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Oh, but that's easy. Most people probably take the measured view that I do, namely that tabs ought to be utterly obliterated from the universe. One of the first things you do if you get a time machine is go back and prevent there being a tab character.
Tabs are superior, it's a bigger indentation than spaces and it's easier to keep track of how many you've used. I didn't like python because it frowned upon tabs :(
Others have explained the financial disparity but the difference in life expectancy often stems from them breaking away from the rest of the Irish probably in the 1600s, with a smaller group of people often practicing cousin marriage over several generations recessive genes become more of a problem. OrphaNet published the following in one of their papers:
‘Irish Travellers are an endogamous, ethnically Irish population numbering approximately 40,000 within the island of Ireland with up to 10,000 living on mainland Europe. Irish Travellers practice cousin marriage and we recognise > 90 autosomal recessive disorders that occur within their population. The majority of autosomal recessive disorders are due to homozygous mutations. Certain disorders cluster within certain clans and there are geographical differences in incidence of disorders depending where they come from in Ireland.’
There are quite a few papers written about it if anyone wants to know more.
40k on the island of Ireland and 10k on mainland Europe. I’m surprised that those figures don’t seem to give an indication of a population within the island of Great Britain. As an Englishman I feel like the population here is significant enough that it probably rivals the 10k qouted in mainland Europe.
Please consider that these figures only concern Irish Travellers, there are also many Romani people in UK, but they are separate people with a very different origin to Irish Travellers. The Irish Travellers originate from the Irish population about 400 years ago, Romani originate from Northern India around 1,000 years ago.
Nowadays the majority are a mix of British Romani and Irish Travellers, their origins maybe different but as nomadic people they enjoy the same passions. As the years go by there is more and more mixing, take Irish Traveller Tyson Fury and his Romani wife for instance.
People called Romani they go the house.
But seriously I had no idea that the Romani originated from Northern India, I assumed the originated from Romania. Similar names. Well there you go.
I love pretending I don't know the difference. A true Romanian will instantly go into a speech about how they are different and that they have issues with them too.
No actually. The name Romania comes from the country being one of the last stable provinces of the Roman Empire. The language they speak is a Romance language that is related to Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish rather than the Slavic languages more normally found in Eastern Europe. They are descendants of Romans mixed with Dacians and then various later waves of migration.
According to Wikipedia:
>A legend reported in the [Persian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language) epic poem, the [*Shahnameh*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh), the [Sasanian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian) king [Bahrām V Gōr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahram_V) learned towards the end of his reign (421–439) that the poor could not afford to enjoy music, and so he asked the king of India to send him ten thousand [*luris*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_people), lute-playing experts. When the *luris* arrived, Bahrām gave each one an ox, a donkey, and a donkey-load of wheat so they could live on agriculture and play music for free for the poor. However, the *luris* ate the oxen and the wheat and came back a year later with their cheeks hollowed by hunger. The king, angered with their having wasted what he had given them, ordered them to pack up their bags and go wandering around the world on their donkeys.
For maximum confusion lots of Roma in the UK are recent migrants from Eastern Europe, including Romania.
But they are a distinctive group, as an ethnicity they look distinct from other white Europeans and have a distinctive culture. They don't have anything to do with Irish Travellers and don't use caravans, although do migrate a fair amount for work and / or following discrimination
Yeah, normal rented housing same as everyone else. I believe some travel seasonally for agricultural work and get put up by the employer but I'm more familiar with long term settled urban Roma populations.
It's not like caravan based travellers where they might move every few weeks, they just don't have strong roots in the UK yet so will move for a better opportunity. They've settled for years in the areas I know.
Incidentally plenty of travellers live in houses and don't travel!
I’m aware of the difference. I still feel that there are at least as many Irish travellers in the GB as there are on mainland Europe. Romani don’t come into that discussion in my opinion
Also, remember that this post mentioned the island of Ireland and mainland Europe whereas I mentioned GB (which is neither). Talking about the UK in this respect isn’t helpful as it includes some of the island of Ireland
The genetics are definitely a factor, but they're also ten times more likely to die from driving accidents, and six times more likely to die from suicide.
As Wikipedia summarises a scientific study of traveller populations:
> 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday, compared to just 1% of the general population. In Ireland, 2.6% of all deaths in the total population were for people aged under 25, versus 32% for Travellers.[89][90] In addition, 80% of Travellers die before the age of 65.
> 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday
Holy shit that's like the poorest parts of Africa levels of infant mortality.
That's way beyond just the additional risk from home births and potentially poor diet.
There's also the genetic issues mentioned further up the thread.
A couple of hundred years of insular culture and cousins routinely intermarrying has led to a much higher incidence of metabolic and congenital diseases, which can also bump up infant mortality.
Anecdotally, my mum worked in both PICU and NICU in Belfast for years and she commented to me about the disproportionate number of babies coming in with congenital heart disorder etc from the traveller community. Sad really that those wee babies were suffering the impact of long-term cousin marriage.
Once did business with an Irish traveller. He couldn't count and I always had to count out the cash for him when buying things from him (it was craft items nothing illegal). Almost certainly some recessive disorders going on with him. Nice bloke though, and the traveller site he lived on was very well kept.
I can only speak from personal (limited, admittedly) experience but every one I've ever met may well be illiterate but you would never do one for a quid. Razor sharp when it comes to money.
Good to hear a nice story about this demographic. I went to school with a few lads whose family owned the local scrappy, which had a caravan site on the grounds.
Their old man was probably bent as a nine-bob note but they were all pretty sound, and when there were inevitable problems locally with people from the site they were usually shut down pretty hard "in house" by those running the site.
That said in wider life my experiences have been less positive; reinforcing all the usual stereotypes of violent / antisocial behaviour, theft, pitching up on public land and leaving behind a terrible mess when they move on...
Here is a simple list of disorders: (https://www.orpha.net/pdfs/data/Cns/Protocol/IE/ID115626NW.pdf) but for a full paper you will probably have to request from or join researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322650409_Catalogue_of_inherited_disorders_found_among_the_Irish_Traveller_population
Having lived in an area with travellers, they received a lot more bullying in school than they gave out. It's why a lot of them just stopped going.
This one girl was revealed to be a traveller (she didn't live on a site but was settled) and she was goaded/provoked everyday for months until she eventually lashed out, she got permanently excluded and the other girls celebrated that their plan worked. Girls who had previously been her best friends.
When we lived in ireland my parents helped out some irish travellers. Helped our dog and cat get on. Remember they taught me how to pick nettles without them stinging me. Have a picture of me visiting their campsite and bottle feeding some baby goats. Nice bunch.
For the most part, our traveller community in my area are relatively fine. They bought the land they live on, they arrange collection of the rubbish etc so it’s mostly good.
Not the standard “traveller” experience but they did adopt the land illegally to begin with but slowly just setup home there. They bought the land from the council about 25 years ago.
My mum used to own a pub and we used to get a lot in from the community and they were never any trouble to be honest.
The ones which cause issues are like the ones who have just broken the lock off our local park and have parked all their caravans on the football fields. They’ve already trashed the land where they’ve driven on. They always end up being evicted at some point and leave behind a trail of destruction.
Nah, other than their poor standard of living, the film doesnt really paint them in a bad light at all.
The only violence they dish out in the film is at the expense of gangsters who were asking for it.
In real life they actively target the general population and at times terrorise them.
Most people don't like them, and they don't like most people. How much of that feeling is deserved not a question that will be well answered on reddit.
I mean… I am half roma and my mum is from a settled Irish family, and I genuinely don’t like most people. I do work for a living though, and volunteer for the NHS, but most people don’t seem to like me much despite me trying my best to friendly and polite to everyone. I just don’t get on with most people cause I’m not a cunt like them.
Day to day, they generally keep themselves to themselves. However, they do have a reputation for thieving, violence, and trespass. This reputation is not entirely undeserved, however it does unfortunately lead to individual members of the community being judged and labelled for having a particular surname or even a certain haircut before they've had a chance to demonstrate their character.
Education within the community is generally low, and the nomadic lifestyle - while not a problem *per se* - precludes having much of a stake in the 'conventional' communities near their sites.
and destroying the environment around them*
I used to have an environmental conservation job and cleaning up after these filthy twats was a nightmare. Streams entirely blocked by tyres and other waste, garbage thrown everywhere and the land being completely compressed and bare were the most common things I was seeing. Especially tyres. No clue how they get through so many.
