerant nomadic groups who are ethnically and linguistically unrelated, other than by superficial outward lifestyle. But people persist on keeping the clichés alive. 

During my great-grandfather’s time in Dumanaway, near Bandon, County Cork, the Travellers visited his farm each year to fix broken farm equipment, and to work as laborers on the family farm. My grandmother would tell me stories about how the Tinkers (an older name for Travellers), named for their trade, would make tin household items as well as fix old pails, pots and broken crockery. 

My grandmother had a favorite aluminum pot that had developed a hole in it, and since we were centuries away from Ireland in Northern California, she showed me how the Travellers would have fixed it. She took a nut and bolt and threaded them through the hole in the pot and then hammered it flat with a ball peen hammer. The pot worked fine after that.

The Travellers, an ethnic Irish minority group, named after their lifestyle, camped in my great-grandfather Michael Walsh’s lower fields. They were welcomed, not shunned, not like today. During the 1960s, the Irish government was atrocious when it came to the treatment of Travellers. Of course they were trying to force them to give up their itinerant ways.

The Travellers, who refer to themselves as Pavee, or Rilantu Mincéirí, speak the Cant, the Gammon, or Tarri. Linguists refer to it as Shelta, a term that dates back to the 1870s, which is also the name of the community (from siúltóir, walking people). Shelta, the language, is a crypto-linguistic mixed Hiberno-English and Gaelic-based language. Other names: Sheldru, Shelter, Shelteroch seem to be derivatives of Shelta/siúltóir. 

There may be two distinct dialects of Shelta. The language was also referred to as Bog Latin, a derogatory term meaning Latin as spoken by the Irish, coined before 1811, the Ould Thing, and Tinker's Cant.

The word Shelta appears in print for the first time in 1882 in the book The Gypsies by the "gypsiologist" Charles Leland, who claimed to have discovered it as the "fifth Celtic tongue". The word's etymology has long been a matter of debate. Modern Celticists believe that Irish siúl [ʃuːlʲ] "to walk" is at the root, either via a term such as siúltóir [ˈʃuːl̪ˠt̪ˠoːɾʲ] "a walker" or a form of the verbal noun siúladh (cf. an lucht siúlta [ənˠ ˌl̪ˠʊxt̪ˠ ˈʃuːl̪ˠt̪ˠə], "the walking people" (lit. "the people of walks"),[8] the traditional Irish term for Travellers).[5] The Dictionary of Hiberno-English cites it as possibly a corruption of the word "Celt".[7] 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..” —Wikipedia

Travellers are thought to be the indigenous people of Ireland, their distinctive DNA bottlenecked around the 16th c. (Due to the Cromwellian?) and they have been genetically isolated since at least the Great Famine, as they tended to keep to themselves and marry within their clans— because they often marry first and second cousins there is some genetic duplication. 

According to a comprehensive recent DNA study, there are four distinct DNA clusters that differ from that of settled Irish people. “One cluster is associated with the “Rathkeale group.” Two other clusters are linked to the Cant or Gammon dialects of the Traveller language Shelta.“ —Irish Times. The study also concluded there is no Roma DNA within the Traveller society. 

The [study] found that Travellers are of Irish ancestral origin but have significant differences in their genetic make-up compared with the settled community…because of hundreds of years of isolation combined with a decreasing Traveller population. “The findings confirm that the Irish Traveller population has an Irish ancestry and this comes at a time where the ethnicity of Travellers is being considered by the Irish State.”—Prof. Gianpiero Cavalleri, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.  Gene study reveals Irish Travellers' ancestry

According to one Traveller, Ellen Mac Donough, there are about 35,000-49,000 self-identified Travellers in Ireland today. Traveller diaspora estimates: 25,000 in England, and 49,000 in the southern US, and 7,000 in Europe. I shudder to think what would have happened to the Travellers if the genetics had not supported the Irish DNA theory.

The Travellers were once called Tinkers in my lifetime, but they do not prefer that title, and it is now considered to be an ethnic slur, along with Pikey, and knacker. If you look at ancient Irish customs, there were always itinerant Irish people who traveled from place to place. Especially the lawyers, doctors and storytellers. So traveling is a long-standing tradition that was disrupted by the British ascendency and occupation of Ireland.

Roma, or Romani people, aka “Gypsies,” originally came from India, by way of  Romania to Britain some 300 years ago. The term, gypsy is considered an ethnic slur, like saying the N-word for African-Americans.

I have musician friends who are Travellers. And I know linguists who have studied the Cant. It’s probably a lost cause to try to educate people on the Travellers’ horses, the Irish cobb, which were imported to America and renamed Gypsy Vanners. Another cultural rip off.

Few Shelta words traveled into English but the word "bloke" may be a 19th c. crossover. 

GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES: Cultural appropriation?

GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES
by Parris Afton Bonds

Cultural appropriation? Irish Travellers are not Roma Gypsies
By MoHurley on May 12, 2018

I'm a little more than concerned that Irish Travellers, who are NOT, I repeat, NOT Roma, in any way, shape or form, are conflated into this story.

There are a handful of Roma people in Ireland, it's a recent migration, but we're talking less than 3000 people in all of Ireland, in 2004, the census was 1700 Roma people.

The real Irish Travellers, formerly called Tinkers, probably date back to Neolithic times. But they are ethnically Irish. Today there are about 10,000 to 40,000 Travellers in Ireland. There is one school of thought that the Travellers arose as a distinct class of people during the Cromwellian, and/or during the Famine. Some Irish Travellers immigrated to Scotland, as well as to America. Eddie Izzard portrays an American Irish Traveller grifter in "The Riches."

Irish Travellers are NOT Roma. Recent DNA analysis has proven this beyond a doubt. It's bad enough that Irish cobb horses are now called Gypsy vanners, and this latest conflation will only serve to further confuse people. Cultural appropriation at its worst. Just don't.

The author writes: "True gypsies, Romany folk and Irish Travellers, were adept at storytelling. For a thousand years, although most of the Gypsy clans could neither read no write, they had kept historical records of their odyssey by word of mouth." Bonds then conflates Roma with Travellers. She couldn't be more wrong. She makes no attempt to untangle the two distinctly genetically different peoples. Being itinerant does not make them upper case Gypsies.

"The [DNA] 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." —Irish Times

• Irish Travellers are not related to gypsies
• DNA study

Paddy Keenan—the Jimi Hendrix of uillean pipes

If you haven't heard Paddy Keenan play, add him to your musical bucket list. He's a marvellous international treasure—the Jimi Hendrix of uillean pipes.

Paddy Keenan was a founding member of The Bothy Band, one of the most influential bands of the 1970s that turned traditional Irish music on its ear. Paddy's unmatched virtuosity on the pipes, combined with the ferocity and passion of his playing, made him, in the opinion of many, its driving force. 

Bothy Band-mate Donal Lunny once described Paddy as "the Jimi Hendrix of the pipes"; more recently, due to his genius for improvisation and counter-melody, he has been compared to jazz great John Coltrane.
 
Recent awards include: 2002 Irish National Traditional Musician; 2010 Irish Music Awards Top Uilleann Piper; and in 2011 Irish Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award.

 At The Plough & the Stars in SF. Isn't Jack Gilder looking grand?

Irish Travellers are not Gypsies, letter to the Gypsy Vanner Horse Registry

This was a letter to a Gypsy Vanner horse website that was so over the top with erroneous information on Irish Travellers—I came undone and wrote this missive to them. They never replied.

My grandmother (b,1893) knew the Tinkers well, in Western Ireland. Each spring they would come to fix my great-grandfather’s farm equipment, and my great-grandmother's pots and crockery. The Travellers travelled through Bantry each year, and camped on our land near Dunmanway, near Bandon. They were superb horse people. My family raised horses too—I grew up horse crazy and could ride just about any equine (and an occasional bovine) like the wind. But that was another era.

I hate how people conflate Irish and Scottish Tinkers or Travellers with Romany Gypsies. They are not even remotely the same peoples. Never any gypsies in Ireland. Ever. Scottish Tinkers are related to Irish Tinkers. In fact, they are Travellers that immigrated to Scotland during the famine. They both speak what the linguists call Shelta or siúlta (aka Gammon and Cant)—Gaelic, or goidelic languages. The Travellers/Tinkers were called an lucht siúil  or the walking people. Hence Shelta, as walk/ siúil is pronounced school. Think of it as a secret Irish-language based Cockney slang or Pig Latin with reversed words and backwards talk—to fool the locals.

That's how Pig-Latin, and even the American dialect, Boontling evolved in Anderson Valley, CA. To hide the news via slang. My best friend's father spoke Boontling. He said it even has Irish words in it. But I digress... The Shelta word "bloke" that entered into English during the 19th c., evolved from the Irish word buachaill, or boy. In other words, there’s a clear linguistic connection between Irish Gaelic, and Shelta.

Celtic is one of the most ancient language families in the Indo-European tree. Older than Latinate languages. Gaelic is older than Brythonic Celtic. The Celtic Pretani is the origin of the word for Britain.

Romany Gypsies are from Romania by way of India—at one point they were thought to be from Egypt, hence the name. Different genetics. Different DNA, different language, and customs. The Gypsies of Spain speak Ladino, a form of Latin. As is Romanian. (There's also a Sephardic Jewish connection with Ladino.) Think Latin or Djudeo Espanyol. That also introduced the Middle East as a genetic pool. Few genetic markers are shared with the Irish (whether Tinker or gaija) and the Middle East.

