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Murphy Village In South Carolina Is Home To The Largest Population Of An Lucht Siúil In The Country

Robin Jarvis

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Since the 1940s, a community of an lucht siúil (“the walking people,” often called “Irish Travellers” by outsiders) have called Murphy Village, South Carolina, their home. The an lucht siúil people who live outside of the city of North Augusta comprise the largest community of its kind in the nation. The population of Murphy Village, South Carolina, is currently around 3,000 people. But precise numbers have been difficult to obtain, because the group is an extremely closed-knit society, and few people from the outside are permitted to immerse themselves in the vibrant culture of their community.

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Murphy Village, South Carolina is home to the single largest community of an lucht siúil people in America. Other communities can be found in Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas. Have you heard of Murphy Village, South Carolina, or the an lucht siúil people that call it home? These Irish travelers in South Carolina live a unique life!

For another culturally different spot in South Carolina, check out more about the tiny Amish town in South Carolina that’s perfect for a day trip. And for an adventure in a small city that feels like an art gallery, take a peek:

When you’re ready to take a road trip to explore any of these interesting places, check out The Ultimate Road Trip Packing List by OnlyInYourState for smooth planning. You are bound to have a great time exploring these intriguing spots.

OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

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Murphy village, south carolina & related info.

What are some must-visit attractions for visitors exploring South Carolina?

South Carolina boasts a wealth of attractions for visitors, ranging from historical sites to natural wonders. Some must-visit spots include:

• Charleston's historic district
• Fort Sumter National Monument
• Myrtle Beach
• The beautiful Brookgreen Gardens – Especially at Christmas, when you can see the enchanting lights display named among the most beautiful in the country
• For nature enthusiasts, a trip to Congaree National Park or a boat tour of the Lowcountry marshlands is highly recommended

Finally, don't miss the opportunity to experience the state's rich culinary scene by indulging in local favorites like shrimp and grits or Carolina barbecue.

What are the best small towns to visit in South Carolina?

South Carolina is brimming with enchanting small towns that offer visitors a delightful blend of history, charm, and Southern hospitality. Here are a few must-visit small towns in the Palmetto State:

• Beaufort : With its picturesque waterfront, stunning antebellum mansions, and rich Gullah heritage, Beaufort is a perfect destination for history and culture enthusiasts.
• Bluffton: Nestled along the May River, Bluffton boasts a quaint downtown area with art galleries, boutiques, and delicious Lowcountry cuisine, making it an ideal spot for a leisurely day trip.
• Camden: As the state's oldest inland town, Camden offers a unique glimpse into South Carolina's past through its well-preserved historic sites, such as Revolutionary War battlefields and elegant mansions.
• Aiken: Known for its equestrian culture and lovely gardens, Aiken provides visitors with a charming small-town atmosphere, complete with delightful shops and restaurants.
• Summerville: Dubbed the "Flower Town in the Pines," Summerville is famous for its vibrant azaleas, historic homes, and the annual Flowertown Festival, which celebrates the town's natural beauty.

These charming small towns in South Carolina each offer their own unique blend of history, culture, and natural beauty, making them perfect destinations for a memorable visit.

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The Irish Traveller community of Murphy Village, South Carolina, USA

Photo journalist Elisabeth Blanchet talks to Mike Carroll, an Irish Traveller from Murphy Village, South Carolina, USA, a community of around 2,000 Travellers of Irish descent who settled in Aiken County near Augusta, Georgia, in the early 1960's. Carroll is the author of the self-published book Irish Travellers: An undocumented Journey Through History and gives Travellers’ Times an exclusive insight of the every day life and the history of his people and community.

 Elisabeth Blanchet: Could you sum up in a few words the history of your family, where they come from, how they arrived in the USA and in Murphy Village?

Mike Carroll: My people were once a settle clan who lived in a quiet, peaceful community before becoming a nomadic subculture in Irish society.  A people forced to split up into eleven groups and travel the emerald-green hills in search of work to support their families. A chance encounter between a Protestant landowner and a young Traveller forever changed my forefathers’ destiny and took them from their ancestral home to Holland and eventually America.

When my forefathers arrived in America, they found life in the colonies closely resembled life in Ireland. Because of their inability to find stable employment, our clan returned to an itinerant lifestyle and travelled throughout the southeastern United States for many decades. During their travels, they often set up camp in an area known as "The Pines" in the small community of Belvedere, South Carolina. It is here where they met and befriended a Roman Catholic priest named Father Joseph John Murphy. He convinced my people to purchase land adjacent Saint Edward the Confessor Catholic Church to provide a stable home for the women and children of our group.

Murphy Village, in the beginning, was a wooded area adjacent a Roman-Catholic church (Saint Edward the Confessor) located a short distance from the Aiken County border in Edgefield County, South Carolina. My family migrated to “The Camp” from Brays Hill a geographic area located in Athens, Georgia. My family's migration to what was then called "The Camp" later called Murphy Village was encouraged by my grandfather, Barney B. Gorman.

EB: Can you tell us about your childhood and teenage years at Murphy Village?

MC: My parents feared the outside world and the malice that lurked just beyond the borders of our encampment. Most of the faculty and students at my school made it very clear that I was unwelcome and saw my attendance as a waste of school resources. As a young child, I was always surrounded by family and played with cousins who lived only a few steps away from my front door. A four-corner tree in our front yard where grandfather would tell stories about the history of our people, their struggles in America, and our ancestral home, Castlerea. I would often lay back on the freshly cut grass, close my eyes, and imagine the beauty of the gently sloping emerald-green hills of Ireland, often finding myself longing for a place I had never seen and a home I had never known.

Growing up as an Irish-American Traveller in the southeastern United States was difficult and presented many challenges. Our customs and traditions were very different from those of the local community, a community steeped in southern ideals. A culture depicted by a lady drinking lemonade as she watches the African slaves joyfully work in fields for the betterment of their master. A place that called its minority African population “Niggers,” Hispanic population “wetbacks,” and Irish population “Gypsies.”  It was during this time I realised that my people lived as if the outside world did not exist.

EB: Can you describe Irish-American Travellers’s traditions? Are they still important to the community?

MC: Irish-American Travellers cherish their traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. Forbidding sexual relations between a man and a woman before marriage. The importance of arranged marriages to guarantee the continuation of bloodlines. Arranged marriages have been a cornerstone of many cultures, African, Asian, Buddhism, Hinduism, India, Islam, Judaism, are among the numerous cultures that practice this tradition. This custom when practiced by Irish Travellers is put under a microscope and tainted with racism. The family of a girl provides a dowry. For hundreds of years, Irish Travellers named their first-born son in honor of his grandfather and many other traditions.

