Unwelcome Stares at Quiet Clan: Secret Life Ends for Irish Travelers

Washington Post ^ | October 20, 2002 | Lynne Duke

[aculeus]

EDGEFIELD COUNTY, S.C. -- In a puzzling little community of trailer homes, Cadillacs, mini-mansions and kissing cousins, Rose Kathy Sherlock opens the front door of her double-wide. She's breaking a long-standing taboo just by talking to a stranger. Irish Travelers such as Sherlock are supposed to keep to themselves. Secrecy has ensured their survival for many years.

But that all changed last month with the rogue act of an Irish Traveler woman caught on videotape beating her child. Suddenly, the Travelers felt their culture was on trial.

[aculeus]

It's a strange country, America.

[Happygal]

I started reading this article, and the first thing that sprang to mind was...this journalist has NO IDEA what Itinerants are capable of.

Happily while the journalist paints a very 'feel good' portrait of Ms. Sherlock, it seems the police have got them taped pretty well, from this excerpt:

``Some of them have a reputation, backed by arrests and convictions, for being relentless con artists. Like grifters, they move around the country running home improvement swindles. And the women sometimes run shoplifting scams, police say.''

THIS exactly sums up the majority of travellers I know

[ErnBatavia]

I would bet that Ms. Toogood gets "voted off the island"...based on the fact that her publicity really, really screwed it up for the rest of the tribe.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I'm sure glad I didn't have to marry one of my first cousins............ yuck!!!!! lol

[blam]

I'm pretty sure I heard that Ms Toogood was arrested again (after the child incident) for shop lifting.

[Happygal]

Well actually, to tell you the truth...I was quite unaware of a large presence of Travellers in America until Ms. Toogood hit the international press.

[Happygal]

I'm sure glad I didn't have to marry one of my first cousins............ yuck!!!!! lol

I concur. I mean, the world already has an ample enough supply of one-toothed, cross-eyed banjo players ;-)

[MadIvan]

I concur. I mean, the world already has an ample enough supply of one-toothed, cross-eyed banjo players ;-)

Also more than enough guests for the Jerry Springer show, darling. ;)

Love, Ivan

[aculeus]

Actually I never heard of these people until the recent child abuse incident.

There's another clan known as The Robinsons who are Scotch-Irish (or maybe just plain Scotch) who conduct the same sort of scams along the East Coast of America.

(Not far from where I live there's a tiny trailer park called Tinkerville. I'll have to check it out!)

[genefromjersey]

A year or two back, we camped at a private campground in southern NJ. There was a converted school bus-painted blue- which 5 or 6 men were using as a camper. ( They let me look inside , and were quite courteous. )

In the morning-quite early- the men would get into their pickup trucks and go out to work. They would return, just before dusk, obviously tired and dirty ; then clean up and fix a communal supper.

I doubt they were scam artists. Their speech was "mid-Atlantic rural ", and they may have been Travellers.If so, they were not much different from the Journeyman carpenters,sheet-rockers, etc. who camp out in motels while working on housing projects in NJ. ( We have a LOT of those ! )

I've met a few of the less-than-honest Travellers,and some of the Romany Gypsies in a setting they would consider unfavorable : the County Jail.I've even met a "Gypsy King",whose functions include posting of cash bail for members of the "tribe".

From what I've seen, the Travellers and the Rom have traits in common, but are separate and distinct, once the surface similarities are cleared away.

[Happygal]

Well, there are quite a number of them in Ireland, with unofficial halting sites dotted all over the countryside.
The majority are scam artists.

A lot of travellers over here are Connors, Stokes and Barretts. The most dangersous faction of them, however, are the Galway based McDonaghs.

[TruthWillWin]

I'm pretty sure I heard that Ms Toogood was arrested again (after the child incident) for shop lifting.

I heard the same yesterday evening on the radio in my SUV. I believe it was an AP wire. Said Madelyn was being charged for lifting some fabric from a store in Indiana. Possible charges for her sister also.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Are these people what we, in America, would refer to as white trash?

[aculeus]

Were those people in the Jersey Pines (known as Pineys?) who are your versions of the Travelers?

[Happygal]

Are these people what we, in America, would refer to as white trash?

Yup, pretty much. :-)

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I loved the description of the house all done in pink! Pink leather....... ROFL..............all that style with only a 6th grade education, imagine that? lol

[blam]

"I heard the same yesterday evening on the radio in my SUV. I believe it was an AP wire. Said Madelyn was being charged for lifting some fabric from a store in Indiana. Possible charges for her sister also."

Yup, that's it. Said she had paid for it earlier but forgot to take it with her the first time, lol. (a sick babe)

[07055]

Another Irish Traveler group is settled outside Memphis and is known as the Mississippi Travelers, after the river.

I haven't heard about these people. Has the Commercial Appeal written about them?

[aculeus]

I meant I never heard of Irish Travelers here in the USA.

BTW the film Snatched has a hilarious crew of Travelers in the Britain all speaking an utterly incomprehensible dialect. Brad Pitt does an excellent job in it.