School: Baile an Doire (roll number 16410)

Location:
Ballinderry, Co. Galway
Teacher:
Tomás Ó Maolmhichíl
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0021, Page 0247

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0021, Page 0247

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Baile an Doire
  2. XML Page 0247
  3. XML “Tramps”

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

  1. Tramps are not as plentiful now as they were long ago. About sixty year ago you would see two or three going around from house to house and from school to school every day of the week. Every house they would go into they would either get food or money.
    There was a man going around by the name of "Scamhóg". He was a very tall man. He had no sense at all. He was half a fool, but he was well able to beg. The people used to get great fun out of him.
    At about the same time there was a woman going around that they called "Brighid a Chórn". She was very poor. She did not wear any boots, but she wore long stockings without any soles. They called them "troighthimh". She used to let on that she had no sense but she was as well able to go as "Scamhóg".
    There was another man in Tuam called "Tom a Cáca." He used to go up and down the town every day, and everyone he would see, he would say
    "Give a penny to poor Tom".
    I got this information from Mrs. Cullinan, Corofin, Ballyglunin, Co. Galway
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. agents (~1)
      1. people by social grouping
        1. travellers (~3,023)
    Language
    English
    Informant
    Mrs Cullinan
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Corrofin, Co. Galway