Irish Travellers


Irish Travellers, also known as Mincéirs or Pavees, are a traditionally peripatetic indigenous ethno-cultural group originating in Ireland.
They are predominantly English-speaking, though many also speak Shelta, a language of mixed English and Irish origin. The majority of Irish Travellers are Roman Catholic, the predominant religion in the Republic of Ireland. They are one of several groups identified as "Travellers" in the UK and Ireland. Irish Travellers have distinctive artistic traditions, some of which have influenced the broader cultural tapestry of Ireland. Irish Traveller music, known for its lively and virtuosic melodies, is a significant and influential part of Ireland's musical landscape. Irish Travellers have clothing traditions which are distinct from those of the wider Irish population. Beady pockets for example are a feature of traditional Irish Traveller attire—flat, pocket-sized pouches characterised by intricate embroidery and beadwork.
Despite sometimes being incorrectly referred to as "Gypsies", Irish Travellers are not genetically related to the Romani people, who are of Indo-Aryan origin. Genetic analysis has shown Irish Travellers to be of Irish extraction, and that they likely diverged from the settled Irish population in the 1600s, probably during the time of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Centuries of cultural isolation have led Travellers to become genetically distinct from the settled Irish. Traveller rights groups have long advocated for Traveller ethnicity status from the Irish government, succeeding in 2017.
Irish Traveller communities are located in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In 2016, there were 32,302 Travellers within Ireland. In 2016, they were 0.7% of Ireland's population. There are different estimates about the size of the total population of people with Traveller ancestry, because many people of Traveller descent do not declare themselves Travellers. The United Kingdom is believed to be home to up to 300,000 Roma and Traveller people, including Romanichal. The British Government considers Travellers resident in the UK to form part of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community.

Nomenclature

Travellers refer to themselves in Shelta as Mincéirí, or in Irish as an lucht siúil.

Origins

There are numerous theories and oral histories surrounding the origins of Irish Travellers as a distinct group. Research has been complicated by the fact that the group appears to have no written records of its own, with oral tradition through storytelling being the primary method through which the Traveller community disseminates its own history and culture.
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. For example, the "Acte for tynckers and pedlers". The culture of Irish Travellers resembles the culture of other itinerant communities with regard to self-employment, family networks, birth, marriage, and burial rituals, taboos, and folklore. They worked with metal and travelled throughout Ireland making items such as ornaments, jewellery, and horse harnesses to earn a living. As a result, they, along with other itinerant groups, were referred to as "tinkers" or "tinklers", meaning "tin smiths", terms regarded in later years as derogatory.

Origin theories

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 Irish Travellers and Romani Travellers. There is a theory that an indigenous, itinerant community of craftsmen are the ancestors of Travellers, who never settled down. Other speculations on their origin are that they were descended from those Irish who were made homeless during the Cromwellian conquest in the 1650s, or made homeless in either the 1741 or the 1840s famine, or due to eviction in the Scottish Highlands.
According to 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 the displacement of the Clan Murtough O'Connors after the Norman invasion.

Population genetics

In 2000, genetic evidence reported regarding Irish Travellers supported Irish ancestry; several distinct subpopulations; and the distinctiveness of the midland counties due to Viking influence. 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 genetically separate Irish ethnic minority which has been distinct from the settled Irish community for at least 1,000 years: The report claimed that Travellers are as distinct from the settled community as Icelanders are from Norwegians.
In 2017, a genetic study using profiles of 50 Irish Travellers, 143 European Roma, 2,232 settled Irish, 2,039 British and 6,255 European or worldwide individuals, confirmed ancestral origins from within the general population of Ireland. 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.
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.
Irish Travellers, particularly those that experienced a life of nomadism prior to the 2002 Irish legislation that altered living conditions, exhibit distinct gut microbiota compared to other Irish citizens, which is comparable to gut microbiomes observed in non-industrialized societies.

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.
Two main hypotheses have arisen, speculating whether:
  • the prevalence resulted from marriages made largely within and among the Traveller community,
or
  • suggesting shared descent from an original Irish carrier long ago with ancestors unrelated to the rest of the Irish population.
In their conclusion Murphy, McHugh, et al. write that:
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.

Language

Irish Travellers speak English and sometimes one of two dialects of Shelta—Gammon 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 writes that the Irish Traveller Gammon vocabulary is derived from pre-13th-century Gaelic idioms, with a 10% Romani language vocabulary of Indian origin. 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 assert that Shelta existed as far back as the 13th century, 300 years before the first Romani populations arrived in Ireland or Britain.
Shelta is a cryptolect. 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 to make it seem like they are not speaking Shelta. There is fear that if outsiders know the entirety of the language, it will be used to bring further discrimination to the Traveller community.

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 traditional travelling groups came under loosely defined vagrancy laws, from when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. In 1959, the 1959–1963 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, and while attempts were made to consult Travellers, these were "bizarre" unannounced visits which resulted in little input into the report.
The commission had the following terms of reference:
  1. to enquire into the problem arising from the presence in the country of itinerants in considerable numbers.
  2. to examine the economic, educational, health and social problems inherent in their way of life.
  3. to consider what steps might be taken—

    1. to provide opportunities for a better way of life for itinerants,
    2. to promote their absorption into the general community,
    3. pending such absorption, to reduce to a minimum the disadvantages to themselves and to the community resulting from their itinerant habits and
    4. to improve the position generally; and
  4. 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, with the ultimate aim being that of essentially ending Traveller identity, 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.
At the time, about 60% of Irish Travellers lived in barrel-roofed horse-drawn wagons, with almost 40% using tents in summer, and fewer in winter.
The Travelling People Review Body advocated integration rather than assimilation, with provision for serviced halting sites. The Body's membership included Travellers.
The Task Force on the Travelling Community moved to an intercultural paradigm.
In May 2019, the Oireachtas established a joint committee "on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community".
In May 2021, the Ombudsman for Children, Niall Muldoon, published a report that was highly critical of the standards of accommodation provided for Travellers, describing some accommodation issues as "deplorable".