irish traveller gammon

We Are Delivering A Low Quality Version Of Our Site Because You Are Using Outdated Browser Software. Please Upgrade Your Browser By Clicking On One Of The Following Links: Upgrade to a different browser or install Google Chrome Frame to enhance this version.

Irish Traveller Language

An Ethnographic and Folk-Linguistic Exploration

• © 2018
• Maria Rieder 0

Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

• Examines how language use informs Travellers’ language ideology, identity and culture
• Combines insights from folk linguistics, linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistic research
• Offers a valuable contribution to the field of minority language research

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities (PSMLC)

1408 Accesses

2 Citations

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (7 chapters)

Front matter, setting the scene: the history of a community and a language.

Maria Rieder

Who Are the Irish Travellers? Traveller Culture in Transition

When is it used the role of cant within traveller culture, what is it called naming practices and folk classifications of cant, folk views on the structure and formation of cant, language ideology and traveller identity, back matter.

• Language ideology
• Language variation and change
• Community of practice research
• Folk Linguistics
• Ethnography
• Irish Traveller community
• metacommunication
• linguistic anthropology
• minority language
• language policy
• minority languages
• area studies
• discourse analysis

About this book

Authors and affiliations, about the author.

Maria Rieder is Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research is focused on discursive constructions of social and economic inequality. She has published on issues of minority communities and languages, economic discourse in the press, social movements and intercultural communication, specifically focusing on the role of language in the production of power differences and social conflict.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Irish Traveller Language

Book Subtitle : An Ethnographic and Folk-Linguistic Exploration

Authors : Maria Rieder

Series Title : Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76714-7

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan Cham

eBook Packages : Social Sciences , Social Sciences (R0)

Copyright Information : The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-319-76713-0 Published: 12 October 2018

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-030-09562-8 Published: 08 February 2019

eBook ISBN : 978-3-319-76714-7 Published: 03 October 2018

Series ISSN : 2947-5880

Series E-ISSN : 2947-5899

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XXV, 260

Topics : Minority Languages , Ethnography , Sociolinguistics , Applied Linguistics , Area Studies , Discourse Analysis

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Ireland’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage

• Latest News
• Apply for Inscription

Cant / Gammon

Cant / Gammon is a traditional language spoken by Irish Travellers. It is considered a creole language developed by Travellers from Irish, Scots Gaelic, and English-speaking backgrounds. Creole languages are generally derived from pidgin versions of the language spoken by the larger population. Among Travellers Cant / Gammon could also be known as Shelta. It is spoken mainly by the older generation throughout the country.

Background information

For the Travelling community our language is called various names according to what family you belong to. To some it is known as Shelta, Gammon (Gamin) or Cant (Minceirtoiree). Minceir means Traveller and Toiree means talk, so it might be called Traveller talk. Cant, or even Minceirs Toiree. A large number of families would call it Gammon (or Gamin) as this is a different dialect of sorts from Cant itself.

Language is the last thing that we have left, that gives us our antiquity. It’s the words that are used. Languages can be cousins to one another like Germanic or English Languages. The closest cousin to our language is old Irish. This was spoken here pre 1200s. Some of the words used at that time are still used by Travellers today when we speak in our language.

Our own words for a priest and for God have shown up in old documents to be words used in pre-christian Ireland and yet we still use them today. Our tradition was a very oral tradition so there is very little written evidence.

Practice and practitioners

The traditional language is mainly used by older Travellers and so is in real danger of disappearing. It is not specific to any particular area throughout the country but can be heard loud and clear at any of the Traveller gatherings in particular horse fairs such as Ballinasloe Horse Fair.

Some of the leaflets and documents used at Meath Travellers Workshop, The Irish Traveller Movement and Pavee Point would have both English and Cant / Gammon language included.

Meath Travellers Workshop mobile Living History Exhibition supports the work of keeping the language and crafts alive and will continue to do so going forward.

Development, transmission and safeguarding

The restoration of the language is widely appealing to Travellers and efforts to pass the language from generation to generation have been affected by the imposition of legislation which prevented Travellers from practicing their nomadic tradition. This imposed settlement of the majority of the community disrupted the pattern of intergenerational legacy but continues to form part of the language custom of the nuclear and extended family.

Full restoration and revival have become a more important feature since recognition of Travellers as an ethnic minority group (March 2017) and highlights the need to elevate this indigenous minority language with adequate resources and reinstate its place within the community and amongst younger community members.

