School: Bilboa (C.) (roll number 15693)
- Location:
- Bilboa, Co. Limerick
- Teacher: Síle, Bean Uí Raghallaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0519, Page 090
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- XML School: Bilboa (C.)
- XML Page 090
- XML “Travelling Folk”
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- Travelling folk called tinkers and gipsies visit my home yet. The same people have been doing so for many years. Some of them are very poor and some of them are not.The tinkers sell a lot of small things made of tin such as mugs, covers of pipes, basins and collanders. They usually have a lot of asses which they sell and swap at the farmhouses or at the fairs. Some people buy from them and others do not. They ask in the shops for empty tins which they convert into articles for sale. These people are not generally welcome for they annoy the people asking for everything they see. The tinkers camp on the side of the road in Doomsally and sleep under the car. Some of them remain longer than one night in the same place. The gipsies sell wickerwork tables and baskets and lace. The gipsy women tell fortunes. They sleep in their caravans or in campers or the side of the road. The alms they accept are coppers or a pinch of tea or a grain of sugar or a stale log.Some of them travel on foot and others by ass and car. They travel in families.The tinker clans who frequent this parish are red-haired or fair-haired and fair-skinned. They have blue eyes and freckled faces. The gipsies have brown skin, dark hair and dark eyes. They are foreign-looking. Both tinkers and gipsies speak(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Mary Smee
- Gender
- Female