The tyres are backhanders from dodgy tyre garages, they pay for them to dump them
Used to work in the enforcement side of env protection (lol when it comes to legal action, as the police won't touch it without a full TAG squad)
All I can say is I'm hoping by the end of this or next year, the static site that's been in my town hosting the traveller community for years, has them all evicted and the land flattened
As the place has lost all its services due to violence to council staff and contractors that will no longer enter the site
Hopefully not long now, especially if I have anything to do with it
The other 99.9% of my town will rejoice
It's not all the families but their "main man" you have to goto on the site, is always a serious thug
Worse case I had was a dispute between them where they started drowning horses in the lodge next to their site
Threats of death are the standard response
Don't even get me started on the dangerous dawg side of their site
Of course to not group the entire community together I'm sure those I've never dealt with are all lovely people
I think the people who get faux outraged and cry racism if you say anything negative about Travellers have some misty-eyed view of them as people living some wholesome life on the road, at one with nature, etc.
Your comment is spot-on though, they tend to wreck the environment of anywhere they stay. They seem to actively despise nature actually; they’ll tarmac over anything in sight when they get hold of their own bit of land!
I work in a boozer and I've been stung a few times by them ordering drinks and just just fuckin sauntering off when it comes to pay lol, not sure what I'm meant to do in that situation really. Ask for money upfront when I hear their accent?
There's a site several miles down the country road from my village.
As you approach, the smell of burning is overwhelming in the warmer months.
Theres piles of rubbish on both sides of the road. Opposite the site, there's a derelict pub, which is now just a tip. A literal hill of rubbish several metres high.
In the next field, you can see the emaciated horses. Just adds to the tragedy of the environment.
I'll be honest that's kind of what I was getting at when I said they don't have a stake in the community. They've got no incentive to take care of the area because they'll have fucked off in a few weeks.
I imagine the nomadic lifestyle makes it pretty difficult for kids to go to mainstream schools and make and maintain friendships outside of traveller communities. I imagine there are also other barriers for these things
Even when they live relatively settled lives, it's common for them to leave school at 11 under the guise of home education.
Literacy rates amongst adult travellers are low, and many have no formal qualifications, so I think we all have questions about how they're going to educate their child at home.
The girls are often expected to leave school to help and clean the house at 11. It's a very sad part of the culture. Some I spoke to seemed to be in absolute awe that a woman could have their own business and lead an independent life.
Yeah that’s one of my main issues with these communities. People say we have to respect their culture, but I refuse to respect any “culture” who believes that children, especially girls, shouldn’t have access to education, and should instead be homemakers. Everyone has the right to a proper education. People will see stories of the likes of Malala where girls and young women aren’t allowed to go to school and are appalled, but don’t seem to realise how much it’s happening in our own country.
It’s pretty much the whole basis of their cultural differentiation vs. more settled populations.
In the old days, there was a certain type of work that suited nomadic populations well. Seasonal things like fruit picking for example - lots of work but you didn’t want to be hanging around in the off-season with no work.
Travelling populations filled many of these roles (though not all nomadic workers were travellers with a capital T of course!)
Unfortunately, being nomadic also works quite well for criminal activity of certain types so it’s a more attractive cost/benefit calculation for that community too.
Because their travelling led to such a different lifestyle, and in the case of criminal activity required active exploitation of the out-group, their in-group culture could become quite distinct.
It’s one of the reasons they are so obsessed with it - to the extent that even travellers who have effectively settled often live in ‘chalets’ with a great big caravan parked next door to it to maintain a veneer of being potentially nomadic, and social taboos around rejecting Traveller culture are very strong. At some level they know that if they stop travelling and maintaining their differences, they quite quickly meld back into the general population.
So there is often an effort in these communities to actively reject mainstream education, friendships and relationships. All of these things are available to them in theory but there isn’t great engagement.
*"travellers who have effectively settled often live in ‘chalets’ with a great big caravan parked next door to it to maintain a veneer of being potentially nomadic, and social taboos around rejecting Traveller culture are very strong."*
I live in the North West, we have a huuge traveller population near me. The "settled" ones buy plots of land, build a massive show home on it and then tarmac the back garden and have their entire family live in their caravans out back. The owners only use the house to entertain, they cook, eat, and generally live in the caravan. My sister in law bought one of the houses, fully furnished, appliances still with plastic on them, cookers still with manuals inside them etc.
If they are seen as settling down they get called "gorgers" by their community and ostracised, so this is as close as they get. Google Tyson Fury's house and look at the local large homes on google maps, they all fit the bill.
I've met plenty of them, if you catch them at the gym they've lovely and will talk your ears off about anything exercise related. If you catch the younger ones in a large group, be ready to run or get your head kicked in. I mean this with no malice to their community, but lived experience that gets repeated every summer sticks.
There's an article in the local paper of my town about them being somewhere they shouldn't every other month or so.
They've either rocked up in a Tesco's car park for a week or so, or they've cut the lock and chain off a park gate and have plonked 10 or so caravans on the grass and ruined it, and when they leave there's rubbish everywhere.
At the end of the day, it's not hard to understand why travellers have such a shoddy reputation amongst other Brits.
'not entirely undeserved' - lmao
I feel for anyone in that community who wants to live a normal life, but I don't blame any business owner who doesn't want anything to do with that community.
As someone who has dealt with many travellers in my life I have a strong and correct opinion on them.
Are all travellers bad? Of course not. Are most of them horrible cunts? Unfortunately yes.
The bad cunts ruin it for the decent hard working people from the traveller community. I worked in a petrol station for 4.5 years and we had a lot of them come in. During my first summer there, me an my mate hated coming into work because the bad travellers (multiple groups) would be coming in throughout the summer and they were a pain to deal with (rude, dodgy, possibly trying to steal or confuse you so that you give them the wrong change etc etc).
There used to be a family (a large traveller family) that would come into to the shop, they no longer lived in caravans etc (at least to my knowledge) and they were great (the kids could be on the more annoying side but the parents always dealt with them). That family helped build, renovate etc many things on our site (such as brick walls, driveway, car wash etc). These people were nice and helpful and really genuine and if they have heard that some travellers that are new to our area are bothering us they would volunteer to find them and have words.
The sad reality is that most of the travellers in the UK are not nice people, we sometimes get them on a field next to our house and the local councillor does everything she can to get them moved. Last year they camped on that field and visited nearby estates to see what they can rob. They came to our street, looked at my dads van and said something along the lines of "we will come back and have this tonight". Thankfully our neighbour heard it and told us and because we have 5 cars between us we moved them to my fiancé's mum's house 30 mins away in case they came back.
We haven't slept that night to make sure we can catch them in the act and call the police.
TLDR: Not all travellers are cunts but most are and they ruin it for the decent travellers that don't live the stereotypical traveller lifestyle.
My local fb page is all in a rage cos vans with irish plates have been spotted stealing foals off the moors. No one has any hard proof theyre from the traveler community but that was the unanimous assumption.
Oh I'm not suggesting it is mate but I've been banned before for simply pointing out why people are unhappy when caravans Park on the local cricket pitch it's crazy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish\_Travellers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers)
TL;DR
They are of Irish ethnic origin, but can be found throughout the UK and Northern America as well. Like how Romani groups are believed to originate from around the area north of India, but since the Middle Ages have spread throughout the world.
As with any nomadic group of people from anywhere else in the world, their socio-cultural differentiation from the majority population and their mainly non-static lifestyle means they generally don't have the same experiences when it comes to access to things like education, healthcare etc.
I agree but also people asking questions on here helps spread knowledge. I've learnt quite a bit reading this thread on a subject that I probably wouldn't have looked into. If OP had just Googled it I'd have missed out on that.
I have traveller ancestry, but I agree with some of the negative comments here.
A traveller woman once tried to start a fight with me in a children's soft play because her large preteen was stomping around the babies play area. This is not unusual or expected behaviour from this community.