In a study by researcher Alice Binchy (Travellers Language ‘A Heritage Ahead’, Pavee Point 1995) two groups of Traveller parents stood out as the most likely to pass on the language. Traveller families who still manage to hang on to the traditional Traveller lifestyle – being nomadic and living in traditional family groups. These Traveller families continue to use Cant in the traditional way. The second group is Travellers who see the language as an important element in their ethnic identity. This group want to see Cant available in schools and who are in favour of classes in Cant for their children. There are now examples of songs being written in Cant, for example. Lashun Gatna (Beautiful Child) by Jack Delaney, 2013.

Contact organisation

Meath Travellers Workshop

Related and supporting organisations

Irish Traveller Movement

Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre

About the Inventory

Ireland’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage exists to promote, protect and celebrate Ireland’s living cultural heritage. It provides official State recognition of cultural practices all around Ireland.

Contact Info

23 Kildare Street Dublin 2

Phone: +3531 6313822

E-mail: [email protected]

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies
• 3rd Party Cookies

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Mincéirí - Port Láirge

The meaning of Irish Traveller Cant

Accommodation

Notice board, human rights, heritage & culture, presentations & submissions, press releases, publications.

Mincéirí Port Láirge » Heritage & Culture » GammonCant

A brief look at Ireland lesser understood linguistic sibling by Oein  DeBhairduin

GammonCant for the Travelling community a language is called various names and titles, influenced mainly by which family line or cluster a Traveller comes from. Some title it Gammon (Gamin) or Cant (Minceirtoiree / Traveller Talk) and it is known as ‘Shelta’ within academic circles. Since 2019 it has been listed on the UNESCO (The United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisations) Irish Inventory of intangible culture as a means of both recognise its importance towards the cultural fabric if Ireland but also a means of safeguarding it’s preservation and future use.

This history of the language is both complex and plain and for the same reason; one that is that largely that the history of the language is yet to be written.

What we do however have in abundance are theories, theories of origins, or adaptation, of social changes and of secrecy, theories of trade carriers and ancient bards as well as theories of more recent deliberate linguistic construction.

What I would stress however as we take a slight exploration through a beautiful inheritance and form of communication is that these theories should not be used as tools of validation, of implications pf worth and the weight that words can and indeed does have within the community but as a means to navigate those spaces, when and why they may of arisen and allow us to embrace the reality that regardless of specific and identifiable resource points, that the language is here, it does exist and is intrinsically entwined with the identities, heritage and expressions of the community – acting as both a custodian of understandings and a way to remain linked, not just with each other but so many who have come before us.

Let’s first look at when the language was ‘discovered’ and you may notice the word discovered a lot through research on the language and it’s recordings. This will I am sure also alter you to one of the main principles that we have within the language, that rightly or wrongly the language was mostly recorded, be it for cultural voyeurism or thankful preservation, by the wider community, rather than the community itself.

Like the fallacy of being a secret language, rather than one that is mostly used as an internal, closed community practice, it gives the platform of the language to one that is settled-normative in nature rat her then aware that to the people using it, it was neither a surprise to them that they were speaking it nor a secret that they possessed it amongst themselves.

The first known recordings of the language comes from 1874 when a folklorist known as Charles Godfrey Leland met with an Irish Traveller on a beach in Bath in England, who was busily grinding and sharpening knives and was surprised to discover he spoke a language that Leland had not come across before. He believed at the time that he had discovered a fifth Celtic language and news of his discovery quickly spread gaining much interest within the linguistic spaces.

These discussions should also be viewed via the lenses of the period and the socio-economic status of the speakers and those who had interest, or at least theory of the language, its use, origins and at times, worth.

Father early studies commenced on the language, Lealand (1874, 1907) Sampson’s (1891) folksongs and Meyer (1909) lists of words, along with Padraig Mac Greine who also recorded and published his work (1936) in the state funded Irish folklore commission as well as his local newspaper. This interest and process ahs continued to modern day, including a PhD thesis and study by Maria Rieder ‘An ethnographic exploration of the Irish Travellers and their Cant language’.

Much of the early studies and recordings bring about fractious spaces and irregularities for many reasons. Most of the early recordings were direct word transcriptions, which lack the nuances and subtleties of language and meaning(s), those who were recording were not familiar or able to speak Irish, in which was the context in which the language arose from and that there was not then, nor now, a sense of standardisation of recording.

