Posted on 08/17/2016 11:53:04 AM PDT by Gamecock
AIKEN COUNTY, SC The reputation of Murphy Village’s residents reaches far beyond the Palmetto State.
The North Augusta community, just past Interstate 20 in Aiken County, is home to one of the largest communities of Irish Travelers in the nation. According to the 2010 Census, about 1,400 Travelers live in Murphy Village. National counts of Travelers range between 10,000 and 40,000.
Nationwide, the community’s residents have been associated with scams involving shoddy repair work. Most recently, Union County Sheriff David Taylor published an article in the local newspaper warning residents to be alert for Irish Travelers leaving their business cards around town.
On Tuesday, a federal grand jury returned an indictment of 45 counts against 22 people, most of them Travelers living in Murphy Village. The indictment alleges the group committed different kinds of fraud and money laundering schemes, among other charges.
Similar allegations have been raised against Travelers in the past. But for the most part, they are praised within their community in Aiken County. According to published reports, it’s common practice for travelers to not target residents in their own neighborhood.
Locals say most Travelers are honest, hard-working people whose reputations have been tainted by the actions of a few. Because they live together and keep to themselves, suspicion of them is rampant. They own lavish homes and mansions in Murphy Village that show few signs of life. The windows of most homes are covered from top to bottom with blinders or are tinted.
They also speak a secret and protective dialect called “Cant” that meshes English and Gaelic when they feel uncomfortable around outsiders. Travelers believe their reclusiveness has allowed them to keep their traditional lifestyle, according to news reports.
Irish have moved to America since before the country’s founding. But they emigrated to the United States in large numbers in the 1840s, after potato crop failures left them with a period of mass starvation. Most stayed in large Northeastern cities. But a small group, the Travelers, broke off and moved to South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi.
Most of the men work on the road traveling to different states during favorable weather to work in construction-related jobs, such as repairing roofs, resurfacing driveways and painting barns.
Travelers often take their families with them, pulling children from school around the eighth grade. Remaining in school can endanger their lifestyle if teens start to date outside of the community, according to reports. A handful of students have chosen to remain in school but are often ostracized from their families.
The best glimpse outsiders had into South Carolina’s Murphy Village was in 2012, when an episode of TLC’s “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” chronicled a North Augusta couple’s wedding preparations.
The episode centered on Tamara and Bill McKown, a couple who married in December 2011. What was special about the episode was that Tamara McKown was a non-Traveler from Tennessee, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
Before that, Irish Travelers gained the nation’s attention when one of their own, Madelyne Toogood, was caught on camera beating her 4-year-old daughter at an Indiana shopping center. Toogood was identified as being part of a Texas-based branch of the clan.
They also received unwanted attention after they were featured in an award-winning investigation by NBC’s “Dateline” in the mid-1990s that focused on how children as young as 10 were being forced to wed.
Following the news investigation, then-S.C. Attorney General Charlie Condon created a task force that swept through Murphy Village, arresting Travelers on charges similar to those filed Tuesday.
Condon also called on the Legislature to pass a law setting a minimum age for marriage. In 1997, the minimum age was set at 14 for girls and in 2000 it was updated to 16.
Ping?
I lived in Augusta for a few years, and they are some strange people. The women look like they border on having down syndrome.
Tinkers = scammers.
Don’t open your door for them.
They’re gypsies, Roma, avoid them.
Usually it's some sort of flim-flam on construction or driveway repair. Last one was a scam on meat - "Hey, my refrigerator truck is broken down, can you help out, want to buy some, etc etc"
The Clinton’s are members of 2 different Traveller’s clans. Hillary from a Chicago clan. Bill from an Arkansas clan.
They’re not Roma, though they have a similar lifestyle and are also criminals.
I have had three different run ins with them. They are scum of the earth. The first time was at a rest area off an interstate in South Carolina. A young couple with a baby approached me and said they were stuck and almost out of gas.
I told them I would buy them $10 worth at the next exit. We stopped and they waited for me to give my credit card to the cashier then proceeded to fill their tank with around $30 worth. I should have phoned the sheriff but was in a hurry and just chalked it up to experience.
The next time, I was doing a little shovel work in my parent’s driveway. They were in their 70s and financially comfortable. A guy in a new pickup stopped by and asked about paving the driveway. I told him my parents liked it just the way it was and he drove off without any problem. I had immediately sensed a fraud tho.
The third time I was caught off guard as I had phoned him from a card he had left at a nearby store’s bulletin board. He advertised yard work.
I needed someone to haul a new yard tractor home. He agreed to do it and said he would only charge me for the gas it took. I told him that was not enough but he insisted so I said OK. After we got the tractor on his trailer he stopped for gas and filled up two empty tanks. Took around $60. Nothing much I could do and just decided to think of it as one of those things to never fall for again.
They tend to be handsome, well groomed and drive new pickups. They will often hit a general area for a few weeks then move on but some are semi permanent residents.
Gypsies ???
Speaking for all Irish-Americans everywhere, these people ain’t Irish!!!
This crap is p.c.-speak for Gypsies.
No matter how inexpensive the deal seems, your driveway will crumble within six months!
There were gypsies who’d show up at the Holiday Inn I worked at and rent an entire 30-room block for a week. We kept everything locked up and buttoned down, I double locked my shop door, didn’t want my tools and equipment to disappear. It was a relief when they’d vanish! They ran a blacktop resurfacing scam on folks. Ugly scum, the lot!
They actually are Irish. Same people as the old Irish tinkers. They behave a lot like Roma but are genetically very different.
They also tend to be very physically attractive.
I thought they were called Pikeys, and they really like their caravans. And dags.
I have driven through there many times and the houses are enormous and look new. They are primarily brick and did not ,at that time, appear to have much landscaping. The windows were all darkly shaded or curtained.
If I read the article right I did not realize that South Carolina had 14 as the age or marriage until it the law was recently changed. Interesting.
Had the meat scammer at my front door last weekend.
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