The term Ladino comes from "latino" and possible "ladrón" (thief) and usually refers to mestizo peoples. I worked with a Sephardic Jew from Peru by way of Spain—what he spoke really is similar to Spanish. Now, I love the Gypsy Kings—but I would never conflate them with the Celtic Irish Tinkers.

Just because the Celtic Travellers are nomadic, use caravans and have fabulous horses, it doesn't make them ethnically related to Gypsies. The problem is that this kind of nonsense has been repeated often enough as of late that most people believe that the Travellers are Gypsies. The notion probably arose during the Romantic period when Gypsies were considered exotic, therefore more interesting (and valuable) than the native peoples who suffered greatly under neocolonial rule.

There are real Romany Gypsies in Britain, but they're not ethnically related to the Irish Tinkers/Travellers. The Travellers in England also steer clear of the Gypsies. They're not particularly fond of each other. There's also a great stigma of marrying outside the clan.

Sadly, so much of history has been lost, as they're a nomadic peoples, and not much stock was placed on preserving history—that's an occupation for the landed, or settled folks who live in houses. Alas, now some Travellers even think they're related to Gypsies!

I have studied with the distinguished Celtic scholars of our era at UC Berkeley and elsewhere. My area of study is Medieval Ireland. So I've also studied folklore, medieval literature (translated Irish and Welsh epics) and linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, etc.

Irish Tinkers, or Travellers, who predate the Gypsies—if you can believe the medieval Irish epics—did make it to Scotland, England, and America—during the Great Famine. The Riches with Eddie Izzard was a TV show about the American Travellers.

I suggest that you add this update to your site:

"Founded November 24, 1996, the GVHS is the world’s first registry to recognize a breed of horse developed by the   ( add TRAVELLERS, AND )  Gypsies of Great Britain/Ireland and the only such registry founded on an in depth study of British/Irish (  TRAVELLERS, AND  ) Gypsies and their horses."

Adding the ethnically correct term will do wonders to reverse centuries of continual colonial apartheid waged against the Irish Travellers.

King of the Gypsies

When I was a child, the gypsies visited each spring our rural homestead in Forest Knolls, out in West Marin. Each spring, they came unannounced to fix our pots and to buy scrap iron and cotton rags. It was always exciting when the tinkers came to visit. They never stayed long—a half a morning, at most.

When the ancient cattle truck loaded overflowing with scrap iron and bare mattress springs—like something out of the Grapes of Wrath—heaved and grunted its way up the long driveway each spring, my grandmother hauled out her old pots. One favorite cast-aluminum pot was so old, she had worn a hole clean through it with her constant stirring, cooking for a full house of eight children and their friends, and then, later, me.

My grandmother kept things until they completely wore out—a hangover from the Great Depression. We kept tinfoil and rubber bands, newspaper and glass bottles. All our tablespoons had an oblique slant to them where she had worn them down. The saucepot was so far gone, I thought it couldn't be fixed. But the gypsy stuck a flat bolt into the hole and threaded a nut on the outside if the pot, then he soldered it, and rasped down the nut and bolt. We still have the pot.

The gypsies sold all manner of odd things from kerosene to shoe brushes. One year, they sold us redwood patio furniture, No matter that we had no patio, only the wild hillside for a yard. We couldn't afford the fancy Adirondack arm chairs or the beautiful bent willow setees piled high in the cattle truck. But the redwood stake set was a good investment. My grandmother was living on a pauper's pension of $200 a month— I think they didn't charge her the full price for two chairs and a table.

I was surprised that my grandmother had dealings with these swarthy, dark men with moustaches and gold teeth, who spoke a strange language. But she treated them with respect, saying the Irish had their own tinkers too—she remembered them as a child. They fixed pots in the same way with nuts and bolts.

The gypsies lived up north—in Sonoma County. Sometimes they brought their young boys with them. I remember eyeing one boy my age but we were too shy to play. We were worlds and languages apart. It seemed like they were from the far ends of the earth—and so they were. These men were the real Ladino Gypsies, not Irish tinkers—or travellers, as they're called today. I feared for my horses. My uncle said, "you'd better be careful, or the gypsies will carry you off…" The thought was terrifying and sort of exciting at the same time.

One year, they stopped coming. They couldn't sell my grandmother another redwood set, the chairs were too well made. She cooked less, there was just the two of us in that bee-loud glade, so the pots held their own battle with entropy. The last of the scrap iron was long gone. Rags were replaced with useless polyester.

I sat a child's half-life and dreamed in those redwood chairs until they disintegrated around us, and the staves became kindling for the woodstove, as we grew up and my grandmother grew older still. But we carried away with us a lifetime of stories to nourish our hungry minds another half-life away.