are english travellers romani

Gypsy Roma and Traveller History and Culture

Gypsy Roma and Traveller people belong to minority ethnic groups that have contributed to British society for centuries. Their distinctive way of life and traditions manifest themselves in nomadism, the centrality of their extended family, unique languages and entrepreneurial economy. It is reported that there are around 300,000 Travellers in the UK and they are one of the most disadvantaged groups. The real population may be different as some members of these communities do not participate in the census .

The Traveller Movement works predominantly with ethnic Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller Communities.

Irish Travellers and Romany Gypsies

Irish Travellers

Traditionally, Irish Travellers are a nomadic group of people from Ireland but have a separate identity, heritage and culture to the community in general. An Irish Traveller presence can be traced back to 12th century Ireland, with migrations to Great Britain in the early 19th century. The Irish Traveller community is categorised as an ethnic minority group under the Race Relations Act, 1976 (amended 2000); the Human Rights Act 1998; and the Equality Act 2010. Some Travellers of Irish heritage identify as Pavee or Minceir, which are words from the Irish Traveller language, Shelta.

Romany Gypsies

Romany Gypsies have been in Britain since at least 1515 after migrating from continental Europe during the Roma migration from India. The term Gypsy comes from “Egyptian” which is what the settled population perceived them to be because of their dark complexion. In reality, linguistic analysis of the Romani language proves that Romany Gypsies, like the European Roma, originally came from Northern India, probably around the 12th century. French Manush Gypsies have a similar origin and culture to Romany Gypsies.

There are other groups of Travellers who may travel through Britain, such as Scottish Travellers, Welsh Travellers and English Travellers, many of whom can trace a nomadic heritage back for many generations and who may have married into or outside of more traditional Irish Traveller and Romany Gypsy families. There were already indigenous nomadic people in Britain when the Romany Gypsies first arrived hundreds of years ago and the different cultures/ethnicities have to some extent merged.

Number of Gypsies and Travellers in Britain

This year, the 2021 Census included a “Roma” category for the first time, following in the footsteps of the 2011 Census which included a “Gypsy and Irish Traveller” category. The 2021 Census statistics have not yet been released but the 2011 Census put the combined Gypsy and Irish Traveller population in England and Wales as 57,680. This was recognised by many as an underestimate for various reasons. For instance, it varies greatly with data collected locally such as from the Gypsy Traveller Accommodation Needs Assessments, which total the Traveller population at just over 120,000, according to our research.

Other academic estimates of the combined Gypsy, Irish Traveller and other Traveller population range from 120,000 to 300,000. Ethnic monitoring data of the Gypsy Traveller population is rarely collected by key service providers in health, employment, planning and criminal justice.

Where Gypsies and Travellers Live

Although most Gypsies and Travellers see travelling as part of their identity, they can choose to live in different ways including:

  • moving regularly around the country from site to site and being ‘on the road’
  • living permanently in caravans or mobile homes, on sites provided by the council, or on private sites
  • living in settled accommodation during winter or school term-time, travelling during the summer months
  • living in ‘bricks and mortar’ housing, settled together, but still retaining a strong commitment to Gypsy/Traveller culture and traditions

Currently, their nomadic life is being threatened by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, that is currently being deliberated in Parliament, To find out more or get involved with opposing this bill, please visit here

Although Travellers speak English in most situations, they often speak to each other in their own language; for Irish Travellers this is called Cant or Gammon* and Gypsies speak Romani, which is the only indigenous language in the UK with Indic roots.

*Sometimes referred to as “Shelta” by linguists and academics

are english travellers romani

New Travellers and Show People

There are also Traveller groups which are known as ‘cultural’ rather than ‘ethnic’ Travellers. These include ‘new’ Travellers and Showmen. Most of the information on this page relates to ethnic Travellers but ‘Showmen’ do share many cultural traits with ethnic Travellers.

Show People are a cultural minority that have owned and operated funfairs and circuses for many generations and their identity is connected to their family businesses. They operate rides and attractions that can be seen throughout the summer months at funfairs. They generally have winter quarters where the family settles to repair the machinery that they operate and prepare for the next travelling season. Most Show People belong to the Showmen’s Guild which is an organisation that provides economic and social regulation and advocacy for Show People. The Showman’s Guild works with both central and local governments to protect the economic interests of its members.

The term New Travellers refers to people sometimes referred to as “New Age Travellers”. They are generally people who have taken to life ‘on the road’ in their own lifetime, though some New Traveller families claim to have been on the road for three consecutive generations. The New Traveller culture grew out of the hippie and free-festival movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

Barge Travellers are similar to New Travellers but live on the UK’s 2,200 miles of canals. They form a distinct group in the canal network and many are former ‘new’ Travellers who moved onto the canals after changes to the law made the free festival circuit and a life on the road almost untenable. Many New Travellers have also settled into private sites or rural communes although a few groups are still travelling.

If you are a new age Traveller and require support please contact Friends, Families, and Travellers (FFT) .

Differences and Values

Differences Between Gypsies, Travellers, and Roma

Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are often categorised together under the “Roma” definition in Europe and under the acronym “GRT” in Britain. These communities and other nomadic groups, such as Scottish and English Travellers, Show People and New Travellers, share a number of characteristics in common: the importance of family and/or community networks; the nomadic way of life, a tendency toward self-employment, experience of disadvantage and having the poorest health outcomes in the United Kingdom.

