The Irish Tinkers: The Urbanization of an Itinerant People

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat pedantic
Review: I first learned about the Travelers at the time of the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, when Dateline did a documentary on the American line of the Irish migrants. The producers seemed more interested in "looping," a Traveler mating ritual, than anything else. Shiny, sequenced-dressed preteens with bouffant hairdos and makeup were eerily similar to the child beauty queen.
George Gmelch, an American anthropologist, spent a number of years living with the Travelers at Holylands, a Traveler haven in Dublin. This book is a compilation of that research. In it we learn that the Travelers were originally Tinkers or tinsmiths who wandered throughout Ireland looking for work, relying on farm families. They also did a bit of begging and outright stealing on the side, hence their nefarious reputation. During the potato famine of the 1840's up to a million Irish starved and another million emigrated, some Travelers among them. Those that stayed experienced difficulties after WWII when farming became mechanized and the need for tinkers decreased.
Gmelch's book concentrates on the Irish government's attempts to settle the Travelers in permanent housing. They ran into difficulties with settled Irish because of their penchant for scavenging scrap metal and begging. Like other minorities the Travelers did not adjust well to public housing, but did much better when given an opportunity to purchase their own homes.
According to Gmelch the Travelers are family oriented, unwilling to trust anyone outside the immediate family. They also have an adversarial relationship with the settled Irish, who look down on them because of their lack of education and their enthusiasm for drink. This results in a bit of one-upmanship during horse trading and such.
Probably because of Gmelch's academic background, much of the writing is pedantic, kind of surprising when we're talking about some of the most interesting and humorous people I've ever heard of. He does, however, reveal some of the reasons why the American Travelers behave the way they do. For instance, many Travelers in Ireland marry close relations and we see the reason for this in their distrust of everyone, including unrelated Travelers.
This book involves Gmelch's sojourn at Holylands between July 1971 and September 1972 and a return trip in 1975 which lasted four months. Gmelch includes an Update outlining the status of the Travelers as of 1984. As of 1984, more Travelers were dependent on welfare than on scavenging. Horses were almost gone and more families relied on cars and vans. Begging was also in decline. As of 1981 only fifty percent of Travelers were living in trailer caravans. Forty-six percent were living in houses or chalets.
Many Travelers resist the government's efforts to settle them in public housing, preferring their independent, wandering lifestyle. As of 2003, during a visit to Ireland, I witnessed them parked in their caravans alongside country roads.