School: Knockcommon (roll number 16549)

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1. Travelling Folk (continued)

   

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   three or four days in the one place, or perhaps only one day. The travellers usually pitch their tents on the roadside. Then the children gather sticks with which is lit a good fire. A kettle or perhaps a can o water is put on the blaze while some of the family visit the houses nearby for food or milk. The food is then collected and the family sit down on the grass and do justice to their scanty meal.
   The usual things that travellers ask for are bread, tea, sugar, milk, old clothes, bacon and sometimes flour. When they want bacon they nearly always say "Would you have a bit of broken bacon to grease a head of cabbage". If they receive what they ask they usually say "God bless you". Once upon a time a poor woman came to our house and when she received her alms she said, "God bless you, that you may live long and die soon".
   Some of the "tinkers" travel on foot, others on carts and caravans. The people who travel in caravans are called gypsies. These are the best off because the caravans are as comfortable as houses. The travellers on the carts bring the material for their camps with them, while the foot travellers seek shelter in a shed.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. agents (~1)
      1. people by social grouping
         1. travellers (~3,023)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Josephine Dwyer

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Rathdrinagh, Co. Meath