The Roma communities also originated from India from around the 10th/ 12th centuries and have historically faced persecution, including slavery and genocide. They are still marginalised and ghettoised in many Eastern European countries (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania etc) where they are often the largest and most visible ethnic minority group, sometimes making up 10% of the total population. However, ‘Roma’ is a political term and a self-identification of many Roma activists. In reality, European Roma populations are made up of various subgroups, some with their own form of Romani, who often identify as that group rather than by the all-encompassing Roma identity.

Travellers and Roma each have very different customs, religion, language and heritage. For instance, Gypsies are said to have originated in India and the Romani language (also spoken by Roma) is considered to consist of at least seven varieties, each a language in their own right.

Values and Culture of GRT Communities

Family, extended family bonds and networks are very important to the Gypsy and Traveller way of life, as is a distinct identity from the settled ‘Gorja’ or ‘country’ population. Family anniversaries, births, weddings and funerals are usually marked by extended family or community gatherings with strong religious ceremonial content. Gypsies and Travellers generally marry young and respect their older generation. Contrary to frequent media depiction, Traveller communities value cleanliness and tidiness.

Many Irish Travellers are practising Catholics, while some Gypsies and Travellers are part of a growing Christian Evangelical movement.

Gypsy and Traveller culture has always adapted to survive and continues to do so today. Rapid economic change, recession and the gradual dismantling of the ‘grey’ economy have driven many Gypsy and Traveller families into hard times. The criminalisation of ‘travelling’ and the dire shortage of authorised private or council sites have added to this. Some Travellers describe the effect that this is having as “a crisis in the community” . A study in Ireland put the suicide rate of Irish Traveller men as 3-5 times higher than the wider population. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the same phenomenon is happening amongst Traveller communities in the UK.

Gypsies and Travellers are also adapting to new ways, as they have always done. Most of the younger generation and some of the older generation use social network platforms to stay in touch and there is a growing recognition that reading and writing are useful tools to have. Many Gypsies and Travellers utilise their often remarkable array of skills and trades as part of the formal economy. Some Gypsies and Travellers, many supported by their families, are entering further and higher education and becoming solicitors, teachers, accountants, journalists and other professionals.

There have always been successful Gypsy and Traveller businesses, some of which are household names within their sectors, although the ethnicity of the owners is often concealed. Gypsies and Travellers have always been represented in the fields of sport and entertainment.

How Gypsies and Travellers Are Disadvantaged

The Traveller, Gypsy, and Roma communities are widely considered to be among the most socially excluded communities in the UK. They have a much lower life expectancy than the general population, with Traveller men and women living 10-12 years less than the wider population.

Travellers have higher rates of infant mortality, maternal death and stillbirths than the general population. They experience racist sentiment in the media and elsewhere, which would be socially unacceptable if directed at any other minority community. Ofsted consider young Travellers to be one of the groups most at risk of low attainment in education.

Government services rarely include Traveller views in the planning and delivery of services.

In recent years, there has been increased political networking between the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller activists and campaign organisations.

Watch this video by Travellers Times made for Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month 2021:

are english travellers romani

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are english travellers romani

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are english travellers romani

Gypsy and Traveler Culture in America

Gypsy and Traveler Culture, History and Genealogy in America

Are you a Gypsy, Traveler or Roader, or have some ancestry in any one of such groups? This site is dedicated to you; to help you become more aware of your own rich heritage, to help preserve your traditions, language and knowledge of where you came from and who you are.

The identities of Traveling People are everywhere threatened by the flood of misinformation that is being disseminated on the web and through the popular media. This site pledges to correct such misinformation and to present an accurate and unbiased view of traveling life as it has unfolded since the your ancestors first set foot in the New World.

Preservation of your ethnic heritage and pride in your own ethnic identity are some of the most valuable assets that any parents can leave to their children and grandchildren. To be of Gypsy or Traveler background is something special, something to be treasured along with the language, customs, and cultural values embodied in a unique way of life.

If you want to learn more about your family and your ethnic group, whether you be of Cale, Hungarian-Slovak, Ludar, Rom, Romnichel or Sinti Gypsy or American (Roader), English, German, Irish or Scotch Traveler background we will provide you with an interactive forum for asking questions, finding lost relatives, guidance to accurate sources, exchanging information as well as just keeping in touch with your own kind.

To get started just send a note to ASK MATT specifying what kind of Gypsy you are and in which family background you are interested.

The foundation on which this site is built is a rich storehouse of data of every imaginable kind: documentary sources, oral histories and observations of traveling life collected in over 35 years of unpaid research by Matt and Sheila Salo. The Salos have dedicated their lives to providing a true history of traveling life in America and to dispelling the myths that are currently being spread on the web and other media.

This endeavor is based on the premise that every kind of Gypsy and Traveler has a right to his or her own identity, whatever it might be. Each of you has a unique heritage that your ancestors nurtured over centuries of hardship and persecution. Now those rich and unique identities are in danger of being lost as more and more people lose the sense of who they are; customs, language and traditional life patterns are not being passed on; some people are even becoming ashamed of their Gypsy or Traveler identities.

Again, email any specific inquiries into American Gypsy or Traveler history, culture and genealogy to Matt T. Salo at ASK MATT .

Forthcoming: This history and culture page under preparation will be divided into subject areas that you can access separately depending on your interests. If you seek information sources, have specific questions, or want to broaden your horizons by learning about other groups, we will provide the best, most accurate information available. You will not be fed speculations about Melungeons, hordes of Gypsies in Colonial America, or Gypsies and Travelers as hapless victims or criminal castes - instead all our information will be based on actual verified data that truly represents the experience of your people in America since your ancestors first arrived here.