Long-standing traditions remain important aspects of our community. These traditions serve to reinforce our beliefs in religion and way-of-life. An ethnic minority must never be forced to abandon their culture in exchange for acceptance. 

EB: Irish Travellers are not recognised as an ethnic group in the US. Do you think they should and in that case, why?

MC: Irish-American Travellers in the United States must be recognised as an ethnic minority. The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was adopted on December 19, 1964, and came into force on March 23, 1976. The United States of America (USA) both ratified and is a signatory to this important international human rights document. Irish-American Travelers meet all the criteria required under Article 27 of this document and denying their recognition as a minority in the US is in violation of the ICCPR. Irish-American Travellers have a distinct culture, customs, and traditions and are seen by themselves and others as different, a fact that has repeatedly been documented. They are recognised as a minority in Ireland their country of origin, and the United Kingdom (UK).

EB: In the UK, Irish Travellers are among the most discriminated against ethnic groups. How about the USA?

MC: Irish-American Travellers are perceived as an undesirable group by most of the United States (US) population which has resulted in discrimination and racism. Like the schoolyard bully who hits his victim without fear of retaliation or public outcry, the mass media promotes the image of a race made up of only con-artists, criminals, and thieves. The medias false narrative is used to reinforce racist beliefs and intensifies racial discrimination against people who have endured such treatment for centuries. My book, entitled: "Irish Travellers: An undocumented Journey Through History" gives several examples of unjustified prosecutions and discrimination by law enforcement against our ethnic minority in the US.

EB: Looking at local papers headlines, there are tensions between the Murphy Village residents and the 'outside' world. Do you think there are efforts made on both sides to accept each other not?

MC: People often fear what they do not understand and reject those who live differently in favor of the familiar. This misunderstanding has led to propaganda and out-and-out lies about our ethnic minority and way-of-life. False accusations of criminal activity, underage marriages, and child abuse have forced our people to remain on the fringes of society. The media reports negative events involving our minority with glee, refusing to report the crimes committed against the innocent of our groups. Two years ago, the Department of Social Services (DSS), State of South Carolina investigated alleged underage marriages and sexual abuse of young girls in our community. In their effort to prove wrong, right, state officials conducted an early morning raid on local schools and took into protective custody Irish-American Traveller girls ranging in ages from 6 to 12 years. These innocent children were subjected to medical exams to prove their innocence without their parents’ approval. Truth holds little importance when compared to the media's hunger for increased ratings, readership, and sensationalism. Your question used the word “tensions” between Murphy Village and the "outside world." Perhaps you should have used the word intimidation or the phrase race hatred in the narrative of your question.

EB: There is an obvious wealth divide between the 'original' Murphy Village and the other side of the road where Travellers live in huge mansions. Could you explain why?

MC: Murphy Village was the original encampment and has seen little improvement since its development. As our community grew, it became necessary for future generations to move to adjacent lands. As years passed homes became larger depending on the financial success of each family. Like all communities, there are those who have been more successful in business, and this has led to a wealth divide in our community. Irish-American Travellers have invested money in real estate, rental properties, and mobile home parks, not only in South Carolina but neighbouring states.    

The most striking divide is the one that exists between the three encampments in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. South Carolina is the most developed, followed by Tennessee, and lastly Texas. 

EB: How do you feel about settling down?

MC: I believe Irish Travellers in Ireland, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) must settle down, educate their children and demand their rightful place in society. But I do miss the travelling: travelling the open road, not knowing what’s around the next corner, meeting new people, and seeing the natural wonders of the United States are all compelling and intoxicating.

EB: Do you think there will be more Irish Travellers going into higher education and marry outside the community? 

MC: I have always believed the pathway to success is education and children follow the paths taken by their parents. I married my wife when I was 19-years-old and looked into the eyes of my first born child when I was 20-years-old. I saw in my child's eyes the ability to overcome any hurdle and achieve any goal, but only if I took her by the hand and led her down the path. I attended university, became a mortgage underwriter, and encouraged my children to fight for what they wanted. My oldest son is going to medical school to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon. My second son is going to medical school to become a neurosurgeon. My daughter is a surgical nurse, and I have a daughter in school becoming an emergency room nurse. My daughter married a young, uneducated Traveller from our community.

My family has set an example of what is possible in our community in South Carolina. There has been a recent increase in high school graduates, but as a minority has a long way to go. Marriage to outsiders is not forbidden, but it is not encouraged.

EB: Do you think there is a danger of an extinction of your community at some point?

MC: This question is perhaps the most difficult to answer for several different reasons. History teaches us that to survive all cultures must evolve with an ever-changing world. For some, change comes slowly and often at great sacrifice requiring the loss of old-world traditions in favor of acceptance. Irish-American Travellers because of their reluctance to change have become people at odds with society. We are a people that belong more in the past than in the present. Arranged marriages, the need to find safety within our small community, and refusal to accept change all bring into question our longevity.

EB: How do you see the future of your community?

I see our community retaining their ethnicity and traditions, but eventually abandoning of life on the road in favour of a settled way-of-life.

By Mike J Carroll and Elisabeth Blanchet

To order Mike Carroll’s book click on this link: Irish Travellers: An Undocumented Journey Through History

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Irish Travellers are prospering in America and "make most of their money from life insurance"

KNOWN FOR GENERATIONS as a highly secretive and insular community, the Irish Travellers in the US are descended from a group of families that crossed the Atlantic as early as the 1830s.

It’s estimated there are as many as 10,000 people in the states who identify themselves as part of the community, although that number could be far greater – the problem being the US Census doesn’t recognise them as a separate ethnic group.

In recent years, US Travellers have begun to let their guard down a little. There was an episode of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding that focused on the South Carolina area of Murphy Village a few years ago, for instance – although a producer of that show later  told a local paper that “the men just didn’t want to talk to us”.

TV3 documentary-maker Paul Connolly found a similar story when he attempted to make contact with the community. Arriving in the area along with two members of the Navan Traveller Workshop , the journalist says it was difficult at first, but they eventually managed to “break the ice” with the locals.

