School: Borris (C.)
- Location:
- Borris, Co. Carlow
- Teacher: Bean Uí Loinneáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0904, Page 461
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Borris (C.)
- XML Page 461
- XML “Travelling Folk”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- (continued from previous page)the women come to our doors selling all kinds of tin-ware. They also trade in asses and often on a fair day carry on a "Swap" business with the farmers.
Another tribe we often see are the Connors. Being rivals of the Dorans in trade the two tribes seldom meet and part without a fight. A third band of tinkers to patronige us are the Cashes. It is commonly believed in this district, that the tinkers of our land are the descendants of the old Irish gentry who, during the bad old penal days, were hunted from their homes and ordered to go "To Hell or to Connaught".
The other travellers best known locally are "Pat the whistler", "Andy the jock", Pat Dawson, the old schoolmaster", The Respectable Girl", "The fiddler and his sister the concertina player" and "Old Mary". Murrays of Courtnellan and Murphys of Oldbeg are very kind to the "Knights and Ladies of the Road"-they allow them to sit at the kitchen fire and then provide them with shelter in a comfortable out house for the night.