Culture and language are not easily lost and, unless you are among those few unfortunate individuals whose parents or grandparents misguidedly tried to separate themselves and their families from their roots, you should easily be able to pick up traits of language and culture that indicate your origins. We will begin with a brief overview of the different groups to orient those among you who are not quite sure of where they belong. More detailed descriptions will follow.

Gypsy and Traveler Groups in the United States

Cale: Spanish Gypsies, or Gitanos, are found primarily in the metropolitan centers of the East and West coasts. A small community of only a few families.

English Travelers: Fairly amorphous group, possibly formed along same lines as Roaders (see below), but taking shape already in England before their emigration to the US starting in early 1880s. Associate mainly with Romnichels. Boundaries and numbers uncertain.

Hungarian-Slovak: Mainly sedentary Gypsies found primarily in the industrial cities of northern U.S. Number in few thousands. Noted for playing "Gypsy music" in cafes, night clubs and restaurants.

Irish Travelers: Peripatetic group that is ethnically Irish and does not identify itself as "Gypsy," although sometimes called "Irish Gypsies." Widely scattered, but somewhat concentrated in the southern states. Estimates vary but about 10,000 should be close to the actual numbers.

Ludar: Gypsies from the Banat area, also called Rumanian Gypsies. Arrived after 1880. Have about the same number of families as the Rom, but actual numbers are unknown.

Roaders or Roadies: Native born Americans who have led a traveling life similar to that of the Gypsies and Travelers, but who were not originally descended from those groups. Numbers unknown as not all families studied.

Rom: Gypsies of East European origin who arrived after 1880. Mostly urban, they are scattered across the entire country. One of the larger groups in the US, possibly in the 55-60,000 range.

Romnichels: English Gypsies who arrived beginning in 1850. Scattered across the entire country, but tend to be somewhat more rural than the other Gypsy groups. Many families are now on their way to being assimilated, hence estimation of numbers depends on criteria used.

Scottish Travelers: Ethnically Scottish, but separated for centuries from mainstream society in Scotland where they were known as Tinkers. Some came to Canada after 1850 and to the United States in appreciable numbers after 1880. Over 100 distinct clans have been identified but total numbers not known.

Sinti: Little studied early group of German Gypsies in the United States consisting of few families heavily assimilated with both non-Gypsy and Romnichel populations. No figures are available.

Yenisch: Mostly assimilated group of ethnic Germans, misidentified as Gypsies, who formed an occupational caste of basket makers and founded an entire community in Pennsylvania after their immigration starting 1840. Because of assimilation current numbers are impossible to determine.

This inventory leaves out several Gypsy groups that have immigrated since 1970 due to the unrest and renewed persecution in Eastern Europe after the collapse of Communism. They have come from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, the former Yugoslavian area, and possibly other countries. They number in few thousands by now, but their numbers are likely to increase.

Copyright @ 2002 Matt T. Salo

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  • Ethnicity facts and figures homepage Home

Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller ethnicity summary

Updated 29 March 2022

1. About this page

2. the gypsy, roma and traveller group, 3. classifications, 4. improving data availability and quality, 5. population data, 6. education data, 7. economic activity and employment data.

  • 8. Home ownership data data
  • 9. Health data

This is a summary of statistics about people from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller ethnic groups living in England and Wales.

It is part of a series of summaries about different ethnic groups .

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) is a term used to describe people from a range of ethnicities who are believed to face similar challenges. These groups are distinct, but are often reported together.

This page includes:

  • information about GRT data and its reliability
  • some statistics from the 2011 Census
  • other statistics on the experiences of people from the GRT groups in topics including education, housing and health

This is an overview based on a selection of data published on Ethnicity facts and figures or analyses of other sources. Some published data (for example, on higher education) is only available for the aggregated White ethnic group, and is not included here.

Through this report, we sometimes make comparisons with national averages. While in other reports we might compare with another ethnic group (usually White British), we have made this decision here because of the relatively small impact the GRT group has on the overall national average.

The term Gypsy, Roma and Traveller has been used to describe a range of ethnic groups or people with nomadic ways of life who are not from a specific ethnicity.

In the UK, it is common in data collections to differentiate between:

  • Gypsies (including English Gypsies, Scottish Gypsies or Travellers, Welsh Gypsies and other Romany people)
  • Irish Travellers (who have specific Irish roots)
  • Roma, understood to be more recent migrants from Central and Eastern Europe

The term Traveller can also encompass groups that travel. This includes, but is not limited to, New Travellers, Boaters, Bargees and Showpeople. (See the House of Commons Committee report on Tackling inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities .)

For the first time, the 2011 Census ethnic group question included a tick box for the ethnic group ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’. This was not intended for people who identify as Roma because they are a distinct group with different needs to Gypsy or Irish Travellers.

The 2021 Census had a ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’ category, and a new ‘Roma’ category.

A 2018 YouGov poll found that 66% of people in the UK wrongly viewed GRT not to be an ethnic group, with many mistaking them as a single group (PDF). It is therefore important that GRT communities are categorised correctly on data forms, using separate tick boxes when possible to reflect this.

The 2011 Census figures used in this report and on Ethnicity facts and figures are based on respondents who chose to identify with the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group. People who chose to write in Roma as their ethnicity were allocated to the White Other group, and data for them is not included here. Other data, such as that from the Department for Education, includes Roma as a category combined with Gypsy, with Irish Traveller shown separately.

The commentary in this report uses the specific classifications in each dataset. Users should exercise caution when comparing different datasets, for example between education data (which uses Gypsy/Roma, and Irish Traveller in 2 separate categories) and the Census (which uses Gypsy and Irish Traveller together, but excludes data for people who identify as Roma).