However, the presenter also wanted to focus on another community – Oakhaven in Tennessee – and says that when his team first arrived they were “high-tailed out by a couple of vans”. Unsure how to proceed, Connolly managed to secure an appearance on a local morning TV news show, explained what he was about, and soon heard word that he was being invited to visit the area. As filming began and an element of trust was built, he found similar traditions amongst both groups:

What was amazing was that same customs had been preserved. They still speak Cant – but it’s a Gaelic-based Cant , unlike here – and they have the same traditions about money, about male and female roles in the community.

“However,” he says, “what most people find interesting about them is that they are incredibly, incredibly wealthy”.

(Tv3 Press)

The TV3 promotional material for ‘Travellers in America: A Secret Society’ depicts the documentary’s subjects showing-off palatial ‘mcmansions’, designer clothing brands and expensive cars. Asked how they earn a living, Connolly says the men work at “trades – tarmacing, roofing and so on”. However – “most of the income comes from insurance”. He explains:

It’s just very, very clever. In America, there’s a clause which allows you to insure anyone with a blood connection – and as they have intermarried for generations, there’s a likelihood there will be a blood connection. So they’ve worked out a way of profiting from this, and that, according to the Travellers I’ve spoken to, is how they make their money and how they’re so wealthy. Some of the more morbid characters we came across referred to it as ‘Death Watch’.

However, Connolly contends, “the community doesn’t regard it as odd or sinister”.

It’s a typical part of their lifestyle. As a wedding present someone will say ‘you can take a policy out on me!’ – so it’s a loophole that hasn’t been closed, I guess.

Another clip of the show, shown by TV3 at the launch of their new line-up at Ballymount this week, shows a woman who lives in one of the communities talking about their traditions regarding marriage – calmly explaining to the presenter that it’s fine for a thirteen year old girl to have sex with her ‘husband’ once “she’s started her cycles”.

According to Connolly, this was one of the hardest aspects of their way of life to find the truth about: “We’d heard a lot about this but one of the biggest things was trying to cut through the line of fact and fiction”.

What we discovered is that the girls are matched with older men at the age of six or seven – but there’s nothing untoward here at this stage. It’s all to do with legacy – if you marry into another rich family then pride of place in the town will stay with you for years to come. So at six or seven, families just say ‘they might make a good pair’. Then, at the ages of thirteen or fourteen they will have a marriage ceremony, but they won’t in fact be married. The controversial aspect though is that these thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girls will be in a mock marriage with 22- or 23-year-old men.

The couples get married formally once the girl reaches the legal age, but Connolly says he was told that some families allow couples to have sex years before that point. The woman in the clip was one of two members of the community who attested to the practice on camera.

The journalist says the overall impression he was left with was one of a welcoming people who “haven’t fully assimilated into our world” and he says the tradition of encouraging young girls to get married is one divisive custom they appear to be “clinging onto”.

‘Travellers in America: A Secret Society’ airs on Tv3 in September.

Read: At Home With The Healy-Raes to air on TV3 >

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From the Irish countryside to the American South: Traveller Emigration to the US

Irish Travellers are well known for moving around Ireland and the rest of the British Isles. But, over the years, they’ve also ventured further afield. From the early 1800s on, they began to arrive in the US and became a particularly prominent community in the American South.

Although the full story of the Traveller diaspora isn’t clear and there are few sources written by its own community members, here’s what we know about their arrival in the US.

Why Travellers left Ireland

Members of the Traveller community left Ireland for the same reasons as other Irish emigrants. Many left during the Great Famine in the 19th century, while others left during subsequent economic downturns.

But, over the years, Travellers had their own unique reasons to emigrate too. For example, to avoid discrimination and forced settlement.

During a lecture hosted by EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, sociologist and human rights activist Dr. Sindy Joyce explored some of these reasons:

“Some families would have moved because of persecution; there were times when children were being taken off the community and being put into industrial schools,” she said. “But there were also times when it would have been for better economic opportunities… a lot of people of the Famine years would have moved because of the hardship.”

Some emigration to the US was even forced. As Ian Hancock, director of Romani Studies at the University of Texas, noted in 1986 : “From Cromwell’s time on, large numbers of British Travellers, including the Irish Travellers, were transported to the Americas.”

However, the largest period of migration to the US appears to have taken place in the mid-19th century, as a result of the Great Famine.

Where did they go?

According to a 1971 journal by Jared Harper and Charles Hudson, Irish Travellers first settled in Tonawanda, New York; Pittsburgh and Germantown, Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C. This information, the journal says, comes from the Travellers’ own oral history.

The work of Frederick S. Arnold, an American folklorist, offers an insight into just how widespread the Irish Traveller community in the US was. In 1898, he visited a camp outside New York where a man called Lackey Costello offered to teach him some Cant – the language of Irish Travellers.

Arnold stayed at the camp for a couple of days. After this, he sought out other Irish Travellers to speak Cant with. He found them throughout the states of Connecticut, Massachussetts and New York.

Many of the first Travellers to arrive in the US in the 1800s moved South – particularly after the American Civil War. Later arrivals mainly lived in the North. The former are known as Sawries, while the latter are called Greenhorns, according to Hancock.

In the South, Irish Travellers became well-known as horse and mule traders.

Establishing communities in the South

During the Great Depression, the US government funded the Federal Writers’ Project which created travel guides for each state. The guides for Atlanta and Tennessee both mention Irish Travellers and their history there.

According to ‘ Atlanta, a city of the modern South ’, the roots of many southern Travellers can be traced back to families that initially emigrated to Washington and established a livery stable there. These were the Rileys, the McNamaras, the Carrolls, the Sherlocks, the Garmons, the Costellos, the Dartys and the O’Haras.

As time passed, they began to travel the country in their wagons and found further opportunities down south.

Annual gatherings

One group, led by a man called Pat O’Hara, established a base in Nashville, Tennessee. Then they moved on and settled in Atlanta, Georgia. Here, some Travellers purchased land but most of them eventually returned to the road.

However, in 1881, when a leading Traveller called John McNamara was buried in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery, the community established a strong tie with the city. So it became a tradition to have funeral masses in the Gothic, red brick Church of the Immaculate Conception once a year.

Warren LeMay from Cincinnati, OH, United States, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Here, the scattered community came together to hold funerals, weddings and business meetings every April. The Atlanta guidebook notes “the vigorous beauty of black-haired, blue-eyed Irish girls in the finery of bright dresses and costume jewelry”, while it labels the men as “good American citizens” because they enlisted during times of war.

At some point, it was decided to have annual reunions in Nashville, Tennessee, too. During the last week of April, Travellers who were based west of the Allegheny Mountains would set up camp here. Those to the east continued to gather in Atlanta.

