Blúiríní Béaloidis 36: The Travellers (with David Joyce & Áine Furey)
Blúiríní Béaloidis Folklore PodcastShow Notes
Irish Travellers, known in their own language as Mincéirs or Pavees and in Irish called ‘An Lucht Siúil or, ‘The Walking People’, are a nomadic ethnic minority in Ireland with a distinct history, culture and identity. Historically, Travellers were called Tinkers, a reference to their trade as tinsmiths, and they also made a living through engaging with the settled community; by buying and selling animals, or through seasonal farm labour. They’ve also long been renowned as singers, musicians and storytellers who brought news, tales, songs and music from townland to townland, parish to parish and county to county as they travelled around Ireland. As a minority group however, Ireland’s Travellers they have long-faced discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity, and are often reported as the subject of explicit prejudice in Irish society. For this episode of the podcast, I hope to enter into an exploration of Traveller culture and identity, and I’m honoured to be joined by David Joyce; an advocate for the Traveller community who has worked as both a barrister and a solicitor, and Áine Furey, a singer, musician, tour guide and alumna of the Department of Irish Folklore here at UCD. I hope you’ll keep us company for the next hour or so as we come to know and honour the culture, traditions, perspectives and experiences of Ireland’s Travelling people, to whom this episode is dedicated. For details concerning audio timecodes, see below:
08:20: Tom 'Bun' Connors in conversation with Seán Ó Súilleabháin, Cherry Orchard, Dublin (1967) listing some Travellers families and which parts of Ireland they're from.
14:20: Andy Cassidy, 'My Rifle, My Pony and Me' recorded by Alen McWeeney in Labre Park, Ballyfermot, Dublin (1967) My thanks to Alen, and to Pavee Point for permission to reproduce this wonderful recording! See more here: http://www.paveepoint.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/WhishtBooklet.pdf
27:35: Bridget Connors in conversation with Seán Ó Súilleabháin, Cherry Orchard, Dublin (1967) recounting the kindness of Kerry people, and the hostility with which she was met in other places in Ireland.
39: 54: 'Bun' Connors recounting the tinsmithing trade as it was practiced in his family, and how it was undone by the arrival of cheap plastic goods.
42:07: John Reilly singing 'The Jolly Tinker'. Recorded by Tom Munnelly while John and his family were camped at Cloongrehan, Cootehall, County Roscommon (October 1971)
47:02: John Reilly singing 'False Lankum'. Recorded by Tom Munnelly while John and his family were camped at Cloongrehan, Cootehall, County Roscommon (October 1971) See here for more: https://digital.ucd.ie/view/ivrla:31077
50: 22: 'Bun' Connors relates his experience of travelling around Ireland, and demonstrating how well he knows the homeplace of Seán Ó Súilleabháin(from Kenmare, county Kerry) in particular.
53:55: Uileann Piper Johnny Doran playing 'Colonel Fraser, My Love Is in America, Rakish Paddy' recorded by the Irish Folklore Commission (1947)
56: 28: 'Bun' Connors relates his long standing friendship with Margaret Barry
1:00:55: 'Bun' and his mother Bridget Connors describe how Travellers used make a living from dealing animals, and gives account of the fairs they used visit.
1:04:10: 'Bun' Connors relates details of winter lodgings and the times of the year that Travellers used travel.
1:08:30: 'Bun' Connors recounts the ways in which the settled people would come and join them by the fire a few days after they had arrived into an area and set up camp. Describes the bonds and neighbourly feelings fostered over time.
1:23:39: Pádraig Mac Gréine recounts how he first met Traveller and storyteller Oney Power in county Longford in the 1930s.
1:29:40: 'Bun' and Bridget Connors give account of the context in which the Traveller language is used, providing examples of phrases and terminology.
1:39:38: Johnny Doran, playing Sliabh na mBan, a slow air, dedicated to the late Seán Garvey.
More from Blúiríní Béaloidis Folklore Podcast
Ailbe van der Heide is Collections Curator at the National Folklore Collection, having joined the staff in 2020, shortly after graduating from the MA in Irish Folklore in 2020. For several years now, Ailbe has managed the National Folklore Collection’s reading room service, along with fielding an array of queries from members of the public keen to explore our collections. Throughout her work, and in response to enquiries made regarding our collections, Ailbe noticed an at times stark difference between the material found as part of our fieldwork collections, and that which can be found online regarding supernatural figures in Irish tradition. Researchers looking for information on supernatural lore would often cite specific terminology which was indicative of literary forms, rather than expressions of folk culture. On the interplay between literature and folk tradition, Anne O’Connor has noted that:
Steve Roud is a Librarian, folklore scholar and creator of the Roud Folk Song Index, which contains upwards of 750,000 entries to around 45,000 English language folk songs, as found in books, recordings, manuscripts and other sources the world over. His index, and ‘Roud Numbers’ (a numbering system employed to identify the same song across many different titles) are widely acclaimed for the scope, breadth, depth and impact. Steve worked as a local studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon, and also served as Honorary Librarian for the Folklore Society for eighteen years. He has published books on calendar custom, popular tradition, folk belief, London lore, children’s games, and folk drama. In 2004, he was the winner of the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Folklore Award for The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland. In 2009, he was one of five people to be awarded the Gold Badge of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. This award recognises "those who have made unique or outstanding contributions to the art or science of folk dance, music or song, and/or those who have given exceptional support in furthering the aims of the Society”. For four years now, Steve has been visiting the NFC, parsing through our manuscript and book, broadside and pamphlet collections for entries to add to his index. He is an incredibly gifted, meticulous and generous scholar, who is always glad to share his expertise with us, particularly in discussion around the inherent problems in the description, cataloguing and indexing of folklore materials. It was an honour, and a great pleasure to host Steve at the NFC recently, and during his visit (for our collective benefit) I subjected him to a 75 minute interview, in which we discussed his index, the problems inherent in describing folk song, approaches to the cataloguing of folklore, conducting research in folklore archives, and the problems inherent in the digitisation of folklore records and some scholarly critique of the NFC’s online platform Dúchas.ie.
Video recording of this episode is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OcxwmDuUeU&ab_channel=UCD-UniversityCollegeDublin
Regarding food in Irish tradition, Kevin Danaher, writing in 1964, noted that "Sometimes we get the impression that Ireland, in ancient times, was a land of plenty, and again we get quite the opposite impression - that our forebears lived out their lives on the very edge of starvation. In reality both these impressions are wrong." As an expression of culture that permeates every aspect of life, food holds a central place in Irish folk tradition, and for episode 41 of Blúiríní Béaloidis, I am delighted to be joined by Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, Senior Lecturer in the School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology at Technological University Dublin to discuss food in Irish folk tradition. Máirtín, along with Dorothy Cashman, was co-editor of the recent "Irish Food History: A Companion", published by the Royal Irish Academy in hardcopy in 2024, and available freely online via EUT+ at the following link: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/irishfoodhist/1/
Hello a chairde, and welcome to episode 40 of Blúiríní Béaloidis, the podcast from the National Folklore Collection.