Intergenerational use and the foundations on how the language was used and might be used in a contemporary setting was also only lightly considered – the application of approach, that considered the language a secret one, used mostly in the dealings with the wider community, rather something of the community with its own cultural heritage and belonging, gave much credence to the idea that Gammon-cant, the language of Travellers was in fact, considered, mostly to be about those of the wider community and the spaces in which both communities interacted.

This understanding, hat has been preserved in the theories of the origins of secrecy has done the language a great disservice and shifts the ownership from the Traveller collective to that of the wider community. Continued research, debate and review amongst Travellers continue to unravel this idea.

We must also consider that no language is static and unaffected by both the world around those who speak it, but also the languages of others in which they interact with – and this is the same for Gammon-cant, which shows Irish loan words, reclaimed Old Irish words and even those found in carved Ogham script.

• Gópa ‘a pocket’ (Irish; póca)
• Ngeacca/neaca ‘a tin can’ (Irish; canna)
• Niukal ‘a candle’ (Irish; coinneal)
• Gloch/gleoch ‘a (young) man’ (Irish; óglach ‘a hero/champion/soldier’)
• Karb ‘Old woman’ (Old Irish; Carb ‘Grandmother)
• Olomi ‘Night’ (Ogham script; Olomi ‘Night’)

To do the language justice I feel we must also see it within the wider language context and history of Ireland. Due to colonization and the shifting perceptions of English being the language of progression and Irish being that of the lesser classes, alongside a whole punitive education system that restricted and punished forms and uses of Irish, the use of indigenous language use within the country was greatly affected with a large amount of the population shifting from primary Irish languages to that of a singular English use.

This lead to a deliberate and sustained campaigns from the Irish government, and Irish speaking communities, since the foundation of the state in the support of the Irish languages and sadly Gammon-cant has not traditionally being among this movement or consideration of support and fortification.

We also lack a comprehensive and community led reviews, collections and state supported platform for debate, engagement, and teaching, as often when in a state of crisis and oppression, the objectives of cultural inheritance is secondary to the basic life preservation factors such as accommodation and access to health care. This however does not mean that we are without resources and opportunities.

In 2018 at the Irish Traveller Movements AGM a motion was passed in support of the celebration, use and teaching of the language and early the next year it was used during the speech of then Taoiseach Enda Kenny in the recognition of Traveller Ethnicity. From the ITM motion a small working group entitled ‘Tome Tari’ was formed that met on several occasions to explore the use and share co-operatively in a Traveller only space. There is much hope that post pandemic that the group will reform and continue the much needed work.

There exists a growing amount of Travellers who are seeking to reclaim the elder traditions, including an increased fluency within the language, it’s presence on social media is increasing as is it use within the wider community and several policy papers. We stand at a threshold where a more ingrained revival can take place and I do believe will through the enduring strength and veracity of the Travelling people.

Extra Resources

Some accessible online dictionaries and additional spaces to explore.

• Jack Delaney Live – A Celebration of Traveller Music
• Anne Marie Ward singing in Traveller Cant
• Our Status, Our Language – Cant

CULTURE AND IDENTITY

Promoting and celebrating the distinct culture, identity, history and heritage of the Traveller and Roma communities in Co Donegal.

• Traveller identity, culture, and tradition – hallmarks of the Traveller community – continue to make major contributions to Irish society
• While there is wide diversity within the Traveller community among Travellers’ shared cultural elements are language, music, a tight-knit community, nomadism, big families and a commitment to the extended family, religion, respect for older people, caravans, horses, and a number of crafts, including the making of colourful flowers with paper, tinsmithing, and hawking.
• Travellers have their own language, Cant – also known as Gammon or Shelta – which is a key element of Traveller heritage.
• Travellers brought music, songs and stories from town to town and also developed their own unique styles of singing, storytelling, and playing musical instruments.
• Roma are residents and citizens of countries all across Europe so there is no single Roma culture although they share a bond of nomadism and discrimination with each other and with the Traveller community.

ONGOING WORK

• We develop local initiatives and participate in regional and national events which promote collective confidence in Traveller and Roma pride and identity in Co Donegal.
• In 2021/2022 our Still Here Still Proud initiative celebrated the distinct culture, identity and history of the Traveller community post the COVID pandemic.
• The annual Traveller Pride event provides an opportunity to celebrate Traveller history and culture with a wider audience .
• Regular initiatives for the Roma community including tapestry and quilting workshops with local artists celebrate a distinct aspect of Roma culture and bring the community together in a creative setting.
• DTP works closely with culture and arts settings such as Donegal County museum and the Regional Cultural Centre to host exhibitions. In 2022, exhibition on Roma genocide in World War 2 at the Donegal County Museum shone a spotlight on a little known and dark period of Roma history. The same venue hosted the Still Here Still Proud photographic exhibition which celebrated Traveller lives in Co Donegal.
• We work to manage and deliver a communications strategy that promotes and raises awareness of the Traveller and Roma communities in Donegal and Ireland.

