Travelling Folk

transcribed at

Travelling Folk  [duchas:5001201]

"Travelling people" still call to the local houses, and they have been doing it for years.  Mrs. Connors, Mickey Connors and their family are the most common "travelling people" in this district and they were well-off farmers at one time but they had to give up their farms.

They sell small articles such as tea-drawers, quarts, pints, gallons, mirrors and laces.  Sometimes the local people buy from them and they usually charge a few pence more than the shop prices.  They usually make the tea-drawers, quarts, pints, and gallons themselves, and they buy the mirrors in the shops.

The Connors family is in most houses welcome, as it is a decent family, but other parties are very annoying and they often cause such a disturbance that they are seldom given anything.  Sometimes they go from place to place and stay for a few days in each place, but other times they go away the same day as they come.  Sometimes they put canvas over their

Travelling Folk  [duchas:5001202]

carts and sleep under them.  Other times they sleep under the carts, and they often sleep under canvas, which they put over the shafts of the carts.  Sometimes they bring some food with them and at other times they beg at the houses for some.  At the farmers houses these "travelling people" beg for money, tea, sugar, milk, and bread and butter.  Sometimes they ask for the price of tea, and they often ask for the price of drink.  In some houses they beg for clothes.

Very seldom these people are seen travelling on foot but they drive in pony carts and the poor ones travel in donkey-carts.  They travel in families and bands, each family consisting of about ten people and each band consisting of about fifty people.

The best known "travelling people" in this district are Connors, Cashes, and Berrys.  They mostly visit it at Christmas, in the Summer, at Easter and for the "pattern" and fair days.

Some of the parties bring stories from different places such as those stories about the "banshee" and the

Travelling Folk  [duchas:5001203]

local people used to go to their camps to hear them but they do not do it at present.