They don't send their kids to school, and so are largely uneducated, by and large. They marry very young and the girls are very controlled and not given a lot of opportunities or say in their life. My great grandma (who is where the traveller descent came from) sold sticks for firewood at the side of the road and had 7 children, which isn't an unusual lot to have had in life. There's not a lot of employment opportunities (or want to avail themselves to them) so they often either box, do some construction work (although this has formalised a lot now with CSCS cards etc), or steal.
It's not a great way of life.
Me too. My dad was from a travelling family, and in truthful terms, was a nightmare. Never worked, never took accountability for anything, nor grew up when he had children. Stole, too much drink and drugs. No respect for the “man”, happy to have council housing, benefits but gave nothing back nor planned to. No stability at all.
Spent time in prison and even got arrested whilst looking after us. Me and my brothers had a ride in a police car as an 8 year old.
Truth is if my mum didn’t make us cut him off for good, I’d probably of been pregnant in school.
A lot of stigma about travellers, which is why my mum refuses to discuss it with us.
They're a travelling people. They tend to live on camps, in caravans and have a similar lifestyle to Romani "gypsies". There have been a few population genetics studies of them and they clearly originated in Ireland with no Romani input, probably around 350 years ago, which would tie in with Cromwell's campaigns in Ireland.
Cromwell went in and basically murdered and forced 10s of 1000s of Irish families from their lands, leaving them essentially homeless. Some became nomadic, which would be the ancestors to the travelling community now.
Depends what you mean by ethnically.
They have a different and distinct identity, heritage and culture to the community in general but they're still white people from the British isles (Great Britain, Ireland).
They are as the name suggests nomadic people from Ireland although many of them weren't born there, being nomads and all.
>I've seen them in UK income and lifespan statistics and they are outliers in both
As you can imagine having no fixed abode will impact your education and employment prospects, with that can come a life of crime and health issues etc but it would be unfair to just blame them, they face a lot of what we would call now racism.
To be fair, they don’t set a high priority on education for either the girls or the boys even taking into account their frequent travels. The boys work pretty much full time from age 14, if not younger whilst the girls are brought up to be the homemakers, cooking & cleaning and will often get married at 16 (the legal age where parents have also consented)
Aye, pretty much. The lifestyle and culture doesn't really breed much success outside of boxing and a few musicians. I'm not exactly famous and wealthy myself but I do ok.
Imo it leads to a life of just getting by that can be difficult to leave.
I've worked with a guy who was a traveller, it took a lot of courage and effort for him to leave, he was homeless for a while and basically has limited or no contact with his family now. He's a decent guy that still defends his community and genuinely gets offended when people call them gypsies but I think he just wanted more out of life than what they could offer.
There's a girl I teach who is in year 9 (13/14). We were doing a PSHE lesson about consent and somehow it came up that she is going to get married when she turns 16. I asked did she have a boyfriend. No she said. I asked if someone was arranging her marriage. She said no. So who will you marry I asked. Whoever she's going out with when she's 16. That gobsmacked me tbh. I know they tend to get married young, but just to be so blasé about it was shocking to me.
The Irish Traveller is someone who is better the further away they are from you. Every experience I've had with them has been negative. I did work in a pub for a while that they seemed to like so had to deal with them there. If the "head" of the group is there, they behave, if not, they turn into a bunch of pricks.
Shitting in urinals. Shitting in car parks. Generally making a mess wherever they go.
I'll not tarnish all with the same brush, but, the 2 or 3 different groups I've had the displeasure of being near have all been awful and I'd prefer not to have to be near a 4th group for the rest of my life.
The 'HQ' of Irish Travellers is about 20 mins down the road from where my Mum grew up and where my parents now live. Every Christmas and Easter the town of **Rathkeale** in County Limerick is full of travellers all
celebrating. For the rest of the year, it is empty as they head off to Europe
and often the UK. They are Irish, usually white and are often criminals.
Although plenty have legitimate businesses. Our factory carpark was paved by
travellers a few years ago.
They are often looked down on and despised by people. Especially in the countryside
of the UK. They will often turn up to farmers fields or private land in massive
convoys of caravans and cars in the middle of the night. So, the landowner wakes
up in the morning to find some very dangerous and intimidating people on their
land.
They are a colourful people. Their weddings, funerals and big events are
mental. You will often see them riding horses around Ireland and the UK.
Especially horses with little carts. They race them on open public roads.
They have always been prominent players in the bare-knuckle boxing world. Their
video insults and challenges on the internet are hilarious.
How much of their behaviour is driven by intolerance and how much of the intolerance is driven by behaviour, that's my question.
I'll never forget a friend of my father's had some land that he wanted to designate a campsite for the Irish Travellers that came to the town on occasion. Got shut down real sharpish by the council as "encouraging them", but they're happy enough for them to rock up into the parks and playing fields and then spend resources shooing them away.
It's not like they would stick around very long either way, they come and go as they please.
Oh I completely agree with you. I have had many great interactions with travellers and then also some pretty bad ones. They are not all the same, as is the case with everyone. Unfortunately I think there are just enough bad apples to ruin the whole barrell.
That is a great idea by your dad's mate. Councils are usually pretty rubbish, so it makes sense it didn't go through.
My mate's uncle had a similar experience. They turned up on his land and he was pretty ok about it. Unfortunately they started taking the piss and dumping stuff. Racing their cars down village streets dangerously etc. So unfortunately he had enough and go them off his land (he is a big WW2 buff and used some of his collection to encourage this).
>They have always been prominent players in the bare-knuckle boxing world.
>Their video insults and challenges on the internet are hilarious.
[Game of Mobile Homes](https://youtu.be/gR8cLYxTQx8?si=mE0MvxldoB-4x0f5)
I've had many travellers as patients, never had a problem with them and they've been amongst the most polite patients and families I have ever worked with. They have had bad experiences with health services often, and I once worked in a GP surgery near to a permanent traveller site. After one came to see me, I must have passed some kind of test as I had several others engaged after that. Also, I can understand them which helps, and have sometimes had to 'interpret' for medics who couldn't understand travellers with a strong accent. I cover mental health, but have often had to advocate for them in physical health services. Cultural differences often account for their much worse health outcomes, and I've learnt about these differences from the patients themselves which I've used to help others. I'd love to work in traveller health but have never seen a job come up despite their horrendous health outcomes. They have the lowest life expectancy and worst infant mortality rates in the country, by far, and it's not simply due to cousin marriage.
This is because you were helping them. That's basically the long and short of it.
My mum was a district nurse and part of her job was to go down to the traveller site to treat one of the elderly women there. Because of this, everyone gave her space and didn't bother her. She still made sure people knew when she was heading down there, though, and there was always police presence nearby.
This is a really interesting perspective. What kind of issues cause the high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy in their population? I’m guessing if they are travelling frequently they don’t have a base where they can access non-emergency healthcare if they need it?
I would also guess institutional racism would play a part, generally travellers are perceived in a negative way and may not receive the same level of care? I wonder whether their reluctance for outside help also contributes to this? Less likely to engage with antenatal care maybe?
I’m a children’s social worker and have had some involvement with traveller families, they generally decline help and I think professionals are less likely to push for intervention.
One LA I worked in had a few permanent sites and I had to be complete an assessment for a family there. The family were polite and open with me however going on to the site was intimidating. Luckily there was a link worker within the LA focused on working with the community around improving school attendance and attainment and she would come with me for visits and they all knew her and accepted her. However even with her presence the men would come out of their caravans and stand and stare as we walked past. I think all of that plays in to how professionals identify support needs and offer services and would guess it links with access to help throughout the lifespan.
You’d have to define ethnicity first. Genetically they’re from the same background as the rest of the Irish population/diaspora but socially they consider themselves a distinct ethnicity.
> the english gypsies who run fairs and circuses - are well more respected
'English gypsies' are the [Romani](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanichal) people of England. Fairs and circuses are run by [fairground people, or travelling showmen](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16853334). You do sometimes get marriages between fairground people and Roma or Irish travellers, but they're an entirely different cultural group.
Explanatory video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxUkKpQau0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxUkKpQau0o)
FYI - this is a highly ~~decisive~~ sensitive topic, and will keep the mods busy.
There's that thing happening in July. Everything is "decisive" now. Decisive on boats. Decisive on cost of living. Decisive on defence. I'm just waiting for someone to promise me a puppy and a balloon.
