IRISH TRAVELERS - Experts shed light on reclusive, nomadic clans that roam the country

Associated Press ... live news feed | September 25, 2002 | LISA FALKENBERG

[NYer]

What the clans in the culture do share, Otway said, is a nomadic lifestyle, a language called ``Scelta'' with roots in Gaelic and Romani, an almost ``pathologic'' devotion to Catholicism, and an anti-bureaucratic form of self government that he describes as a ``consensus democracy.''

Have any of you encountered these people at mass?

[EggsAckley]

I think I HAVE encountered people like these, but not as Catholics, and not in the East. Right here in California, and about 35 years ago. I was living in a small house on a lot with a larger house, and there were about twelve people living there. I was never able to discern who "belonged" to whom; they were all just "there."

They had a decidedly "midwestern" air about them; sort of like offspring of the "dust bowl" immigrants of the thirties. One morning they were just gone. Vanished.

Upon inspecting the "garage" areas, we found thousands of cancelled checks, and unwritten checkbooks, with hundreds of different names. It was very weird.

[ofMagog]

Click on Gypsy Criminal Groups at left. The entire site is a keeper.

[Aquinasfan]

an almost ``pathologic'' devotion to Catholicism

AP connects the dots:

1) Pathologic devotion to Catholicism = devout Catholic

2) Pathologic devotion to Catholicism = nomadic theif

3) Devout Catholic = nomadic thief.

Q.E.D.

[Desdemona]

No. Can't say that I have. Although, I do know a fair number of people of Irish heritage who have gaudy or plainly bad taste (one of my grandmothers for one).

Is this the American version of gypsies?

[Lil'freeper]

Hancock and other academics said they believe Toogood's case has been sensationalized by the media because of her ethnicity.

Arggggh, it has nothing to do with ethnicity! It's the violence, the crime. Duh, Mr. Hancock. Liberal academic types just can't drop their race card mentalities.

[Andyman]

This lady is Catholic like "Catholics for Choice" are Catholic.

[Kermit]

"Hancock and other academics said they believe Toogood's case has been sensationalized by the media because of her ethnicity."

Boy, oh boy! Playing the race card. From my tv news sources: CNN, MSNBC and Fox, they all ignored her Irish Traveller connection, except for the past couple of days on Fox.

[Wurlitzer]

Travelers are like gypsies. Either one can follow you into a revolving door and come out in front of you.

[paul51]

Very cool the way that page opens and closes

[Kazuki]

I don't know if my facts are correct, but I think I saw a "Dateline NBC" or some other "newsmagazine" show do a story on "Travellers", such as seem to be described here. It also included a pagent-like event where young girls were dressed IMHO as 20's flapper girls and paraded around to be considered for future matramonial prospects. If this was a different group of "travellers", please forgive me. If not, this treating of young girls as virtual property shows how this kind of beating could be seen as okay, and all those saying she should go to a family member need to think again.

[Desdemona]

So, are they anything like the gypsies on the Paris Metro? I had to slap a hand once when it found its way into my purse, which was purposefully empty.

[DWPittelli]

Hancock and other academics said they believe Toogood's case has been sensationalized by the media because of her ethnicity. ``As bad as what she did, and it's inexcusable, I still think there's an awful lot of profiling going on,'' Hancock said. ``Very much is being made of her ethnic background. If she were German American or Italian American, would that even be an issue?''

Of all the scurrilous crap for them to end the story with. If the "case has been sensationalized by the media" it's because it's on video. Any beating on video, especially of an apparent innocent (like, most clearly, a 4-year-old) is going to get a lot of airplay.

Now, because most people have never even heard of her ethnic background (and I would argue that Irish Travelers are a behavioural subset of an ethnicity), it gets some mention. But that's not "profiling." Obviously, she wasn't videotaped because of ethnic profiling or bigotry on the part of the mall, and she wasn't looked for or arrained because of her ethnicity either.

[stop_fascism]

Children are beaten to death every day, and it never gets any attention. It seems to me that it wasn't the violence or the crime, it was the video camera.

[Oregon W.oman]

What the article should have pointed out was that they are devoted to a perverted distortion of Catholicism which permits them to steal by direct permission from Jesus. From what I've read, they are not affiliated with any church and they pass the cult on through oral teaching from generation to generation.

[Lil'freeper]

That too!

[DWPittelli]

Travelers, who may be Irish, English, or Scottish, have no more criminals among them than any other ethnic culture, experts said. ``If there were, they could not sustain their living,'' said Larry Otway

Oh come on. Any nomadic, insular society will have more criminals precisely because such a lifestyle makes detection much less likely. This is the same reason the anonymity of the city allows for more con-men and other criminals who face their victim, whereas stable, non-nomadic, smaller societies will have very few con-men, robbers and other visible criminals, because people know each other, where they live and how to find them.

[ofMagog]

Toogood's "confession" is a part of their culture as defined in the above link:

"Regarding non-Gypsy law: They are obeyed but they are not complied with. Gypsies never fight against constituted authority; they simply agree to do what they are told to do, pretend to accept the assumptions of the stronger party and then, in their time-honored way, they keep on doing what they have always done..."

[Wurlitzer]

"So, are they anything like the gypsies on the Paris Metro? I had to slap a hand once when it found its way into my purse, which was purposefully empty. "

You are obviously a smart person to have emptied you purse. I don't know enough about either group to say anything other than they have more than their share of Con-Men and Con-Women.