Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 10:59:43 +0100 (BST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?ninetyone=20andy?= <andy_91_2000-AT-yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Irish Travellers...


There are a lot of travellers and 'settled' travellers
in our bit of West London, Irish and Roma, and there's
a thriving 'black' economy. If I look at our college
student list, I can see some of the local family
surnames. The abusive name given is 'Pikeys'. In fact
my college is known as a 'pikey college', and the
aspirant middle-classes won't come here. So traveller
racism actually seems to outweigh Black/Asian racism
here. An old student of mine is part way through a Phd
which is looking at the patterns of migration [I
think]. I could ask her for some serious references if
needed.




 --- Old Goat <olgoat-AT-nebi.com> wrote: > Thanks, Dave.
 Somehow I had a feeling you'd come
> through on this.
> 
> old goat
> withdraw consent
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Dave Coull 
> Subject: Re: Irish Travellers...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Carp asked
> 
> 
> > Do you know anything about a group called
> > the "Irish Travellers?"
> 
> I'm not an expert on the Irish Travellers, but I do
> know
> a fair bit about the Travellers here in Scotland,
> and 
> I believe the Travellers in both countries have
> close 
> links and similar origins.Here in Scotland, your
> actual
> Roma gypsies are virtually unknown. Travellers here 
> are mostly the descendants of dispossessed clans.
> That 
> is, centuries ago they possessed clan lands, but
> they were 
> on the losing side in some war, were dispossessed of
> their 
> lands, and subsequently became nomadic. So you get
> Travellers 
> called, for instance, Stewart (the Appin Stewarts
> were dispossessed 
> because of their part in Jacobite uprisings). One of
> the people
> very active in the same anti-poll-tax group as me
> was a Traveller
> called Henry Stewart. You also get names like Black
> and White. 
> In fact, the Travellers used these two names
> interchangeably
>    -   Black means as much, or as little, as White.
> (By the way,
> the singer/TV game presenter Cilla Black   -   a
> natural redhead
>    -   was originally called Cilla White.) At one
> time it was illegal 
> to have the name "MacGregor". So if you were called
> MacGregor, 
> you might change your name to something more
> acceptable. 
> But if you spoke only Gaelic and knew very few words
> of English, 
> what would you change your name to? The answer is,
> either 
> Black or White.
> 
> Travellers in Scotland get called, or used to get
> called,
> "Tinks" or "Tinkies". This comes from "tinker" but
> is far more derogatory. In my class at our village
> school 
> there was a lad from a Traveller family called
> Wullie White. 
> They were settled in our village by that time,
> having given 
> up the nomadic lifestyle. Wullie's grandmother,
> Betsy White, 
> wrote a book about her life, growing up as one of a
> Traveller
> family on the road, called  "The Yellow On The
> Broom".
> You can probably find this book on the web.
> 
> 
> > From what little I do know they are gadji
> "gypsies" with a lot
> > of familial ties who follow a (semi)nomadic
> lifestyle and run
> > various scams on the "straight world."
> 
> 
> That's certainly not the whole story, but there's a
> lot of truth
> in what Goat says.
> 
> 
> > AFAIK, they are a tiny minority in Eire
> 
> 
> They are a tiny minority in Scotland too.
> 
> A good source for stuff on the Irish Travellers
> would be 
> the Irish anarchist grouping, Workers Solidarity
> Movement. 
> I know for a fact that the  WSM  have published
> stuff 
> about the Irish Travellers in the past. The  WSM's
> archive
> of articles they have published in their magazine,
> or
> in pamphlets, in the past, is available on their web
> site.
> 
> http://www.more.at/anarchism
> 
> 
> Dave Coull
> 
>  

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