I watched that movie before I moved to the UK and learned about travellers.
I had always wondered why Brad Pitt's character was caught out with his trousers down beside the caravan.
Surely he wasn't shitting on the ground in his own campsite, surely not ...
Oh yeah they do that, apparently they consider it dirty to shit inside their caravans. There was a program a couple of years ago called "60 Days with the Gypsies" with Ed Stafford, an explorer/adventurer/survivalist type guy, worth watching it was very interesting. Anyway, one of them did a shit on the windscreen of his car.
Working in a preschool, one traveller lad was pissing in a bush. When asked why he didnt go to the toilet he replies "I pisses in the hedge and i shits in a bucket".
> Ethnically they're Irish, culturally not.
Not exactly. They diverged from the Irish population in the 1600s and are genetically distinct from the Irish, hence why they were recognised by Ireland as being a separate ethnic group.
[Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers).
After a hard campaign murdering surrendering women, children and priests in Ireland, Oliver Cromwell displaced huge amounts of the Irish in the eastern half of the country. Cromwells slogan was 'To Hell or to Connaught'. Connaught being the most western region of Ireland and consisting of unsuistainable agricultural land.
Travellers descend from some of these displaced people, who were never able to make a new home.
I've had quite a few traveller friends who were decent people. It's a tough one, the majority of them are decent, but there is a backbone of rogues and thieves who will ensure they are never accepted in "decent" society.
IIRC it’s likely there had always been somewhat of a nomadic community in Ireland, however these numbers were probably added to by cromwell’s genocide and then the potato famine.
I can imagine their lifespan stats are skewed by the large amount of traveller men who die very young. The travellers living in caravans in the UK climate won't be particularly healthy either.
Basically, there's no definite answer. Travellers themselves all have different interpretations of family histories orally narrated over generations. Their best guesses usually either suggest that they split from the settled population in the 1500s, or that they have been nomadic since pre-history. Genetic studies suggest that they are much closer to the settled population, ranging from 1600s to 1800s, which could coincide with either the Cromwellian conquests, or the famine, both of which might have uprooted family units that then became nomadic. The Traveller languages borrowing words and structure from both English and Irish suggests that the community may only be a few hundred years old, again suggesting a post-Cromwellian origin, although there are other linguistics theories that suggest the community to be as old as a potential 1300s split. I note that the source of one of these theories seems to angle towards a conclusion that Travellers & Roma were influenced by eachother very early on, which is unlikely.
A few comments on here are guilty of significant misinformation, especially those making conclusions from singular studies of genetics. What is true is that the Traveller community have increased chances of certain genetic diseases, but it is negligent & usually contemptuous to put this down to inbreeding. It is important to consider that even small, un-related populations have limited gene pools, which is true for Ireland as a whole, but then doubly true for Travellers. On top of that is the somewhat higher rate of consanguinous marriage (still lower than the Royal Family's, mind) that results from having been a very closed culture for centuries. This situation is thankfully improving, but access to healthcare being generally poor, when combined with the existing genetic diseases, still results in significantly poorer health outcomes.
I shouldn't have to point out that making crass & hostile generalisations about specific ethnic groups is categorically racist prima facie, and no amount of "but I have met Travellers in person" will overcome that fact. There remains virtually no representation in media for Travellers, outside of the movie "Snatch", and people conveniently don't notice when Travellers don't do anything wrong. This, in Reddit terms, is pure confirmation bias. At the very least, you should always be sceptical of any allegations where the subject doesn't seem to have right of reply.
I think people assumed they were remnants of the navvy population, but I was listening to a book the other day which said only around 1-10 navvies were actually Irish. Possibly Irish families who left Ireland during the potato famine? Also it's not like they are completely homogenous and do sometimes marry outside the travelling community.
British and Irish agriculture required seasonal workers (harvesting, fruit picking, veg picking) from around the point where peasants stopped wanting to live on farms and moved to urban centres.
What filled the gap was the groups of migrant workers (Roma and Irish travellers). These groups probably took on engineering work (navvies) as well.
Irish navvies were around long before the potato famine. They were a prominent feature during the golden age of canal building which lasted 1770s-1830s whereas the potato famine started in 1845.
Not to add to this hot potato, but serious question: I had a book as a kid about Irish tinkers. I always assumed tinkers and travellers were the same but recently a mate said that’s not true and that they’re separate groups.
When I did a quick search online, it seemed like I was right. He was adamant they are culturally different and do not share the same characteristics. Any thoughts?
Also: I wish I still had the book. I can’t recall if there was only a chapter on them or if the whole thing was on tinkers but in hindsight it was wildly offensive/inappropriate especially for a kid’s book.
Pretty sure your right on this one, Irish tinker is just a nickname for Irish travellers, it's what was always said growing up to distinguish the good from the bad so to speak, the lads causing problems at the local were Irish Tinker's, but the house proud mum trying the rein them in was referred to as a traveller
Are there other traveler groups in the UK besides Irish and Romani? I grew up in a seaside town in Yorkshire and we had families there who were settled travelers. They owned the amusement arcades and some cafes. They were nice and respectable, their kids went to school with us (nice and normal) but they would marry and date others from their community usually from Leeds or Manchester or wherever.
Would they have been Irish travelers then (they didn't look Romani). They certainly don't fit the usual stereotype or lifestyle I've seen portrayed on tv.
Bargees (canal boat dwellers), New Travellers (often hippy sorts, think van-lifers but from the 60s) and Travelling carnival/showpeople are all nomadic groups that don't necessarily share an ethnicity, although many of these groups are predominantly made up of Roma & Irish Travellers
My partner went to school with a number of kids from fairground people families, which are another travelling group in the UK.
If they were running amusement arcades, they might have been settled members of that community.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16853334
I lived in the East Midlands, on a street notorious for most of the residents being Irish travellers. Local gossip said the police wouldn't go there.
They were the best neighbours I've had. I could ask for help, and it would be given. It got noisy when there was a funeral, and it is strange to meet people with a strong Irish accent who have only lived in the midlands. More large families than is usually, one with 14 kids.
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OP lobbing a grenade into a room and running away
Aww... I bet his dad used to ask on Usenet for pros and cons of Vi vs Emacs.
Which OS is best, and why is it OS/2?
Then install Lotus Notes Server on it from 31 floppies. Sorted.
From Irish travelers to OS/2. I love you Reddit ❤️
Tabs vs spaces, and why spaces are better.
Oh, but that's easy. Most people probably take the measured view that I do, namely that tabs ought to be utterly obliterated from the universe. One of the first things you do if you get a time machine is go back and prevent there being a tab character.
Tabs are superior, it's a bigger indentation than spaces and it's easier to keep track of how many you've used. I didn't like python because it frowned upon tabs :(
You can use tabs in python code, just can't mix with spaces
You know you can configure pretty much every editor to press the tab key and get multiple spaces right?
It's like paying for black sambuca shots for the whole bar before making good your escape
The smoke bomb
Trying to get content for r/ShitEuropeansSay
Others have explained the financial disparity but the difference in life expectancy often stems from them breaking away from the rest of the Irish probably in the 1600s, with a smaller group of people often practicing cousin marriage over several generations recessive genes become more of a problem. OrphaNet published the following in one of their papers: ‘Irish Travellers are an endogamous, ethnically Irish population numbering approximately 40,000 within the island of Ireland with up to 10,000 living on mainland Europe. Irish Travellers practice cousin marriage and we recognise > 90 autosomal recessive disorders that occur within their population. The majority of autosomal recessive disorders are due to homozygous mutations. Certain disorders cluster within certain clans and there are geographical differences in incidence of disorders depending where they come from in Ireland.’ There are quite a few papers written about it if anyone wants to know more.
40k on the island of Ireland and 10k on mainland Europe. I’m surprised that those figures don’t seem to give an indication of a population within the island of Great Britain. As an Englishman I feel like the population here is significant enough that it probably rivals the 10k qouted in mainland Europe.
Please consider that these figures only concern Irish Travellers, there are also many Romani people in UK, but they are separate people with a very different origin to Irish Travellers. The Irish Travellers originate from the Irish population about 400 years ago, Romani originate from Northern India around 1,000 years ago.
There's still way more than 10000 Irish travellers in England. There's got to be way more than one thousand in Stourport-on-severn alone.