In the 1940s, when the Tennessee guidebook was written, around 3,000 Travellers set up their green tents and trailers in a field below an underpass. In the local Mount Calvary Cemetery, visitors can still see elaborately adorned graves bearing Traveller names like Gorman and Sherlock.

Economic success

Throughout the 1800s, animal trading proved to be a successful business for Travellers in the South. As Harper and Hudson explain, some got jobs in large stock centres, while others drove animals out into the countryside to trade with farmers. Occasionally, they would open a shop and trade from there.

According to the Tennessee State guide , written in 1949, Irish Travellers bought many fine animals. But they were also known to take on sick mules and overworked horses, which often recovered under their care. Some families shared depots in cities like New Orleans and Atlanta where they could store their animals before selling them at auction.

The guide says they traded animals abroad too. In fact, it claims that “much of the mountain artillery of the Italian Army was carried into the hills of Ethiopia on the backs of mules bought for the Italian Government by the Irish Nomads.”

While it is difficult to confirm this assertion, Harper and Hudson note that the Travellers enjoyed a boom in mule trading during World War II. A newspaper article published in the Las Vegas Age on December 3rd, 1943, also gives some credence to the claim.

It reads: “In 1935, before Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, he practically denuded Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas of mules. The Italian government bought about 300,000.”

Discrimination

While the Irish Traveller community flourished in the US South, members weren’t always welcomed with open arms. In 1927, the state of Georgia introduced an anti-Traveller tax. It placed a $250 levy on each group of “horse-traders” or “gypsies”, who lived in tents or travelled in covered wagons and automobiles.

Irish Travellers in the South today

Despite the discrimination faced by some Travellers, the community still has a strong presence in the American South.

Murphy Village in South Carolina is probably the best-known community today. Located just a couple hours from Atlanta, it is home to around 2,000 Travellers of Irish descent. According to locals , the town is named after Fr. Joseph Murphy – a Catholic priest who convinced them to settle near his church back in the 1960s.

Today, roughly 10,000 people in the US identify as Irish Travellers. This is a significant figure considering the population in Ireland stands at around 30,000 . However, because the US census doesn’t record Irish Traveller ethnicity, the true number remains unclear.

To learn more about the emigration patterns of Irish Travellers, watch our lecture ‘ Irish Traveller Communities Abroad ’. EPIC’s Historian in Residence, Dr Maurice Casey, explores the topic in detail.

Irish Travellers in the USA / Murphy Village & White Settlement

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The Picture Show

Daily picture show, documenting the irish travellers: a nomadic culture of yore.

Lauren Rock

Throughout my life I have regularly traveled to my mother's home city of Dublin. During these trips I would regularly see groups of people living in caravans on the sides of the road, and I always wondered who they were and what their lives were like.

I later found out they belonged to a small ethnic minority called "Travellers" — nomads who spend most of their life, literally on the road. While their history has been hard to document — they have no written records — they are thought to have separated from the settled Irish community at least 1,000 years ago.

The Travellers (until recently also called "tinkers" or "gypsies") often live in ad hoc encampments, in direct contrast to "settled" people in Ireland. They are thought to be descended from a group of nomadic craftsman, with the name "tinker" a reference to the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil. (The reference is now considered derogatory.)

In 1965 Dublin-born photographer Alen MacWeeney stumbled across a Travellers' encampment and became fascinated with their way of life. He spent the next six years making photographs and recording their stories and music. Despite shooting the photos in the late '60s, it wasn't until 2007 that he found a publisher for his work.

Bernie Ward, Cherry Orchard Courtesy of Alen MacWeeney hide caption

Bernie Ward, Cherry Orchard

In his book, Irish Travellers: Tinkers No More — which also comes with a CD of Traveller music recordings — MacWeeny shows us a gritty, intimate portrait of the people he eventually came to call friends. He compares the Travellers to the migrant farmers of the American Depression: "poor, white, and dispossessed."

"Theirs was a bigger way of life than mine, with its daily struggle for survival, compared to my struggle to find images symbolic and representative of that life," he said in his book.

MacWeeney got his start at age 20 as an assistant for Richard Avedon in Paris and has since made a career as a portrait and fashion photographer. But his images of the Travellers reveal a raw and intimate side to his work.

"Traveller families have always been very close-knit, held together in a tight unspoken knot, with lifelong bonds and sometimes varying a lifelong set of troubles," he said.

Today, however, the Traveller lifestyle has changed dramatically from even a few decades ago. Many have embraced modern culture and become "settled," no longer living apart from the mainstream. There is even a reality TV show, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding , which showcases Traveller girls and their theatrical, over-the-top weddings.

But MacWeeney believes that the Travellers are "reluctant as settled and envy the other life of travelling." His book stands as a document of an era, and a way of life that is slowly fading into the past.

The long road towards acceptance for Irish Travellers

The Irish Traveller community is fighting for official recognition of its ethnic identity and for a way of life.

Avila Park, Dublin, Ireland –   In a wooden shed in his back garden, James Collins sits on a low stool hammering out the final touches on a billy can. At 68, he is one of only two remaining traveller tinsmiths in Ireland.

Above the clutter of well-worn tools and scrap sheet metal hang a dozen or so other cans. Nowadays, he says, there’s precious little demand for his trade, and he largely continues it as a hobby, occasionally selling some of his work at vintage craft fairs.

Since the introduction of plastic homeware in the 1960s and 1970s, tinsmithing – traditionally dominated by the historically nomadic community known as Travellers – has effectively died out. Even the block tin, James originally used, is no longer available.

“It’s more difficult to work with,” he says, holding up a gleaming aluminium can. “You can’t make what you want to make out of it because you have to use solder and that won’t take solder.”

READ MORE: Ballinasloe Horse Fair – An ancient Irish tradition

James was raised on the road in the Irish midlands, a traditional upbringing unknown to most Travellers today. “I was bred, born and reared on the road,” he says, “but the young lads today wasn’t. They all grew up in houses and went to school and all this craic. I never got any education, never went to school in my life.”

Until his late 20s, when he settled in Avila Park, a housing estate for Travellers on the outskirts of Dublin, the Irish capital, James plied his trade for farmers, smithing and repairing buckets. “It never goes out of your mind; you’re always thinking, thinking the whole time about the road,” he says.

In comparison, younger generations have little interest in traditional crafts or the travelling lifestyle – James’ children and grandchildren don’t know how to harness a horse, for example. And anti-trespass legislation introduced in the early 2000s, which was used to disperse encampments by the side of roads or on council-owned land, made a nomadic existence increasingly difficult.