Finally, it should be noted that there is also a distinction that the government makes, for the purposes of planning policy, between those who travel and the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller ethnicities. The Department for Communities and Local Government (at the time, now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) planning policy for traveller sites (PDF) defines "gypsies and travellers" as:

"Persons of nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin, including such persons who on grounds only of their own or their family’s or dependants’ educational or health needs or old age have ceased to travel temporarily, but excluding members of an organised group of travelling showpeople or circus people travelling together as such."

This definition for planning purposes includes any person with a nomadic habit, whether or not they might have identified as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller in a data collection.

The April 2019 House of Commons Women and Equalities Select Committee report on inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities noted that there was a lack of data on these groups.

The next section highlights some of the problems associated with collecting data on these groups, and what is available. Some of the points made about surveys, sample sizes and administrative data are generally applicable to any group with a small population.

Improving data for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller populations, as well as other under-represented groups in the population is part of the recommendations in the Inclusive Data Taskforce report and the key activities described in the ONS response to them. For example, in response to recommendation 3 of the report, ONS, RDU and others will "build on existing work and develop new collaborative initiatives and action plans to improve inclusion of under-represented population groups in UK data in partnership with others across government and more widely".

Also, the ONS response to recommendation 4 notes the development of a range of strategies to improve the UK data infrastructure and fill data gaps to provide more granular data through new or boosted surveys and data linkage. Recommendation 6 notes that research will be undertaken using innovative methods best suited to the research question and prospective participants, to understand more about the lived experiences of several groups under-represented in UK data and evidence, such as people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups.

4.1 Classifications

In some data collections, the option for people to identify as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller is not available. Any data grouped to the 5 aggregated ethnic groups does not show the groups separately. Data based on the 2001 Census does not show them separately as there was no category for people identifying as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller. As part of our Quality Improvement Plan, the Race Disparity Unit (RDU) has committed to working with government departments to maintain a harmonised approach to collecting data about Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people using the GSS harmonised classification. The harmonised classification is currently based on the 2011 Census, and an update is currently being considered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In particular, RDU has identified working with DHSC and NHS Digital colleagues as a priority – the NHS classification is based on 2001 Census classifications and does not capture information on any of the GRT groups separately (they were categorised as White Other in the 2001 Census). Some of these issues have been outlined in the quarterly reports on progress to address COVID-19 health inequalities .

Research into how similar or different the aggregate ethnic groups are shows how many datasets are available for the GRT group.

Further information on the importance of harmonisation is also available.

4.2 Census data

A main source of data on the Gypsy and Irish Traveller groups is the 2011 Census. This will be replaced by the 2021 Census when results are published by the ONS. The statistics in this summary use information from Ethnicity facts and figures and the Census section of ONS’s NOMIS website.

4.3 Survey data

It is often difficult to conclude at any one point in time whether a disparity is significant for the GRT population, as the population is so small in comparison to other ethnic groups.

Even a large sample survey like the Annual Population Survey (APS) has a small number of responses from the Gypsy and Irish Traveller ethnic group each year. Analysis of 3 years of combined data for 2016, 2017 and 2018 showed there were 62 people in the sample (out of around 500,000 sampled cases in total over those 3 years) in England and Wales. Another large survey, the Department for Transport’s National Travel Survey, recorded 58 people identifying as Gypsy or Traveller out of 157,000 people surveyed between 2011 and 2019.

Small sample sizes need not be a barrier to presenting data if confidence intervals are provided to help the user. But smaller sample sizes will mean wider confidence intervals, and these will provide limited analytical value. For the 2016 to 2018 APS dataset – and using the standard error approximation method given in the LFS User Guide volume 6 with a fixed design factor of 1.6 (the formula is 1.6 * √p(1 − p)/n where p is the proportion in employment and n is the sample size.) – the employment rate of 35% for working age people in the Gypsy and Traveller group in England and Wales would be between 16% and 54% (based on a 95% confidence interval). This uses the same methodology as the ONS’s Sampling variability estimates for labour market status by ethnicity .

A further reason for smaller sample sizes might be lower response rates. The Women and Select Committee report on the inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities noted that people in these groups may be reluctant to self-identify, even where the option is available to them. This is because Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people might mistrust the intent behind data collection.

The RDU recently published a method and quality report on working out significant differences between estimates for small groups using different analytical techniques.

4.4 Administrative data

While administrative data does not suffer from the same issues of sampling variability, small numbers of respondents can mean that data is either disclosive and needs to be suppressed to protect the identity of individuals, or results can fluctuate over time.

An example of this is the measure of students getting 3 A grades or better at A level . In 2019 to 2020, no Irish Traveller students achieved this (there were 6 students in the cohort). In 2017 to 2018, 2 out of 7 Irish Traveller students achieved 3 A grades, or 28.6% – the highest percentage of all ethnic groups.

Aggregating time periods might help with this, although data collected in administrative datasets can change over time to reflect the information that needs to be collected for the administrative process. The data collected would not necessarily be governed by trying to maintain a consistent time series in the same way that data collected through surveys sometimes are.

4.5 Data linkage

Linking datasets together provides a way of producing more robust data for the GRT groups, or in fact, any ethnic group. This might improve the quality of the ethnicity coding in the dataset being analysed if an ethnicity classification that is known to be more reliable is linked from another dataset.

Data linkage does not always increase the sample size or the number of records available in the dataset to be analysed, but it might do if records that have missing ethnicity are replaced by a known ethnicity classification from a linked dataset.