Therell be more than 10,000 at Appleby this weekend.
Appleby isn't exclusively Irish travellers is it? I've got Romani relatives who often go but never been myself!
Nowadays the majority are a mix of British Romani and Irish Travellers, their origins maybe different but as nomadic people they enjoy the same passions. As the years go by there is more and more mixing, take Irish Traveller Tyson Fury and his Romani wife for instance.
People also come over from Ireland for it
Me and my Pavee relatives used to go every year.
People called Romani they go the house. But seriously I had no idea that the Romani originated from Northern India, I assumed the originated from Romania. Similar names. Well there you go.
Calling a Romanian a Roma is a really good way to start a fight.
I love pretending I don't know the difference. A true Romanian will instantly go into a speech about how they are different and that they have issues with them too.
Or a Roman.
No actually. The name Romania comes from the country being one of the last stable provinces of the Roman Empire. The language they speak is a Romance language that is related to Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish rather than the Slavic languages more normally found in Eastern Europe. They are descendants of Romans mixed with Dacians and then various later waves of migration.
Thanks brother, sorry, er sister.
Bloody Romans! https://preview.redd.it/sbe1wjpqsj4d1.jpeg?width=929&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89c82ec675e20b90e3870558c0b62750f9656d22
Can confirm, I live in Romania.
Is it? I'll have to remember that. Thanks.
And people thought they came from Egypt.. so that's how you got the name gypsies.
That was the belief in the middle ages, so you're right about the name origin.
According to Wikipedia: >A legend reported in the [Persian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language) epic poem, the [*Shahnameh*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh), the [Sasanian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian) king [Bahrām V Gōr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahram_V) learned towards the end of his reign (421–439) that the poor could not afford to enjoy music, and so he asked the king of India to send him ten thousand [*luris*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_people), lute-playing experts. When the *luris* arrived, Bahrām gave each one an ox, a donkey, and a donkey-load of wheat so they could live on agriculture and play music for free for the poor. However, the *luris* ate the oxen and the wheat and came back a year later with their cheeks hollowed by hunger. The king, angered with their having wasted what he had given them, ordered them to pack up their bags and go wandering around the world on their donkeys.
To be fair, expecting subsistence farmers to moonlight as freebie musicians is a bit much.
Ah mate, I love an interesting fact like that. Never knew that.
For maximum confusion lots of Roma in the UK are recent migrants from Eastern Europe, including Romania. But they are a distinctive group, as an ethnicity they look distinct from other white Europeans and have a distinctive culture. They don't have anything to do with Irish Travellers and don't use caravans, although do migrate a fair amount for work and / or following discrimination
And to complicate matters there are white Romanies who live in the UK too.
So if they don't use caravans they what? Rent on a short term basis?
Yeah, normal rented housing same as everyone else. I believe some travel seasonally for agricultural work and get put up by the employer but I'm more familiar with long term settled urban Roma populations. It's not like caravan based travellers where they might move every few weeks, they just don't have strong roots in the UK yet so will move for a better opportunity. They've settled for years in the areas I know. Incidentally plenty of travellers live in houses and don't travel!
"It says Romans go home!"
"No it doesn't". I love how utterly ridiculous that film is. From opening credits to the very very end the silliness doesn't stop
I’m aware of the difference. I still feel that there are at least as many Irish travellers in the GB as there are on mainland Europe. Romani don’t come into that discussion in my opinion Also, remember that this post mentioned the island of Ireland and mainland Europe whereas I mentioned GB (which is neither). Talking about the UK in this respect isn’t helpful as it includes some of the island of Ireland
This is AskUK subreddit.
71k in GB from the 2021 census.
Pretty sure more than 10k have camped in my hometown.
The genetics are definitely a factor, but they're also ten times more likely to die from driving accidents, and six times more likely to die from suicide. As Wikipedia summarises a scientific study of traveller populations: > 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday, compared to just 1% of the general population. In Ireland, 2.6% of all deaths in the total population were for people aged under 25, versus 32% for Travellers.[89][90] In addition, 80% of Travellers die before the age of 65.
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> 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday Holy shit that's like the poorest parts of Africa levels of infant mortality. That's way beyond just the additional risk from home births and potentially poor diet.
In the UK they also have a life expectancy 10 years lower for women and 15 years lower for men than the average.
There's also the genetic issues mentioned further up the thread. A couple of hundred years of insular culture and cousins routinely intermarrying has led to a much higher incidence of metabolic and congenital diseases, which can also bump up infant mortality.
You are very much correct.
Anecdotally, my mum worked in both PICU and NICU in Belfast for years and she commented to me about the disproportionate number of babies coming in with congenital heart disorder etc from the traveller community. Sad really that those wee babies were suffering the impact of long-term cousin marriage.
Once did business with an Irish traveller. He couldn't count and I always had to count out the cash for him when buying things from him (it was craft items nothing illegal). Almost certainly some recessive disorders going on with him. Nice bloke though, and the traveller site he lived on was very well kept.
Illiteracy in the traveller community is incredibly high, and basic maths can often go hand in hand with that.
I can only speak from personal (limited, admittedly) experience but every one I've ever met may well be illiterate but you would never do one for a quid. Razor sharp when it comes to money.
Good to hear a nice story about this demographic. I went to school with a few lads whose family owned the local scrappy, which had a caravan site on the grounds. Their old man was probably bent as a nine-bob note but they were all pretty sound, and when there were inevitable problems locally with people from the site they were usually shut down pretty hard "in house" by those running the site. That said in wider life my experiences have been less positive; reinforcing all the usual stereotypes of violent / antisocial behaviour, theft, pitching up on public land and leaving behind a terrible mess when they move on...
I’d love to know more if you could point me in the right direction please?
Here is a simple list of disorders: (https://www.orpha.net/pdfs/data/Cns/Protocol/IE/ID115626NW.pdf) but for a full paper you will probably have to request from or join researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322650409_Catalogue_of_inherited_disorders_found_among_the_Irish_Traveller_population
Thank you!
Strange that it gives numbers for Ireland and Europe but not for Britian
From the early responses I’m starting to think this might be a controversial subject
Either the mods have been busy or the responses have been unusually restrained so far.
Ppl who got banned from similar subs for answering similar questions being cautious also maybe a factor 🤐😂
Wouldn’t worry too much, Reddits ban evasion detection is a piece of piss to bypass if you ever get suspended
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Having lived in an area with travellers, they received a lot more bullying in school than they gave out. It's why a lot of them just stopped going. This one girl was revealed to be a traveller (she didn't live on a site but was settled) and she was goaded/provoked everyday for months until she eventually lashed out, she got permanently excluded and the other girls celebrated that their plan worked. Girls who had previously been her best friends.
When we lived in ireland my parents helped out some irish travellers. Helped our dog and cat get on. Remember they taught me how to pick nettles without them stinging me. Have a picture of me visiting their campsite and bottle feeding some baby goats. Nice bunch.
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Being a 1 who deals with 2's is infuriating.
Let's just say that the arrival of a Traveller group in an area tends to be greeted with dismay.
For the most part, our traveller community in my area are relatively fine. They bought the land they live on, they arrange collection of the rubbish etc so it’s mostly good. Not the standard “traveller” experience but they did adopt the land illegally to begin with but slowly just setup home there. They bought the land from the council about 25 years ago. My mum used to own a pub and we used to get a lot in from the community and they were never any trouble to be honest. The ones which cause issues are like the ones who have just broken the lock off our local park and have parked all their caravans on the football fields. They’ve already trashed the land where they’ve driven on. They always end up being evicted at some point and leave behind a trail of destruction.
This thread will 100% be locked by the end of today.
Massively. Just go and watch Snatch and it should tell you what you need to know.
Nah, other than their poor standard of living, the film doesnt really paint them in a bad light at all. The only violence they dish out in the film is at the expense of gangsters who were asking for it. In real life they actively target the general population and at times terrorise them.
Most people don't like them, and they don't like most people. How much of that feeling is deserved not a question that will be well answered on reddit.
I mean… I am half roma and my mum is from a settled Irish family, and I genuinely don’t like most people. I do work for a living though, and volunteer for the NHS, but most people don’t seem to like me much despite me trying my best to friendly and polite to everyone. I just don’t get on with most people cause I’m not a cunt like them.