Yet, even as the distinct traditions of Irish Travellers seem to fade into the past, the battle for official recognition of their identity continues.

The search for recognition

Unlike the United Nations and the United Kingdom, Ireland does not recognise Travellers as a separate ethnicity from the non-Traveller community. For decades, human rights organisations and Traveller advocacy groups have been seeking this recognition, but to little avail.

However, on January 26, a parliamentary committee established to investigate the issue stated unequivocally that “Travellers are, de facto, a separate ethnic group”.

“This is not a gift to be bestowed upon them, but a fact the state ought to formally acknowledge,” it further said.

The committee report urged the Taoiseach, Ireland’s prime minister, or the minister for justice to give a statement to the Dail, the Irish parliament, acknowledging this at the earliest opportunity.

This development was welcomed by members of the Travelling community, although some remain cautious in their optimism. It would not be the first time an Irish government has reneged on such commitments – a 2014 parliamentary report made the same recommendation, which was never acted upon.

A history of deprivation and discrimination

An examination of the almost 30,000 Travellers in the Republic of Ireland shows a staggering level of deprivation completely at odds with the non-Traveller community. Another 4,000 to 5,000 Travellers live in Northern Ireland, in a similar situation.

Around half of Travellers have no secondary education and only 1 percent have attended university, according to Pavee Point, a group fighting for the rights of Travellers.

WATCH: Irish travellers facing discrimination

Some 84 percent of Travellers are unemployed, while suicide rates are almost seven times higher than among settled people. A 2010 study found that life expectancy was 15 years lower among men and 11 years lower among women when compared with their settled counterparts.

Discrimination against Travellers remains endemic at social and institutional levels. Being denied entry to businesses is a common occurrence and many try to hide their background when applying for jobs, fearing that potential employers will not hire them.

“Symbolically it would have a profound impact on our collective sense of identity, self-esteem and confidence as a people,” says Martin Collins, the co-director of Pavee Point, on the recognition of Traveller ethnicity.

“Some travellers have internalised [racism] and end up believing that they are of no value, they are of no worth … So that’s the impact. That’s the outcome of both racism and your identity being denied.”

A culture denied

It was a 1963 government report, the Commission on Itinerancy, that has set the tone for the state’s attitude towards Travellers ever since, says Sinn Fein Senator Padraig MacLochlainn, the first person from a Traveller background to be elected to the Irish parliament.

The Committee on Itinerancy ‘s terms of reference defined Travellers as a “problem”, whose social ills were “inherent in their way of life,” and outlined the goal of “promot[ing] their absorption into the general community”.

No Travellers were on the committee, nor were they consulted for its report.

“Our people and our state denied their history and decided that they were criminals and they needed to be immersed in with the rest of us,” says MacLochlainn.

This refusal to acknowledge the community’s rich cultural history – notably their own language, Cant, and significant contributions to Irish traditional music – persists today.

Traveller culture is frequently portrayed in the media as separate and distinct, MacLochlainn says, but almost always in negative terms, in exploitation TV shows   such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and exposes on Traveller criminality.

“You clearly accept them as a distinct group – why are you making these programmes if you don’t? If they’re a distinct group, could you do it now in positive terms?

“When it comes to negative characterisations, the media, the establishment … in Ireland are more than happy for them to be characterised in negative terms,” the senator says.

Behind James’ shed in Avila Park, traditional and modern Traveller accommodation sit side by side. A wooden barreltop caravan, washed green with blue and red embellishments, sits between two mobile home units, where his younger relatives stay.

Only one has both electricity and running water, which were installed by the family. Power is provided from the house by a yellow cable, wound loosely around plastic drainpipes and holes in its pebbledash exterior.

An early morning fire in a nearby prefabricated unit just a few weeks before offered a bleak reminder of the danger these makeshift electrical fixtures pose. A neighbour raised the alarm and the young couple inside escaped before their home was reduced to a charred husk.

Children burned to death

This near disaster has reminded some people of a fire in the south Dublin suburb of Carrickmines more than a year ago, which continues to cast a shadow over relations between the Traveller and the settled communities.

In the early hours of October 10, 2015, a fire ripped through a halting site killing 10 people, including five children, from two families – the Lynch and Gilbert family and the Connors. The youngest victim was five months old. It was one of the deadliest fires in the history of the Republic of Ireland.

Social workers had raised concerns about the site’s substandard prefabricated units to authorities in the months before the fire, but no action was taken. The blaze and its aftermath would, for many, become an example of the pervasive discrimination Travellers face in Ireland today.

Three days after the fire, some locals blockaded land marked for temporary accommodation for the surviving members of the Connors family, preventing construction vehicles from entering. Though the obstruction was condemned by then Environment Minister Alan Kelly and several Traveller groups, the protesters were successful.

OPINION: Catholic Ireland’s saints and sinners

On October 21, one day before the last victims were buried, the county council announced that the Connors family would instead be resettled on a reclaimed dump on council land in a nearby suburb. At the time of writing, the family remain in that location.

Alongside many expressions of grief on social media after the fire were comments highlighting the discrimination towards travellers in Irish society.

On one popular news site, a comment simply wishing that the victims rest in peace received hundreds of thumbs down votes from other readers. “Hundreds of Irish people gave a thumbs down to an expression of sympathy for children who were burned to death,” says MacLochlainn. “That’s terrifying; that’s absolutely terrifying.”

In response to the tragedy, local authorities across the country conducted fire safety audits at Traveller accommodation sites. “All we got was a few fire alarms, a few fire blankets and some carbon monoxide alarms,” says Collins, of Pavee Point.

“That’s like re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic. That’s totally inadequate. These sites need to be completely redeveloped [and] refurbished, because the sites are just inherently dangerous. Getting a few fire alarms and a few hoses will not rectify the situation.”

For Collins, the long overdue recognition of Traveller ethnicity is an important milestone, but as the Carrickmines example shows, a commitment to materially improving the lives of Travellers is also necessary if they are to be truly equal in their own country.

SUSAN  FURLONG

Copyright 2023. Susan Furlong. All Rights Reserved. 