• Words, Language & Grammar

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Return this item for free

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Irish Traveller Language: An Ethnographic and Folk-Linguistic Exploration (Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities) Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2018 Edition

Purchase options and add-ons.

• ISBN-10 3030095622
• ISBN-13 978-3030095628
• Edition Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2018
• Publication date February 8, 2019
• Part of series Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities
• Language English
• Dimensions 5.83 x 0.65 x 8.27 inches
• Print length 285 pages
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

About the author.

Maria Rieder is Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research is focused on discursive constructions of social and economic inequality. She has published on issues of minority communities and languages, economic discourse in the press, social movements and intercultural communication, specifically focusing on the role of language in the production of power differences and social conflict.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Palgrave Macmillan; Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2018 edition (February 8, 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 285 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 3030095622
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-3030095628
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.3 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.83 x 0.65 x 8.27 inches

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

No customer reviews

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

‘A vast majority of people have no idea who Travellers actually are’

A new initiative aims to preserve and promote the travelling community’s heritage.

At the launch of the Mincéiri Archives at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks, Dublin, were Sebastian Aird, Lily Celic and Danielle Lee (all 12), from Shellybanks Educate Together National School, Sandymount, Dublin. Photograph: Justin Farrelly

A compilation of stories collected from Traveller elders has been published as part of an initiative to preserve and promote the heritage of the Travelling community.

The Mincéirí Archives is an audiovisual project focusing on the lived experiences of the Mincéirí, also known as Irish Travellers, through a compilation of oral histories and narratives.

Because Traveller history is not a compulsory part of the school curriculum in Ireland, the Mincéirí Archives aim to provide an education tool for primary schools, ensuring that future generations of Irish children have opportunity to grow up with a greater understanding and respect for the community.

The project was developed by the National Museum of Ireland in partnership with representatives of Ireland’s Travelling community, a group of historians and advertising agency TBWA Dublin.

Dublin-New York portal to undergo ‘technical’ changes to tackle ‘inappropriate behaviour’

Company director has almost €9m debt written off for €50,000

Ireland’s ‘sick’ car insurance system: A scrape involving two drivers who know each other turns ‘nasty’

Quiet quitting: Why should an employee doing the job they are paid to do and then going home be a problem?

The collection currently consists of 10 videos, with more planned, to highlight the contributions of the Traveller community to Irish art, music and sport, as well as its language and traditions.

If it’s good enough for our children to learn about the settled way of life, it should be good enough for settled people to learn the Travellers’ way of life —   Chrissie Donoghue Ward, Traveller

Only 10 per cent of the Traveller population is over the age of 65, and according to the last census there were only five over the age of 85, according to Oein DeBhairduin, Traveller cultural collections officer at the National Museum of Ireland and a member of the Traveller community.

“At the moment, there’s no direct initiative to incorporate our history among the history of the island,” he says., “We have a shared history, so if we’re not part of the history that’s being taught, we’re being taught an erroneous thing.

[  Songlines review: Traveller singer Thomas McCarthy explores a painful history through song  ]

“We’re being taught a remodelling of the history ... and a vast majority of people have no idea who Travellers actually are. They know about issues and trauma and isolation, mental health, accommodation – but what do people know about our culture?”

DeBhairduin says extra effort must be made to teach people about Traveller history and culture, and that the Mincéirí Archives will give teachers and parents tools to teach children.

Traveller elder Paddy Quilligan, from Newcastle West, Co Limerick, at the launch of the Mincéiri Archives at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks Dublin. Photograph: Justin Farrelly

Another factor DeBhairduin was conscious of during the process was that when Travellers are looked up online, “you’d probably find all the negativity, you don’t actually see us”.

“When we were looking at the Mincéirí Archive, it’s just a start, and I thought, what a wonderful way to start it, to ensure our elder voices were the first thing that were on it, and I think that’ll really anchor it and give people that exposure, that richness, and also the younger community members [the chance] to reconnect,” DeBhairduin says.