An example is the linking of the Census data to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data and death registrations by the ONS. The ethnicity classifications for GRT groups are not included in the HES data, and are not collected in the death registrations process at the moment. So this data linking gives a way to provide some information for Gypsy and Irish Travellers and other smaller groups. The report with data up to 15 May 2020 noted 16 Gypsy or Irish Traveller deaths from COVID-19.

RDU will be working with ONS and others to explore the potential for using data linking to get more information for the GRT groups.

4.6 Bespoke surveys and sample boosts

A country-wide, or even local authority, boost of a sample survey is unlikely to make estimates for the GRT groups substantially more robust. This is because of the relatively small number in the groups to begin with.

Bespoke surveys can be used to get specific information about these groups. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities list of traveller sites available through their Traveller caravan count statistics can help target sampling for surveys, for example. Bespoke surveys might be limited in geographical coverage, and more suitable for understanding GRT views in a local area and then developing local policy responses. An example of a bespoke survey is the Roma and Travellers in 6 countries survey .

Another method that could be useful is snowball sampling. Snowball sampling (or chain-referral sampling) is a sampling technique in which the respondents have traits that are rare to find. In snowball sampling, existing survey respondents provide referrals to recruit further people for the survey, which helps the survey grow larger.

There are advantages to snowball sampling. It can target hidden or difficult to reach populations. It can be a good way to sample hesitant respondents, as a person might be more likely to participate in a survey if they have been referred by a friend or family member. It can also be quick and cost effective. Snowball sampling may also be facilitated with a GRT community lead or cultural mediator. This would help bridge the gap between the GRT communities and the commissioning department to encourage respondent participation.

However, one statistical disadvantage is that the sampling is non-random. This reduces the knowledge of whether the sample is representative, and can invalidate some of the usual statistical tests for statistical significance, for example.

All data in this section comes from the 2011 Census of England and Wales, unless stated otherwise.

In 2011, there were 57,680 people from the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group in England and Wales, making up 0.1% of the total population. In terms of population, it is the smallest of the 18 groups used in the 2011 Census.

Further ONS analysis of write-in responses in the Census estimated the Roma population as 730, and 1,712 people as Gypsy/Romany.

Table A: Gypsy, Roma and Traveller write-in ethnicity responses on the 2011 Census

Source: Census - Ethnic group (write-in response) Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, GypsyRomany - national to county (ONS). The figures do not add to the 57,680 classified as White: Gypsy/Traveller because Roma is included as White Other, and some people in the other categories shown will have classified themselves in an ethnic group other than White.

An ONS report in 2014 noted that variations in the definitions used for this ethnic group has made comparisons between estimates difficult. For example, some previous estimates for Gypsy or Irish Travellers have included Roma or have been derived from counts of caravans rather than people's own self-identity. It noted that other sources of data estimate the UK’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller population to be in the region of 150,000 to 300,000 , or as high as 500,000 (PDF).

5.1 Where Gypsy and Irish Traveller people live

There were 348 local authorities in England and Wales in 2011. The Gypsy or Irish Traveller population was evenly spread throughout them. The 10 local authorities with the largest Gypsy or Irish Traveller populations constituted 11.9% of the total population.

Figure 1: Percentage of the Gypsy or Irish Traveller population of England and Wales living in each local authority area (top 10 areas labelled)

Basildon was home to the largest Gypsy or Irish Traveller population, with 1.5% of all Gypsy or Irish Traveller people living there, followed by Maidstone (also 1.5%, although it had a smaller population).

Table 1: Percentage of the Gypsy or Irish Traveller population of England and Wales living in each local authority area (top 10)

28 local authorities had fewer than 20 Gypsy or Irish Traveller residents each. This is around 1 in 12 of all local authorities.

11.7% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people lived in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods , higher than the national average of 9.9% (England, 2019 Indices of Multiple Deprivation).

81.6% of people from the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group were born in England, and 6.1% in the other countries of the UK. 3.0% were born in Ireland and 8.3% were born somewhere else in Europe (other than the UK and Ireland). Less than 1.0% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were born outside of Europe.

5.2 Age profile

The Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group had a younger age profile than the national average in England and Wales in 2011.

People aged under 18 made up over a third (36%) of the Gypsy or Irish Traveller population, higher than the national average of 21%.

18.0% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were aged 50 and above , lower than the national average of 35.0%.

Figure 2: Age profile of Gypsy or Irish Traveller and the England and Wales average

Table 2: age profile of gypsy or irish traveller and the england and wales average, 5.3 families and households.

20.4% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households were made up of lone parents with dependent children , compared with 7.2% on average for England and Wales.

Across all household types, 44.9% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households had dependent children, compared with an average of 29.1%.

8.4% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households were made up of pensioners (either couples, single pensioners, or other households where everyone was aged 65 and over), compared with 20.9% on average.

All data in this section covers pupil performance in state-funded mainstream schools in England.

At all key stages, Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller pupils’ attainment was below the national average.

Figure 3: Educational attainment among Gypsy, Roma, Irish Traveller and pupils from all ethnic groups

Table 3: educational attainment among gypsy, roma, irish traveller and pupils from all ethnic groups.

Source: England, Key Stage 2 Statistics, 2018/19; Key Stage 4 Statistics, 2019/20; and A Level and other 16 to 18 results, 2020/21. Ethnicity facts and figures and Department for Education (DfE). Figures for Key Stage 2 are rounded to whole numbers by DfE.

6.1 Primary education

In the 2018 to 2019 school year, 19% of White Gypsy or Roma pupils, and 26% of Irish Traveller pupils met the expected standard in key stage 2 reading, writing and maths . These were the 2 lowest percentages out of all ethnic groups.

