School: Feilm (roll number 10786)

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   “The traveling folk come a few times in the year.”

   

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   The traveling folk come a few times in the year. They are very poor. The same families come all the time. Some of them sell collar buttons and little pictures and others sell cans, saucepans, and asses. They buy collar buttons and holly pictures in towns. They come out through the country and sell those articles at double price.
   They make cans and saucepans themselves. The people do not like to see them coming because they let their horses into people's fields. Some of them stay a night and others stay a few weeks. They beg for their food, they beg for tea, sugar, butter, and eggs. Some tinkers have vans and other tents.
   They make the tents with bags and sticks. They set up their tents on the side of the road. They travel on foot when they are begging. The tinkers travel in families and bands. The names of those who visit the district most frequently are Mac Donaghs, Mongans, Stokes, and O Reilleys.
   The thinkers come mostly in spring, they tell a lot of stories. All boys and girls gather around to hear them telling stories, playing music, dancing. If the men go some place and the women do not know where they are gone, the men put clay on the road at every turn. When two tinkers are getting married they go to no church but jump over a twig.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Patrick Finnerty

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   79

   Address

   Farm, Co. Galway