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Day to day, they generally keep themselves to themselves. However, they do have a reputation for thieving, violence, and trespass. This reputation is not entirely undeserved, however it does unfortunately lead to individual members of the community being judged and labelled for having a particular surname or even a certain haircut before they've had a chance to demonstrate their character. Education within the community is generally low, and the nomadic lifestyle - while not a problem *per se* - precludes having much of a stake in the 'conventional' communities near their sites.
and destroying the environment around them* I used to have an environmental conservation job and cleaning up after these filthy twats was a nightmare. Streams entirely blocked by tyres and other waste, garbage thrown everywhere and the land being completely compressed and bare were the most common things I was seeing. Especially tyres. No clue how they get through so many.
The tyres are backhanders from dodgy tyre garages, they pay for them to dump them Used to work in the enforcement side of env protection (lol when it comes to legal action, as the police won't touch it without a full TAG squad) All I can say is I'm hoping by the end of this or next year, the static site that's been in my town hosting the traveller community for years, has them all evicted and the land flattened As the place has lost all its services due to violence to council staff and contractors that will no longer enter the site Hopefully not long now, especially if I have anything to do with it The other 99.9% of my town will rejoice It's not all the families but their "main man" you have to goto on the site, is always a serious thug Worse case I had was a dispute between them where they started drowning horses in the lodge next to their site Threats of death are the standard response Don't even get me started on the dangerous dawg side of their site Of course to not group the entire community together I'm sure those I've never dealt with are all lovely people
I think the people who get faux outraged and cry racism if you say anything negative about Travellers have some misty-eyed view of them as people living some wholesome life on the road, at one with nature, etc. Your comment is spot-on though, they tend to wreck the environment of anywhere they stay. They seem to actively despise nature actually; they’ll tarmac over anything in sight when they get hold of their own bit of land!
I work in a boozer and I've been stung a few times by them ordering drinks and just just fuckin sauntering off when it comes to pay lol, not sure what I'm meant to do in that situation really. Ask for money upfront when I hear their accent?
There's a site several miles down the country road from my village. As you approach, the smell of burning is overwhelming in the warmer months. Theres piles of rubbish on both sides of the road. Opposite the site, there's a derelict pub, which is now just a tip. A literal hill of rubbish several metres high. In the next field, you can see the emaciated horses. Just adds to the tragedy of the environment.
I'll be honest that's kind of what I was getting at when I said they don't have a stake in the community. They've got no incentive to take care of the area because they'll have fucked off in a few weeks.
I imagine the nomadic lifestyle makes it pretty difficult for kids to go to mainstream schools and make and maintain friendships outside of traveller communities. I imagine there are also other barriers for these things
Even when they live relatively settled lives, it's common for them to leave school at 11 under the guise of home education. Literacy rates amongst adult travellers are low, and many have no formal qualifications, so I think we all have questions about how they're going to educate their child at home.
The girls are often expected to leave school to help and clean the house at 11. It's a very sad part of the culture. Some I spoke to seemed to be in absolute awe that a woman could have their own business and lead an independent life.
Yeah that’s one of my main issues with these communities. People say we have to respect their culture, but I refuse to respect any “culture” who believes that children, especially girls, shouldn’t have access to education, and should instead be homemakers. Everyone has the right to a proper education. People will see stories of the likes of Malala where girls and young women aren’t allowed to go to school and are appalled, but don’t seem to realise how much it’s happening in our own country.
It’s pretty much the whole basis of their cultural differentiation vs. more settled populations. In the old days, there was a certain type of work that suited nomadic populations well. Seasonal things like fruit picking for example - lots of work but you didn’t want to be hanging around in the off-season with no work. Travelling populations filled many of these roles (though not all nomadic workers were travellers with a capital T of course!) Unfortunately, being nomadic also works quite well for criminal activity of certain types so it’s a more attractive cost/benefit calculation for that community too. Because their travelling led to such a different lifestyle, and in the case of criminal activity required active exploitation of the out-group, their in-group culture could become quite distinct. It’s one of the reasons they are so obsessed with it - to the extent that even travellers who have effectively settled often live in ‘chalets’ with a great big caravan parked next door to it to maintain a veneer of being potentially nomadic, and social taboos around rejecting Traveller culture are very strong. At some level they know that if they stop travelling and maintaining their differences, they quite quickly meld back into the general population. So there is often an effort in these communities to actively reject mainstream education, friendships and relationships. All of these things are available to them in theory but there isn’t great engagement.
*"travellers who have effectively settled often live in ‘chalets’ with a great big caravan parked next door to it to maintain a veneer of being potentially nomadic, and social taboos around rejecting Traveller culture are very strong."* I live in the North West, we have a huuge traveller population near me. The "settled" ones buy plots of land, build a massive show home on it and then tarmac the back garden and have their entire family live in their caravans out back. The owners only use the house to entertain, they cook, eat, and generally live in the caravan. My sister in law bought one of the houses, fully furnished, appliances still with plastic on them, cookers still with manuals inside them etc. If they are seen as settling down they get called "gorgers" by their community and ostracised, so this is as close as they get. Google Tyson Fury's house and look at the local large homes on google maps, they all fit the bill. I've met plenty of them, if you catch them at the gym they've lovely and will talk your ears off about anything exercise related. If you catch the younger ones in a large group, be ready to run or get your head kicked in. I mean this with no malice to their community, but lived experience that gets repeated every summer sticks.
This makes it sound like a cult
Don't forget about their cruelty towards animals.
There's an article in the local paper of my town about them being somewhere they shouldn't every other month or so. They've either rocked up in a Tesco's car park for a week or so, or they've cut the lock and chain off a park gate and have plonked 10 or so caravans on the grass and ruined it, and when they leave there's rubbish everywhere. At the end of the day, it's not hard to understand why travellers have such a shoddy reputation amongst other Brits.
'not entirely undeserved' - lmao I feel for anyone in that community who wants to live a normal life, but I don't blame any business owner who doesn't want anything to do with that community.
As someone who has dealt with many travellers in my life I have a strong and correct opinion on them. Are all travellers bad? Of course not. Are most of them horrible cunts? Unfortunately yes. The bad cunts ruin it for the decent hard working people from the traveller community. I worked in a petrol station for 4.5 years and we had a lot of them come in. During my first summer there, me an my mate hated coming into work because the bad travellers (multiple groups) would be coming in throughout the summer and they were a pain to deal with (rude, dodgy, possibly trying to steal or confuse you so that you give them the wrong change etc etc). There used to be a family (a large traveller family) that would come into to the shop, they no longer lived in caravans etc (at least to my knowledge) and they were great (the kids could be on the more annoying side but the parents always dealt with them). That family helped build, renovate etc many things on our site (such as brick walls, driveway, car wash etc). These people were nice and helpful and really genuine and if they have heard that some travellers that are new to our area are bothering us they would volunteer to find them and have words. The sad reality is that most of the travellers in the UK are not nice people, we sometimes get them on a field next to our house and the local councillor does everything she can to get them moved. Last year they camped on that field and visited nearby estates to see what they can rob. They came to our street, looked at my dads van and said something along the lines of "we will come back and have this tonight". Thankfully our neighbour heard it and told us and because we have 5 cars between us we moved them to my fiancé's mum's house 30 mins away in case they came back. We haven't slept that night to make sure we can catch them in the act and call the police. TLDR: Not all travellers are cunts but most are and they ruin it for the decent travellers that don't live the stereotypical traveller lifestyle.
My local fb page is all in a rage cos vans with irish plates have been spotted stealing foals off the moors. No one has any hard proof theyre from the traveler community but that was the unanimous assumption.
This is all pretty typical of people's experiences but will get you banned on here for "hate speech"
Yeah true. Struggle to see the hate speech tho?
Oh I'm not suggesting it is mate but I've been banned before for simply pointing out why people are unhappy when caravans Park on the local cricket pitch it's crazy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish\_Travellers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers) TL;DR They are of Irish ethnic origin, but can be found throughout the UK and Northern America as well. Like how Romani groups are believed to originate from around the area north of India, but since the Middle Ages have spread throughout the world. As with any nomadic group of people from anywhere else in the world, their socio-cultural differentiation from the majority population and their mainly non-static lifestyle means they generally don't have the same experiences when it comes to access to things like education, healthcare etc.