6.2 Secondary education

In the 2019 to 2020 school year, 8.1% of White Gypsy or Roma pupils in state-funded schools in England got a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths, the lowest percentage of all ethnic groups.

Gypsy or Roma (58%) and Irish Traveller (59%) pupils were the least likely to stay in education after GCSEs (and equivalent qualifications). They were the most likely to go into employment (8% and 9% respectively) – however, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about these groups due to the small number of pupils in key stage 4.

6.3 Further education

Gypsy or Roma students were least likely to get at least 3 A grades at A level, with 10.8% of students doing so in the 2020 to 2021 school year. 20.0% of Irish Traveller students achieved at least 3 A grades, compared to the national average of 28.9%. The figures for Gypsy or Roma (61) and Irish Traveller (19) students are based on small numbers, so any generalisations are unreliable.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer exam series was cancelled in 2021, and alternative processes were set up to award grades. In 2020/21 attainment is higher than would be expected in a typical year. This likely reflects the changes to the way A/AS level grades were awarded rather than improvements in student performance.

6.4 School exclusions

In the 2019 to 2020 school year, the suspension rates were 15.28% for Gypsy or Roma pupils, and 10.12% for Irish Traveller pupils – the highest rates out of all ethnic groups.

Also, the highest permanent exclusion rates were among Gypsy or Roma pupils (0.23%, or 23 exclusions for every 10,000 pupils). Irish Traveller pupils were permanently excluded at a rate of 0.14%, or 14 exclusions for every 10,000 pupils.

6.5 School absence

In the autumn term of the 2020 to 2021 school year, 52.6% of Gypsy or Roma pupils, and 56.7% of Irish Traveller pupils were persistently absent from school . Pupils from these ethnic groups had the highest rates of overall absence and persistent absence.

For the 2020 to 2021 school year, not attending in circumstances related to coronavirus (COVID-19) was not counted toward the overall absence rate and persistent absence rates.

Data in this section is from the 2011 Census for England and Wales, and for people aged 16 and over. Economic activity and employment rates might vary from other published figures that are based on people of working age.

47% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people aged 16 and over were economically active, compared to an average of 63% in England and Wales.

Of economically active people, 51% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were employees, and 26% were self-employed. 20% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were unemployed, compared to an average for all ethnic groups of 7%.

7.1 Socio-economic group

Figure 4: socio-economic group of gypsy or irish traveller and average for all ethnic groups for people aged 16 and over, table 4: socio-economic group of gypsy or irish traveller and average for all ethnic groups for people aged 16 and over.

Source: 2011 Census

31.2% of people in the Gypsy or Irish Traveller group were in the socio-economic group of ‘never worked or long-term unemployed’. This was the highest percentage of all ethnic groups.

The Gypsy or Irish Traveller group had the smallest percentage of people in the highest socio-economic groups. 2.5% were in the ‘higher, managerial, administrative, professional’ group.

15.1% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were small employers and own account workers. These are people who are generally self-employed and have responsibility for a small number of workers.

For Gypsy or Irish Travellers, who were 16 and over and in employment, the largest group worked in elementary occupations (22%). This can include occupations such as farm workers, process plant workers, cleaners, or service staff (for example, bar or cleaning staff).

The second highest occupation group was skilled trades (19%), which can include farmers, electrical and building trades. The Gypsy or Irish Traveller group had the highest percentage of elementary and skilled trade workers out of all ethnic groups.

7.2 Employment gender gap

The gender gap in employment rates for the Gypsy or Irish Traveller group aged 16 and over was nearly twice as large as for all ethnic groups combined. In the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group, 46% of men and 29% of women were employed, a gap of 17%. For all ethnic groups combined, 64% of men and 54% of women were employed, a gap of 10%.

This is likely to be due to the fact that Gypsy or Irish Traveller women (63%) were about 1.5 times as likely as Gypsy or Irish Traveller men (43%) to be economically inactive, which means they were out of work and not looking for work.

7.3 Economic inactivity

There are a range of reasons why people can be economically inactive. The most common reason for Gypsy or Irish Travellers being economically inactive was looking after the home or family (27%). This is higher than the average for England and Wales (11%). The second most common reason was being long term sick or disabled (26%) – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups.

8. Home ownership data

Figure 5: home ownership and renting among gypsy or irish traveller households and all households, table 5: home ownership and renting among gypsy or irish traveller households and all households.

Source: England, 2011 Census

In 2011, 34% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households owned their own home, compared with a national average of 64%. 42% lived in social rented accommodation, compared with a national average of 18%.

In 2016 to 2017, 0.1% of new social housing lettings went to people from Gypsy or Irish Traveller backgrounds (429 lettings).

In 2011, a whole house or bungalow was the most common type of accommodation for Gypsy or Irish Traveller households (61%). This was lower than for all usual residents in England and Wales (84%).

Caravans or other mobile or temporary homes accounted for 24% of Gypsy or Irish Travellers accommodation, a far higher percentage than for the whole of England and Wales (0.3%).

The percentage of people living in a flat, maisonette or apartment was 15% for both Gypsy or Irish Travellers and all usual residents in England and Wales.

In 2011, 14.1% of Gypsy and Irish Traveller people in England and Wales rated their health as bad or very bad, compared with 5.6% on average for all ethnic groups.

In 2016 to 2017, Gypsy or Irish Traveller people aged 65 and over had the lowest health-related quality of life of all ethnic groups (average score of 0.509 out of 1). The quality of life scores for the White Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group are based on a small number of responses (around 35 each year) and are less reliable as a result.