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​ Irish Travellers

Mother and Child - Irish Travellers

Photo Credit:  Joseph-Philippe Bevillard

Irish Travellers Children

It’s estimated that over 40,000 Irish Travellers reside throughout the United States. Descendants of nomadic Irish peoples who immigrated to the United States during the Great Famine, the Travellers settled throughout the country in extended family groups or clans, with the largest concentrations living in South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee. As itinerant workers who speak distinct dialects of either Irish Gammon, Cant, or Shelta, they are often marginalized for their unique lifestyles and esoteric customs.

​​​​​​ In late November of 2013, a tornado ripped through central Illinois, devastating hundreds of homes and leaving many residents in my rural area homeless. Contractors could not work quickly enough to repair the damage. Subcontractors were hired, and workers came from throughout the United States to ensure that families could be back in their homes by Christmas.  Our home received only minor damage, but it was during that time that I met a family of Irish Travellers. They arrived in a caravan of work trucks, pulling trailers laden with the tools of their trade. The family that came to our house travelled from Tennessee and had their young son with them. While both the mother and father worked, their son hung out in my family room eating snacks and watching television. He was shy at first, but once he felt comfortable, he told me about his travelling adventures, how he loved to be on the road, and how he couldn’t wait to be old enough to carry his own weight. I found this young boy utterly charming and his family’s lifestyle fascinating. I am not an Irish Traveller. I’m a story writer and while I have tried to portray Irish Travellers as accurately as possible, they are a secret, closed sect of our American culture. Endogamous, they prefer to live quietly, frequently going to great extents to protect their privacy. Travellers are often stereotyped as immoral and lawless, yet these characterizations overshadow what I have come to know as a culture filled with decency and built on strong family bonds and unbreakable fortitude. Like any culture, theirs consists of both good and evil.

Through my writing, I hope readers will come to have a greater understanding and appreciation for the Irish Travellers’ unique way of life.

Grandfather and Two Grand-daughters

clock This article was published more than  21 years ago

Unwelcome Stares at Quiet Clan

After child beating, secret life ends for irish travelers.

EDGEFIELD COUNTY, S.C. -- In a puzzling little community of trailer homes, Cadillacs, mini-mansions and kissing cousins, Rose Kathy Sherlock opens the front door of her double-wide. She's breaking a long-standing taboo just by talking to a stranger. Irish Travelers such as Sherlock are supposed to keep to themselves. Secrecy has ensured their survival for many years.

But that all changed last month with the rogue act of an Irish Traveler woman caught on videotape beating her child. Suddenly, the Travelers felt their culture was on trial.

A cocker spaniel named Spot scampers around the paneled sitting room inside Sherlock's trailer. Glossy porcelain statues of Jesus, of the Madonna, stand watch from side tables as Sherlock, 46, is saying her culture isn't nearly as peculiar or lawless as some folks say.

"We're like any other community, and in any other neighborhood there's good and bad," Sherlock says, her arched eyebrows raised high as if she's speaking a gospel truth. She's talking to a reporter only because a trusted friend has come along. No way will she pose for a picture. In the fast, clipped Deep South brogue that distinguishes her speech, she continues: "We're a close-knit society. We don't like to speak out. . . . We stay to ourselves."

Descendants of nomadic Irish traders and tinsmiths known as the Tinkers who immigrated to the United States 150 years ago, the Irish Travelers have protected their archaic culture by keeping the outside world at bay. The older folks among them still speak a Gaelic-derived language called Cant that is unique to the Travelers' culture. Outsiders don't understand the Travelers' language or their ways, Sherlock says. They don't understand the traditions that have kept the culture intact. Her life tells some of the story.

She left school in the eighth grade, as is the fate of most Traveler girls. When she was 15, her parents arranged for her to marry a boy from their village not far from the Savannah River. At 17 she wed. Her husband took to the road doing home improvement jobs and other work, as Traveler men have done for generations. And her three children, now grown, were reared in the Traveler tradition.

In a village of roughly 3,000 people, there are but a dozen surnames: Carroll, Costello, Gorman, O'Hara, Sherlock and others. So many of the men have the same names that they go by nicknames: "Black Pete," "White Man," "Peekaboo," "Mikey Boy." Murphy Villagers are generally related, experts say. Cousins marry cousins, whether first or second, and always in arrangements that include a substantial dowry.

Yes, Sherlock knows: Outsiders think this is strange. Defensively, she mentions Indian immigrants and others. Plaintively, she says: "In different societies in America, their marriages be's arranged."

But the baggage of the Irish Travelers is heavier than just that.

The Unwelcome Traveler

The folks of Murphy Village rue the day they heard of Madelyne Gorman Toogood. She is the 25-year-old Traveler who became infamous last month when she slammed her daughter, 4-year-old Martha, into the back seat of their SUV in a shopping center near South Bend, Ind., and proceeded to hit her over and over. A surveillance camera caught it all, and the footage was broadcast nationwide for days and days last month, even after Toogood turned herself in to police.

But for the Travelers, the tragic and sensational saga didn't end there.

Toogood did the unthinkable, in the eyes of her fellow Travelers. To their shock, she held a news conference and announced her ethnic origins. The repercussions reached all the way down to Murphy Village, the largest of the Irish Traveler settlements. Toogood isn't from here, but it did not matter. It is here that police and journalists turned to seek clues into her life. Folks at Murphy Village don't like being associated with what Toogood did. Physical child abuse, say law enforcement sources, rarely if ever is discovered among the Travelers.

People here bristle at the possibility that the outside world will think that Toogood is one of them. She may be a Traveler, but the Murphy Villagers do not claim her. She's from Texas, from a different group.

"We had never met her," says Sherlock. "She'd never been down here. We didn't know her family."

The Irish Travelers who settled in the United States in the 19th century migrated to different parts of the country and established their own clan groups, often with little intermingling across regions. The Sherlocks, O'Haras and others settled here in the 1960s, on land around a Catholic church whose pastor, the Rev. Joseph Murphy, became the patron and namesake of the growing community just outside the town of North Augusta.

But Toogood hails from an Irish Traveler community in White Settlement, near Fort Worth. Experts say it is smaller than Murphy Village. Those Texas Travelers are known as the Greenhorns.

Another Irish Traveler group is settled outside Memphis and is known as the Mississippi Travelers, after the river. There also are scattered and smaller settlements of Irish Travelers -- say, six or eight families -- in northeastern states such as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, especially in trailer parks.

There are several thousand Travelers in the United States, including some of English and Scottish descent. Their precise numbers are unknown.