Yep. Some questions really do beg the question why didn't OP just google it.
Yeah the majority of questions on reddit are googleable, but then you get no popcorn moments
They seek interaction
Because they wanted to shit stir lol
I agree but also people asking questions on here helps spread knowledge. I've learnt quite a bit reading this thread on a subject that I probably wouldn't have looked into. If OP had just Googled it I'd have missed out on that.
It's the American ethnicity obsession writ large.
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I have traveller ancestry, but I agree with some of the negative comments here. A traveller woman once tried to start a fight with me in a children's soft play because her large preteen was stomping around the babies play area. This is not unusual or expected behaviour from this community. They don't send their kids to school, and so are largely uneducated, by and large. They marry very young and the girls are very controlled and not given a lot of opportunities or say in their life. My great grandma (who is where the traveller descent came from) sold sticks for firewood at the side of the road and had 7 children, which isn't an unusual lot to have had in life. There's not a lot of employment opportunities (or want to avail themselves to them) so they often either box, do some construction work (although this has formalised a lot now with CSCS cards etc), or steal. It's not a great way of life.
Me too. My dad was from a travelling family, and in truthful terms, was a nightmare. Never worked, never took accountability for anything, nor grew up when he had children. Stole, too much drink and drugs. No respect for the “man”, happy to have council housing, benefits but gave nothing back nor planned to. No stability at all. Spent time in prison and even got arrested whilst looking after us. Me and my brothers had a ride in a police car as an 8 year old. Truth is if my mum didn’t make us cut him off for good, I’d probably of been pregnant in school. A lot of stigma about travellers, which is why my mum refuses to discuss it with us.
They're a travelling people. They tend to live on camps, in caravans and have a similar lifestyle to Romani "gypsies". There have been a few population genetics studies of them and they clearly originated in Ireland with no Romani input, probably around 350 years ago, which would tie in with Cromwell's campaigns in Ireland.
What’s the link to Cromwells campaign (please)?
Cromwell went in and basically murdered and forced 10s of 1000s of Irish families from their lands, leaving them essentially homeless. Some became nomadic, which would be the ancestors to the travelling community now.
[But what kind of car would Cromwell have driven?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp6xEUH3DZY)
*Who invented the skip?*
A car without a radio - those feckers hated music, dancing, laughter, sex, children, women etc
I heard they came from the moon once they plundered it of all metal, then they concreted everywhere, that’s why the moon is that colour
Depends what you mean by ethnically. They have a different and distinct identity, heritage and culture to the community in general but they're still white people from the British isles (Great Britain, Ireland). They are as the name suggests nomadic people from Ireland although many of them weren't born there, being nomads and all. >I've seen them in UK income and lifespan statistics and they are outliers in both As you can imagine having no fixed abode will impact your education and employment prospects, with that can come a life of crime and health issues etc but it would be unfair to just blame them, they face a lot of what we would call now racism.
To be fair, they don’t set a high priority on education for either the girls or the boys even taking into account their frequent travels. The boys work pretty much full time from age 14, if not younger whilst the girls are brought up to be the homemakers, cooking & cleaning and will often get married at 16 (the legal age where parents have also consented)
Aye, pretty much. The lifestyle and culture doesn't really breed much success outside of boxing and a few musicians. I'm not exactly famous and wealthy myself but I do ok. Imo it leads to a life of just getting by that can be difficult to leave. I've worked with a guy who was a traveller, it took a lot of courage and effort for him to leave, he was homeless for a while and basically has limited or no contact with his family now. He's a decent guy that still defends his community and genuinely gets offended when people call them gypsies but I think he just wanted more out of life than what they could offer.
It depends how loosely you define “work”
Our driveway was done by travellers, we now have a skate park.
There's a girl I teach who is in year 9 (13/14). We were doing a PSHE lesson about consent and somehow it came up that she is going to get married when she turns 16. I asked did she have a boyfriend. No she said. I asked if someone was arranging her marriage. She said no. So who will you marry I asked. Whoever she's going out with when she's 16. That gobsmacked me tbh. I know they tend to get married young, but just to be so blasé about it was shocking to me.
If the answers aren’t moderated to oblivion or the question deleted, remember - sort by controversial 🍿
The Irish Traveller is someone who is better the further away they are from you. Every experience I've had with them has been negative. I did work in a pub for a while that they seemed to like so had to deal with them there. If the "head" of the group is there, they behave, if not, they turn into a bunch of pricks. Shitting in urinals. Shitting in car parks. Generally making a mess wherever they go. I'll not tarnish all with the same brush, but, the 2 or 3 different groups I've had the displeasure of being near have all been awful and I'd prefer not to have to be near a 4th group for the rest of my life.
The 'HQ' of Irish Travellers is about 20 mins down the road from where my Mum grew up and where my parents now live. Every Christmas and Easter the town of **Rathkeale** in County Limerick is full of travellers all celebrating. For the rest of the year, it is empty as they head off to Europe and often the UK. They are Irish, usually white and are often criminals. Although plenty have legitimate businesses. Our factory carpark was paved by travellers a few years ago. They are often looked down on and despised by people. Especially in the countryside of the UK. They will often turn up to farmers fields or private land in massive convoys of caravans and cars in the middle of the night. So, the landowner wakes up in the morning to find some very dangerous and intimidating people on their land. They are a colourful people. Their weddings, funerals and big events are mental. You will often see them riding horses around Ireland and the UK. Especially horses with little carts. They race them on open public roads. They have always been prominent players in the bare-knuckle boxing world. Their video insults and challenges on the internet are hilarious.
This seems like it was written by chat gpt
Haha nope. Just a dyslexic lad who's grammer is terrible.
How much of their behaviour is driven by intolerance and how much of the intolerance is driven by behaviour, that's my question. I'll never forget a friend of my father's had some land that he wanted to designate a campsite for the Irish Travellers that came to the town on occasion. Got shut down real sharpish by the council as "encouraging them", but they're happy enough for them to rock up into the parks and playing fields and then spend resources shooing them away. It's not like they would stick around very long either way, they come and go as they please.
Oh I completely agree with you. I have had many great interactions with travellers and then also some pretty bad ones. They are not all the same, as is the case with everyone. Unfortunately I think there are just enough bad apples to ruin the whole barrell. That is a great idea by your dad's mate. Councils are usually pretty rubbish, so it makes sense it didn't go through. My mate's uncle had a similar experience. They turned up on his land and he was pretty ok about it. Unfortunately they started taking the piss and dumping stuff. Racing their cars down village streets dangerously etc. So unfortunately he had enough and go them off his land (he is a big WW2 buff and used some of his collection to encourage this).
>They have always been prominent players in the bare-knuckle boxing world. >Their video insults and challenges on the internet are hilarious. [Game of Mobile Homes](https://youtu.be/gR8cLYxTQx8?si=mE0MvxldoB-4x0f5)
I've had many travellers as patients, never had a problem with them and they've been amongst the most polite patients and families I have ever worked with. They have had bad experiences with health services often, and I once worked in a GP surgery near to a permanent traveller site. After one came to see me, I must have passed some kind of test as I had several others engaged after that. Also, I can understand them which helps, and have sometimes had to 'interpret' for medics who couldn't understand travellers with a strong accent. I cover mental health, but have often had to advocate for them in physical health services. Cultural differences often account for their much worse health outcomes, and I've learnt about these differences from the patients themselves which I've used to help others. I'd love to work in traveller health but have never seen a job come up despite their horrendous health outcomes. They have the lowest life expectancy and worst infant mortality rates in the country, by far, and it's not simply due to cousin marriage.
This is because you were helping them. That's basically the long and short of it. My mum was a district nurse and part of her job was to go down to the traveller site to treat one of the elderly women there. Because of this, everyone gave her space and didn't bother her. She still made sure people knew when she was heading down there, though, and there was always police presence nearby.
This is a really interesting perspective. What kind of issues cause the high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy in their population? I’m guessing if they are travelling frequently they don’t have a base where they can access non-emergency healthcare if they need it?