Ethnicity facts and figures has information on satisfaction of different health services for different ethnic groups. For the results presented below, the Gypsy or Irish Traveller figures are based on a relatively small number of respondents, and are less reliable than figures for other ethnic groups.

In 2014 to 2015 (the most recent data available), these groups were the most satisfied with their experience of GP-out-of-hours service , with 75.2% reporting a positive experience.

In 2018 to 2019, they were less satisfied with their experience of GP services than most ethnic groups – 73.0% reported a positive experience.

They were also among the groups that had least success when booking an NHS dentist appointment – 89.0% reported successfully booking an appointment in 2018 to 2019.

The Gypsy or Irish Traveller group were also less satisfied with their access to GP services in 2018 to 2019 – 56.9% reported a positive experience of making a GP appointment, compared to an average of 67.4% for all respondents.

Publication release date: 31 January 2022

Updated: 29 March 2022

29 March 2022: Corrected A-level data in Table 3, and All ethnic groups data in Table 4. Corrected the legend in Figure 1 (map).

31 January 2022: Initial publication.

Damian Le Bas

‘I don’t look like most people’s idea of a Gypsy’

I t is Friday night. I’m 30 years old, alone on a fake-fur blanket in the back of a cold Transit van. Most of my generation are out there in pubs, or indoors by the telly, canoodling, arguing or cooking, or going across to the thermostat to turn the heating up. I’m parked on a Cornish industrial estate with no warmth except the tiny, wavering plume of heat that rises out of my lantern. This place is so lonesome that even the doggers, boy-racers and stoners have spurned it. I curse myself silently. You’re not a Traveller, my mate, you’re a div. What sort of Traveller would come and sleep here on their own? I have covered thousands of miles in my van in a bid to uncover the history of Gypsy Britain. But the road is proving tough.

Gypsy reality is partly composed of fairgrounds and showgrounds, picturesque lakeside halts, sheltered commons, bright heaths. But it also comprised frozen copses and hilltops. Old maintenance roads with potholes and bad light. Scrapyards. Council waste ground. Lay-bys near the edges of tips. Slag-heaps and drained marshes. Fen ends. Chalk pits, yards and quarries. These are the stopping places, these fringes and in-between places. They are the places that nobody lives except Travellers – or nobody but those who share ancient connections with them: gamekeepers and poachers, scrap-metal men, horsewomen, rangers and shepherds. They are the old nomads’ haunts of the island. Many are smashed and built over; some – magically – are still more or less just as they were in centuries long past. They form the hidden Gypsy and Traveller map of the country we live in: they are the bedrock of our reality and, perhaps, the antidote to the unending cycles of romanticisation and demonisation.

I had conceived a plan to visit these places, to live in them in my own way, and see what I might learn. Perhaps I might even solve the bizarre contradiction of Britain’s love affair with caravanning, camping and glamping, and its hatred of those who were born to this life, and who largely inspired its adoption as a non-Gypsy pastime. As one Scottish Gypsy Traveller put it: “There are 80,000 members of the Caravan Club, but I’m not allowed to travel?”

There is more to this Gypsy geography than a list of physical places. The stopping places themselves are an outgrowth of something non-physical, something that is ancient, unseen yet important, precious and reviled, envied and feared. This thing is the Gypsy belief – the core belief of the culture – that it is possible to live in a different way: in your own way, part of the world, but not imprisoned by the rules. That you can know the ropes and yet not be hemmed in by them. That you can dwell alongside the mainstream, while not being part of it. Otter-like, you can live in the bank of the river and swim and hunt there when you need to, and then climb back out with equal ease and alacrity. There is no better symbol of this belief than the network of atchin tans (stopping places) laced across Britain; they are historical, topographical proof that the Gypsy philosophy has existed here, that it still does, that it still can. By staying at the traditional stopping places, I hoped to answer the questions that had been following me, on and off, all my life. What is left of these places? What might we learn from them? What redemption might lie there, in a country that still passes new legislation aimed at ending the Traveller way of life? Is it still possible to live on the road? Was the end of the old Gypsy life a tragedy, or was it a case of good riddance to an irredeemably hard and pitiless life on the edge? Above all, I hoped to resolve the biggest question: the question of myself, whether I could make my peace with Gypsy culture. My conflict seemed to echo the wider tension between nomads and settled people that endures in modern Britain.

O n the way to our regular pitch selling flowers in the marketplace in Petersfield, my elders would point and nod at empty spaces by the sides of the road, flat areas on verges and slightly raised banks, vacant pull-ins and lay-bys, and make comments as if there was something there, something I couldn’t see. They were glimmers of another world, but it felt as distant as the stars. I knew the places had something to do with the time they were “on the road” – most of my family were settled now, living in houses or caravans and mobile homes on private bits of land.

Travellers I knew from the east of England had lived rough deep into the recent past, still working the farms into the 1990s. By then, it had been the best part of 50 years since anyone in my family had depended on that kind of work. So it came as a shock to meet Travellers younger than me who had grown up picking turnips in January. They described reaching down with a gloved hand and grabbing hold of the big, leafy tops, how it would sometimes send a plug of ice shooting upwards.

