What got me looking into this was the traveler/grifter woman who beat her kid and made national news. Madelyne Toogood.
Sat Sep 21, 9:20 PM ET
Madelyne Gorman Toogood leaves the St. Joseph County Jail, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2002, in South Bend, Ind., after posting bond. Toogood is accused of child battery after a nationally televised videotape depicted her shaking, slapping and punching her 4-year-old daughter in an Indiana store parking lot last week. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
There's been a pretty extensive discussion re the Irish Travellers (to which this woman apparently belongs) vis a vis the English and Irish Romanies (gypsies) on another thread:
General feeling over there is that this crowd is interesting at a distance but "bad, mad and dangerous to know", as somebody (Caro Lamb?) once said about Lord Byron.