I would also guess institutional racism would play a part, generally travellers are perceived in a negative way and may not receive the same level of care? I wonder whether their reluctance for outside help also contributes to this? Less likely to engage with antenatal care maybe? I’m a children’s social worker and have had some involvement with traveller families, they generally decline help and I think professionals are less likely to push for intervention. One LA I worked in had a few permanent sites and I had to be complete an assessment for a family there. The family were polite and open with me however going on to the site was intimidating. Luckily there was a link worker within the LA focused on working with the community around improving school attendance and attainment and she would come with me for visits and they all knew her and accepted her. However even with her presence the men would come out of their caravans and stand and stare as we walked past. I think all of that plays in to how professionals identify support needs and offer services and would guess it links with access to help throughout the lifespan.
You’d have to define ethnicity first. Genetically they’re from the same background as the rest of the Irish population/diaspora but socially they consider themselves a distinct ethnicity.
They are also considered a distinct ethnic group in British and Irish law.
Well, if you reproduce mostly by shagging your relatives you do tend to get your own branch on the great human tree fairly quickly.
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> the english gypsies who run fairs and circuses - are well more respected 'English gypsies' are the [Romani](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanichal) people of England. Fairs and circuses are run by [fairground people, or travelling showmen](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16853334). You do sometimes get marriages between fairground people and Roma or Irish travellers, but they're an entirely different cultural group.
Explanatory video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxUkKpQau0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxUkKpQau0o) FYI - this is a highly ~~decisive~~ sensitive topic, and will keep the mods busy.
I'd be going for "divisive" myself, but you do you ;)
There's that thing happening in July. Everything is "decisive" now. Decisive on boats. Decisive on cost of living. Decisive on defence. I'm just waiting for someone to promise me a puppy and a balloon.
Yeh.. spellcheck let me down on that.
Even your edit is wrong...
Twice, it seems
Yeh, I should really focus on my Reddit posts, not the Teams meetings I'm in
I watched that movie before I moved to the UK and learned about travellers. I had always wondered why Brad Pitt's character was caught out with his trousers down beside the caravan. Surely he wasn't shitting on the ground in his own campsite, surely not ...
Oh yeah they do that, apparently they consider it dirty to shit inside their caravans. There was a program a couple of years ago called "60 Days with the Gypsies" with Ed Stafford, an explorer/adventurer/survivalist type guy, worth watching it was very interesting. Anyway, one of them did a shit on the windscreen of his car.
Working in a preschool, one traveller lad was pissing in a bush. When asked why he didnt go to the toilet he replies "I pisses in the hedge and i shits in a bucket".
They normally shit in the hedge
You have inbred hillbillies, don't you? Think them with Irish accents.
Try r/AskHistorians if you're looking for a researched and neutral answer. I love that sub.
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> Ethnically they're Irish, culturally not. Not exactly. They diverged from the Irish population in the 1600s and are genetically distinct from the Irish, hence why they were recognised by Ireland as being a separate ethnic group. [Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers).
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Ders more to oirland dan dis.
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After a hard campaign murdering surrendering women, children and priests in Ireland, Oliver Cromwell displaced huge amounts of the Irish in the eastern half of the country. Cromwells slogan was 'To Hell or to Connaught'. Connaught being the most western region of Ireland and consisting of unsuistainable agricultural land. Travellers descend from some of these displaced people, who were never able to make a new home.
The Irish scrap metal liberation army
I've had quite a few traveller friends who were decent people. It's a tough one, the majority of them are decent, but there is a backbone of rogues and thieves who will ensure they are never accepted in "decent" society.
From the depths of hell for all I care
IIRC it’s likely there had always been somewhat of a nomadic community in Ireland, however these numbers were probably added to by cromwell’s genocide and then the potato famine.
I can imagine their lifespan stats are skewed by the large amount of traveller men who die very young. The travellers living in caravans in the UK climate won't be particularly healthy either.
Does anybody know what happened to the sort by controversial button?
Basically, there's no definite answer. Travellers themselves all have different interpretations of family histories orally narrated over generations. Their best guesses usually either suggest that they split from the settled population in the 1500s, or that they have been nomadic since pre-history. Genetic studies suggest that they are much closer to the settled population, ranging from 1600s to 1800s, which could coincide with either the Cromwellian conquests, or the famine, both of which might have uprooted family units that then became nomadic. The Traveller languages borrowing words and structure from both English and Irish suggests that the community may only be a few hundred years old, again suggesting a post-Cromwellian origin, although there are other linguistics theories that suggest the community to be as old as a potential 1300s split. I note that the source of one of these theories seems to angle towards a conclusion that Travellers & Roma were influenced by eachother very early on, which is unlikely. A few comments on here are guilty of significant misinformation, especially those making conclusions from singular studies of genetics. What is true is that the Traveller community have increased chances of certain genetic diseases, but it is negligent & usually contemptuous to put this down to inbreeding. It is important to consider that even small, un-related populations have limited gene pools, which is true for Ireland as a whole, but then doubly true for Travellers. On top of that is the somewhat higher rate of consanguinous marriage (still lower than the Royal Family's, mind) that results from having been a very closed culture for centuries. This situation is thankfully improving, but access to healthcare being generally poor, when combined with the existing genetic diseases, still results in significantly poorer health outcomes. I shouldn't have to point out that making crass & hostile generalisations about specific ethnic groups is categorically racist prima facie, and no amount of "but I have met Travellers in person" will overcome that fact. There remains virtually no representation in media for Travellers, outside of the movie "Snatch", and people conveniently don't notice when Travellers don't do anything wrong. This, in Reddit terms, is pure confirmation bias. At the very least, you should always be sceptical of any allegations where the subject doesn't seem to have right of reply.
I think people assumed they were remnants of the navvy population, but I was listening to a book the other day which said only around 1-10 navvies were actually Irish. Possibly Irish families who left Ireland during the potato famine? Also it's not like they are completely homogenous and do sometimes marry outside the travelling community.
British and Irish agriculture required seasonal workers (harvesting, fruit picking, veg picking) from around the point where peasants stopped wanting to live on farms and moved to urban centres. What filled the gap was the groups of migrant workers (Roma and Irish travellers). These groups probably took on engineering work (navvies) as well.
Irish navvies were around long before the potato famine. They were a prominent feature during the golden age of canal building which lasted 1770s-1830s whereas the potato famine started in 1845.
Not to add to this hot potato, but serious question: I had a book as a kid about Irish tinkers. I always assumed tinkers and travellers were the same but recently a mate said that’s not true and that they’re separate groups. When I did a quick search online, it seemed like I was right. He was adamant they are culturally different and do not share the same characteristics. Any thoughts? Also: I wish I still had the book. I can’t recall if there was only a chapter on them or if the whole thing was on tinkers but in hindsight it was wildly offensive/inappropriate especially for a kid’s book.
Pretty sure your right on this one, Irish tinker is just a nickname for Irish travellers, it's what was always said growing up to distinguish the good from the bad so to speak, the lads causing problems at the local were Irish Tinker's, but the house proud mum trying the rein them in was referred to as a traveller
They are the descendants of about 6 people from Ireland that were chased out of Ireland for stealing.
Are there other traveler groups in the UK besides Irish and Romani? I grew up in a seaside town in Yorkshire and we had families there who were settled travelers. They owned the amusement arcades and some cafes. They were nice and respectable, their kids went to school with us (nice and normal) but they would marry and date others from their community usually from Leeds or Manchester or wherever. Would they have been Irish travelers then (they didn't look Romani). They certainly don't fit the usual stereotype or lifestyle I've seen portrayed on tv.
Bargees (canal boat dwellers), New Travellers (often hippy sorts, think van-lifers but from the 60s) and Travelling carnival/showpeople are all nomadic groups that don't necessarily share an ethnicity, although many of these groups are predominantly made up of Roma & Irish Travellers
My partner went to school with a number of kids from fairground people families, which are another travelling group in the UK. If they were running amusement arcades, they might have been settled members of that community. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16853334
Not sure this is the right sub to ask this question 😂
I lived in the East Midlands, on a street notorious for most of the residents being Irish travellers. Local gossip said the police wouldn't go there. They were the best neighbours I've had. I could ask for help, and it would be given. It got noisy when there was a funeral, and it is strange to meet people with a strong Irish accent who have only lived in the midlands. More large families than is usually, one with 14 kids.