Wherever they are, these Travelers share a distinctly suspicious view of the world, one shaped by their people's history of persecution in Ireland, where they were seen as an itinerant underclass. The Irish Travelers came to the United States in the 1840s to flee the potato famine in Ireland. Here in the United States, they often are taunted as "gypsies" because of their nomadic lifestyle. The Travelers view themselves at odds with outsiders. They even have a word for non-Travelers. "Country people," they call them. Traditionally, the Travelers haven't even trusted the country people's schools.

"This is a community that, like the Amish, treasures its remoteness," said Larry Otway, a New York-based activist for the Travelers and other small marginalized ethnic groups. Otway calls them "very much an expression of American culture."

'Going on a Trip'

Each spring, in caravans of trucks and trailers that have replaced the ornate covered wagons of yore, the men pull out of Murphy Village. They fan out across the country to ply their trade, as do men from the clans in Texas and Tennessee. They are skilled driveway pavers, barn painters and roofers, often with regular seasonal customers.

Sometimes their wives go along, depending on the ages of the kids and whether they're still in school. Sherlock calls it "going on a trip." She has gone out some seasons with her husband, Peter. While her husband worked this past summer, she went to Indiana and Illinois to shop with other Traveler women.

But police in several states know some of these Travelers as something other than honest, hardworking folk. Some of them have a reputation, backed by arrests and convictions, for being relentless con artists. Like grifters, they move around the country running home improvement swindles. And the women sometimes run shoplifting scams, police say.

Joe Livingston, an investigator with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division who is an expert on Traveler scams, estimates that perhaps 10 to 15 percent of the Murphy Village Travelers are thieves, or "yonks," as the Travelers label the wayward among them.

However small the proportion, their impact is felt widely along the seasonal circuits they travel. Livingston calls it "nontraditional organized crime." And tracking the phenomenon is a nightmare, he says, because of the web of same-names and nicknames among the Travelers.

Like others who have tangled with the Travelers, Livingston is both intrigued and mystified by their lifestyle.

He can quote case after case of Traveler scams. The first he encountered was in 1984, up in Rhea County, Tenn. Some workmen completed a small construction job for an elderly man, who went inside the house to get money to pay them. They saw where he kept the cash, Livingston said, and returned later and stole it.

Some of the scams are inventive. Several Travelers were arrested a few years ago over a scam in which a Traveler wore a white lab coat and a stethoscope and went door to door in rural South Carolina, telling old folks he was there to examine them for an increase in their Social Security benefits. During the "exam," other Travelers searched the house for cash.

"They basically would go door to door seeking home improvement work, saying, 'Hey, I was working down the street and noticed your chimney needs some work and I'd be willing to do it for this wonderful price,' " says Tom Bartholomy, president of the Better Business Bureau in Charlotte and former president of the BBB of Northeastern Indiana. Unsuspecting homeowners, charmed by the Travelers' seeming earnestness, would agree and let them up on the roof. "Then they'd come down and say, 'Hey, this is going to take more than I thought. I need some more supplies. We're going to need a deposit.' And then they're gone.

"I've been with the Better Business Bureau 20 years, and it's happened every year, like clockwork, like the swallows of Capistrano," he said. "When I was in Fort Wayne, they would usually come in RVs and stay at a campground, trailer-park-type area. The men would go around in pickup trucks to the neighborhoods, and the women would go to stores and steal merchandise. They go steal it, and then take it back for cash refunds." Investigator Livingston says, "There's always been speculation that women do things, but we haven't uncovered a big-time network yet."

Officials in St. Joseph County, Ind., say Madelyne Toogood and her husband, Johnny, appear to fit the pattern of "yonk" Travelers. Johnny Toogood has a long record of arrests under several names in several states, said Randy De Cleene, spokesman for the county prosecutor's office. He is wanted in Montana on a felony warrant for a home improvement scam. And Madelyne Toogood had a previous arrest for shoplifting at a Kohl's department store in Texas, he said.

Steven Rocket Rosen, of Houston, is the Toogoods' lawyer. He is among a small network of attorneys to whom the Travelers turn for help. Known most widely for representing a member of David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult, Rosen said he has represented about 50 or 60 Irish Travelers over the past 14 years.

Asked about the prevalence of theft among them, Rosen said: "I don't know the statistics, but I know the reputation. Part of it's true. But on the whole? I would say no. On the whole there's a lot of good, hardworking people who belong to this Irish culture of traveling from community to community and doing good work."

Back in South Carolina, even the police chief of North Augusta has kind words for the Travelers' work ethic. A Traveler crew painted Chief Lee Wetherington's roof and paved his driveway. Sure, he says, there are scam artists. But the scoundrels among the Travelers are about the same proportion as in society at large.

"They did good work," Wetherington said of the Travelers he hired. "I would trust Mikey Boy Sherlock with anything I owned."

End of the Rainbow Along Highway 25, the evolution of the Irish Travelers is obvious. Where trailer homes once stood, today there are sprawling ranch houses and two- or three-story houses as large as any suburban McMansion. You can still see the old trailers parked out back, or deeper into the woods, with aluminum foil over the windows for insulation. But the wealth of some Travelers is what catches the eye. These nomadic people who once scraped out a meager living now are driving Benzes and Lincolns and Caddies, all brand-new, and parking them in front of homes with beautiful brick masonry and ironwork.

At a nearby supermarket, which the local non-Travelers call the "Winn-Gypsy," the Travelers are known as big spenders, and non-Travelers are accustomed to seeing Traveler children out and about in expensive Tommy Hilfiger clothes. For special occasions, Traveler mothers garb their young daughters in shiny, sequined dresses and complete the picture of a child beauty queen with bouffant hairstyles and makeup. Traveler women are known, Wetherington said, for "that glamour-shot look: poufed hair, lot of makeup."

Inside one of the newly built houses, pink sets the tone: pink leather sofa, pink curtains and swags and valances. The cape around the shoulders of the baby Jesus statue is pink too. And a six-foot-high floral arrangement of pink and blue artificial flowers, trimmed in gold, stands in the two-story foyer, beneath a huge chandelier.

The women of this house, a mother and daughter, did not want their names used. They know the "country people" drive by and wonder where the money comes from.

But it's simple, the older woman said: Members of the extended family each contribute to the dowry that ensures a proper marriage. And people work long and hard to make life better for the next generation.

"It was something we prepared for for a very long time," the older woman said softly of her home.

These women are ready, though, for change. Neither of the women went past the sixth grade. Both were married off as preteens. (How did you meet your husband, the younger one is asked. "Well, he's my cousin," she says. "I've known him all my life.")