Chrissie Donoghue Ward, one of the elders who took part in the video series, says often passed history she learned from her mother down to her own children, and that this tradition is very important to her.

“It should be spread in schools and high places, even for the Government – [the Mincéirí Archives] should even be in there for training them,” she says.

“Travellers aren’t even taught their own culture in the schools, and they’re reading settled-people books, and they’re reading about settled people, but the Travellers are not even reading about themselves; now the settled people are not reading about Traveller children in school either.

[  Traveller culture is set to join the school curriculum. What could lessons look like?  ]

“So if it’s good enough for our children to learn about the settled way of life, it should be good enough for settled people to learn the Travellers’ way of life,” Donoghue Ward says.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that members of the Travelling community are probably the most disadvantaged minority in our country today, if we look at things as simple as life expectancy and access to education,” says Niall Callan, of Shellybanks Educate Together National School in Dublin’s Sandymount, who has been involved in the project.

Childrenat Shellybanks learn about the history of ethnic discrimination against the Travelling community, he says. “But the really important consideration here, and it’s something that teachers really need to think about and look at, is that the children are learning about the Traveller experience as a negative one, it’s all through the lens of discrimination and I suppose the deprivations that members of that community have faced,” Callan says.

It means that if teachers want to teach about Traveller culture, they have somewhere to go, they have really good, thought-provoking resources —   Niall Callan, Shellybanks Educate Together National School, on the Mincéirí Archives

“Often when you’re learning about equality and discrimination, whichever minority group you’re talking about, there does tend to be the focus on the negative, it’s on the struggle, the difficulties that group has faced rather than a celebration of their uniqueness and culture.

“I think that’s something that the Mincéirí Archives is trying to do ...,Traveller culture is not all about discrimination, the Travelling people have a rich and unique cultural perspective to offer us, and here it is children, now you get to listen to it, to experience it,” he says.

At the launch of the Mincéiri Archives at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks Dublin were Lynn Scarff (director, National Musuem of Ireland) and Martin Ward (creator, Mincéiri Archives). Photograph: Justin Farrelly

Callan adds that, to date, he has not come across any history textbooks which reference Travellers.

“The problem is, if it’s not in the history book, it’s up to you to go and find that resource, and where are those resources about the Travelling community? You’ll get a few on the National Museum’s website, and obviously the Traveller organisations like Pavee Point that you can go to, but there’s not a lot out there,” he says.

“So that’s why a resource like this, the Mincéirí Archives, is brilliant, because there it is, and it means that if teachers want to teach about Traveller culture, they have somewhere to go, they have really good, thought-provoking resources.”

Dr Hannagh McGinley, the third Traveller to be awarded a PhD in the history of the State, and who works as an education officer at the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment on adding Traveller history and culture to school curriculums, also welcomes the archives.

[  ‘I became a role model’: Mother completes the third-level journey only 1.4% of her community makes  ]

“I think it’s a really good idea, I suppose one of my greatest regrets as a Traveller myself was not capturing some of the stories from my own grandmother and grandparents, and they’re gone, and so it’s too late,” Dr McGinley says.

“Even stuff like their use of the language was amazing ... at the time, as a child, I didn’t even know it was a language, I just thought we were speaking gibberish, so I wish I had known to capture all of those things.

“I think it’s such – once it’s gone, it’s gone, and given the oral nature and the oral tradition of the community, I think capturing those stories is really, really important.”

• Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
• Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
• Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis

Ellen O’Donoghue

Ellen O'Donoghue is an Irish Times journalist

IN THIS SECTION

‘did you see anyone you knew’: an irish emigrant peers into the new york-dublin portal, forget rules and make your own: four women’s tips for ageless dressing, nature doesn’t care that your carefully nurtured seedlings want to be outside – it’s still prepared to be brutal, how to be self-disciplined: ‘choose what you want most over what you want now’, motion on baptism of children of unmarried mothers defeated as burke family interrupt church of ireland synod, ‘i lost €1,000 in cash on the way to the bank to lodge it. someone in dún laoghaire had a big win that day’, owners of firm paid near €20m to accommodate asylum seekers convicted of tax offences, latest stories, man (20s) due in court over fatal stabbing in sallins, gearóid white’s scoring exhibition helps kerry see off cork to take munster honours, garda takes court challenge over finding she breached internal discipline, manchester united failed to fix old trafford roof despite knowledge of leaks.

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Information
• Cookie Settings
• Community Standards