Irish Travellers, Tinkers No MoreIn 1965, Alen MacWeeney came upon an encampment of itinerants in a waste ground by the Cherry Orchard Fever Hospital outside Dublin. Then called tinkers and later formally styled Travellers by the Irish Government, they were living in beatup caravans, ramshackle sheds, and time-worn tents. MacWeeney was captivated by their independence, individuality, and en durance, despite their bleak circumstances. Clearly impoverished, Travellers were alienated--partly by choice--from greater Irish society. They lived catch-as-catch-can. Traditionally, tinkers had been tinsmiths and pot menders; always, they had been horse traders, and they continued to keep some piebald horses. They worked now and again as turf-cutters or chimney sweeps. The women begged in the streets of Dublin and large towns; some told fortunes. They were not welcomed in the country towns of Ireland, where they set up their encampments in lay-bys and cul-de-sacs, littering the roadsides with their waste, hanging their washing on bushes. To Alen MacWeeney, they recalled the migrant farmers of the great American Depression--poor, white, and dispossessed--as the government attempted to get them off the roads of Ireland and gather them in settlements. Although they had been eligible for the dole since 1963, the tinkers--become--Travellers cherished their wayward, ancestral lifestyle. Already noted in the United States as a photographer of great sensitivity, MacWeeney became accepted by the Travellers and began to photograph them. In a moving essay in the book, he writes: "Theirs was a bigger way of life than mine, with its daily struggle for survival, compared to my struggle to find images symbolic and representative of that life." Over five years, he spent countless evenings in the Travellers' caravans and by their campfires, drinking tea and listening to their tales, songs, and music - "rarely shared or exposed to camera and tape recorder." |
Common terms and phrases
Alen MacWeeney anyhow Bairbre Ní Fhloinn Ballyfermot begod Bernie Ward Big Miley Bill Cassidy blacksmith blue tar road Bridget cake camp caravan Cherry Orchard cross DICK DAGLEN Dublin father finger Flynn Furey goes GREY-HEADED NORRISEY'S SKULL haw-ba-ba-balda-dalady Hiberno-English Ireland Irish Folklore Irish language Irish Travellers Joe Donoghue Johnny Cassidy Keenans Kitty Labre Park lady living Lord Loughrea lovely Willie Martin Donovan morning never night OLD HAG'S DEATH Olivene oral tradition Paddy Patrick Patrick Stokes patriot game Pavee Point photograph play Rathfarnham Rourke says Grey-Headed Norrisey says the boy says the daughter says the eagle says the hen says the king's says the old says the shoemaker says the tinker says the uncle song story storyteller Súilleabháin tale-type tell There's tigeens told Tom Munnelly took University College Dublin versions Wexford what'll I say white pony wife woman