They want the next generation to have more opportunities in life, more choices. They boast of a Traveler who has gone off to law school. And of a Traveler who has become a doctor. But those are the exceptions.

The younger women recalled a childhood of stigma. Not being invited to birthday parties, being singled out for being different; being excluded during recess at school. She watches it changing in her own children's lives and happily announces, "Some of my daughter's best friends are country people."

This videotape of an Irish Traveler woman striking her infant daughter in a shopping center parking lot cast an unwelcome light on the descendants of the Tinkers who immigrated to the United States 150 years ago and who have protected their archaic culture by keeping the outside world at bay. Above, trailers next to mansions make up Murphy Village, where a group of Travelers lives in South Carolina.

Joe Livingston, left, an investigator with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division who is an expert on Traveler scams, estimates that perhaps 10 to 15 percent of the Murphy Village Travelers participate in what he calls "nontraditional organized crime."

Twenty Irish Traveller con artists arrested for nationwide US fraud

Members of the irish traveling community in south carolina were indicted on tuesday on 45 counts of fraud..

As many as 20 members of the Irish traveling community in South Carolina--22 people in total-- were indicted on Tuesday, August 16, on 45 counts of fraud and money-laundering schemes.

Those accused are reported to be residents of the 1,400 strong Irish traveler community in Murphy Village, North Augusta, Aiken County, and were charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for acts of fraud including schemes to obtain life insurance benefits, food stamps and Medicaid funds, and committed fraud involving automobile financing.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbia, all 22 indicted are charged with crimes under RICO while some are also charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, structuring monetary transactions to evade reporting requirements, or interstate transportation of stolen items.

If found guilty, 20 years is the maximum prison sentence for a crime under RICO along with a $250,000 fine. Mail and wire fraud and transportation of stolen vehicles across state lines also hold the same maximum sentence while structures developed to evade reporting money carries a maximum sentence of five years and a $250,000 fine.

The defendants have not yet been arrested in an investigation that included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigative Division, the Postal Inspection Service, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the state Department of Social Services.

The indictment instead issued the 22 accused with a summons to appear in court, with the first court date expected to take place in as little as two weeks.

“Many of the defendant's … own large homes, luxury cars, and expensive jewelry and clothes, which are often acquired through the fraud schemes or acquired with the proceeds of the fraud schemes,” the indictment read.

“This criminal organization (classified as an “enterprise” under federal law) … constitutes an ongoing organization whose members functioned as a continuing unit for the common purpose of achieving the objectives of the criminal Enterprise.”

The defendants also stand accused of acquiring food stamps and Medicare through fraud, by misrepresenting their income and financial situation on applications.

Read more:  Ireland-bound Minnesota family fall foul of fake flight internet scammers

The indictment states that the government seek to seize money, property and vehicles obtained by the defendants through these fraudulent means, including 25 cars and five properties all located within two miles of each other. Their crimes are believed to have been committed mainly in other states, however, financing cars in Georgia, North Carolina, and New York.

Similar accusations have been made against the Murphy Village community previously, while Union County Sheriff David Taylor recently published an article warning residents to be on the lookout for Irish Travelers leaving business cards.

In their local area, however, the residents are praised for being honest and hardworking with a few black sheep among them drawing unwanted negative attention onto the otherwise reclusive community. Keeping to their own homes, the Murphy Village community rarely show signs of life with tinted windows or shutters covering their houses. They remove their children from school around eighth grade to prevent them from straying outside the community, something they feel would threaten their lifestyle, reports TheState.com.

According the the US census there are somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 Irish travelers living in the US, Murphy Village making up one of the largest communities nationwide. The accused are said to speak “Cant” a dialect mixing English and Irish as well as American English.

The long-term, multi-agency federal investigation into the 22 named on Tuesday is believed to have spanned at least five years, with the earliest evidence citing mail fraud for food stamp benefits in October of 2011 and evading reporting a death benefits check received in June of the same year.

H/T: TheState.com

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'Distinct identity': Irish Travellers celebrate day they were recognized as ethnic minority

This day six years ago, the Irish Traveller community was recognized by the Irish State as an ethnic group

• 16:45, 1 MAR 2023
• Updated 16:49, 1 MAR 2023

In Ireland, today marks Irish Traveller Ethnicity Day: a celebration of the moment Irish Travellers were officially recognized as an ethnic group in the Irish state.

On March 1, 2017, Taoiseach Enda Kenny made a statement in the Dáil formally recognizing the ethnic status of the Traveller community in Ireland. After a campaign spanning multiple decades, the date meant that the contributions made and challenges faced by the Traveller community would now be recognized at state level.

"The Traveller community has for many years campaigned to have their unique heritage, culture and identity formally recognized by the Irish state," the Taoiseach said at the time. "And in this state, they make their contribution as gardaí, doctors, members of the Defence Forces, prison officers."

Read more: Old footage shows New York's historic Gaelic Park in the 1960s

The Taoiseach continued: "So there should be no surprise that a person can identify as Irish and as Traveller. This is a deep and personal issue for many Travellers."

The Irish Traveller community has long faced discrimination in Ireland , with the group largely excluded from settled society over generations. The life expectancy of Irish Travellers is lower than their settled peers, and the community's suicide rate is six times the national average.

Being recognized as an ethnic minority means Irish Travellers (who are separate from but often confused with the Romani people due to similarities in their historically nomadic cultures) are now included in Ireland's anti-racism and integration policies. It also recognizes the unique culture and history of the Traveller community, who have, according to scientists, been genetically distinct from settled Irish people for at least 1,000 years.

The day doesn't just celebrate Irish Travellers based in Ireland, but their international diaspora. The community spans the UK, where they are also recognized as an ethnic minority, as well as Canada and the US .

It's difficult to guess how large the diaspora of the Irish Traveller community is in the US, as the US Census does not recognize them as an ethnic group. Estimations range their US population to be anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000.

The vast majority of this population is thought to have arrived in the US between 1845 and 1860 as a result of the Great Famine. Here, Irish Traveller communities mostly reside in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The largest is around 2,500 people, who live in Murphy Village, SC.

Like Irish Travellers in Ireland, Irish Travellers in the US have a unique cultural identity. This includes practicing devout Catholicism, a strong emphasis on family and community, and some usage of Cant, a language of mixed Irish and English origin spoken by Travellers.

"Our Traveller community is an integral part of our society for over a millennium, with their own distinct identity – a people within our people," the Taoiseach said this day six years ago. "...It is a historic day for our Travellers and a proud day for Ireland."

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