Alongside selling flowers, my family had roofing and car-breaking businesses. We had a big field and a yard, a word that seemed to mean a place where all things might, and did, happen. Terriers, geese and perturbed-looking cockerels roamed in between the legs of cantankerous horses. Stables were stacked full of the musty paraphernalia of horsemanship, flower-selling, roofing and car respraying. Bits of cars lay everywhere, named as if they were the parts or clothes of people or animals: bonnets, boots, seats, wings, belts. There were brass-handled horsewhips, jangling harnesses, buckets of molasses-sprayed chaff and milled sugar-beet, bales of sweet-smelling fresh hay. But all of this old rustic stuff was stacked and wedged in among the hard and greasy gear of the family economy: gas bottles, blowtorches, leaky old engines, spray paint, rolls of lead, felt, and seemingly infinite stacks of every conceivable type of roof tile. A heavy boxing bag swung with barely perceptible creaks, keeping time in the half-light of the dusty old garage.

A palm reader’s caravan at Appleby fair.

There were caravans there that we sometimes lived in and out of, especially in the summer. We never considered this odd, even though we also had a big house on the land that my grandad had built with his men. And there always seemed to be heavy and dangerous things lying close to hand. The hard stuff of motion was everywhere, although we were settled: cars, tractors and trucks, some brand-new, others eaten by weather and time; horses, ponies, traps, sulkies and carts; scattered wheels and bolts from Ford and Bedford lorries. And, hung from a barn door like a pair of swords and scabbing to ochre with rust, there were two axles rescued from the ashes of the last wagon owned by our family.

We had a name for ourselves: Travellers. In our case, it didn’t just mean anyone who travelled around, regardless of their race: to us it meant our people specifically, the Romanies of Britain. The first Romanies probably arrived on the British mainland towards the end of the 15th century, and had been a contentious presence ever since.

W herever the Gypsies went, they took with them their strange tongue, Romani, and it was through this that the mystery of their origins was solved. An 18th-century German linguist called Johann Rüdiger overheard Gypsies talking, and was struck by the similarity of their speech to Indian languages. Later linguists, including the so-called “Romany Ryes” – rye being the Romani word for a gentleman – such as the English writer George Borrow and the Irish academic John Sampson, would identify layers of borrowings from Persian, Slavic and Romance languages in the Gypsies’ speech, using these to trace a philological map of their long road into the West. English Romani had German-derived words in it, like nixis , meaning “nothing”, and fogel for “smell”.

As for the name of the Romanies, it was derived from their own word for “man” or “husband”, rom , and it had nothing to do with Romania, which got its name from the Roman military camps which once filled its territory. The Gypsies called their language Romanes , an adverb meaning “like a rom ”. To rokker Romanes meant, simply, to talk like a Gypsy and not like a gorjer – a non-Gypsy. The word gorjies comes from the old Romany word gadje or gadzhe , and though its form has mutated with time, its meaning is the same: the non-Gypsies, outsiders, the people-who-aren’t-us.

Almost everyone who has studied Romani in Britain has remarked on how adept its speakers are at coming up with names for things. In some ways, talking Romanes means having to be constantly inventive and alert, both in terms of creating words and also interpreting the new ones that get spun off the cuff and thrown into daily Traveller conversation. There is no stigma attached to inventing words, as there so often is in English; nor are new words looked down upon as annoying neologisms that we’d be better off without. Invented words are more likely to be smiled upon or chuckled at as evidence of a witty, intelligent mind; one with a good and flexible grasp of the ancient Travellers’ tongue.

Besides, if Romani is to retain one of the functions which has kept it alive thus far – and which it has in common with almost all minority languages – namely, to stop outsiders knowing what you are talking about, then it will always be necessary to invent new ways of saying things. According to a Belarusian Romany man I once met, a word is no longer a truly Romani word once its meaning becomes known amongst the gadzhe – it is useless, dead, and best left where it is. This is an extreme opinion, but it points to a common anxiety: that the language will lose its power if it becomes too widely known. Yet words come and go as they please, like mood and temper; traded by friends, explained by lovers, and hurled across the fray. Every Gypsy who “gives away” the Romani language risks the accusation of treason.

I n the old Romany tradition, you can only call yourself a true Romany Gypsy – one of the kaulo ratti , the black blood – if all your ancestors, as far as you know, are of the tribe. I can trace my Romany ancestry back at least six generations; I was brought up to know the Romani language; to learn the old tales and to keep the Romanipen – the cleanliness taboos of the old-fashioned Gypsies. I was raised, and still live, in a Romany psychological realm; a mental Gypsyland.

I have both Gypsy and non-Gypsy blood and so, in many Travellers’ eyes, I do not have the right to call myself a true-bred Romany. It does not matter that there is no such thing as a racially pure Gypsy: over a 1,000-year migration it is virtually impossible that there will have been no mingling in the line. The mixing in my family had happened within living memory, and this meant I was at best a poshrat – a mixed-blood Gypsy – and at worst a “half- chat gorjie ” or, as a friend once memorably put it, a “fucked-up half-breed”.

I do not look like most people’s idea of a typical Gypsy, my blue eyes and fair hair belying my origins, my picture of myself. My identity was inside me and the outside didn’t match up. It imbued me with a tetchy defensiveness, and a resentment of people whom I then believed had simpler ethnicities: Scottish, Nigerian, Han.

I felt so close to my roots, and especially to the Romany women who had brought me up – my mum; her mother, Gran; and Gran’s mother, Nan. But this seemed to count for little in a world which, for all its modernity, still believed in labels such as “half-caste”, “full-blood” and “mixed race”. Later, as a teenager, I started carrying photographs of darker-haired family members in my wallet, to challenge the disbelief of those who thought I was lying about my Romany background. I lived in a world that wasn’t sure if I really belonged in it, and so I wasn’t sure, either. Regardless, it was where I was. Our family were the mistrusted local Gypsies, the bane of the decent, upstanding parish council. We were “gyppos”, “pikeys”, “ diddakois ”, “them lot”. Locally, we were infamous. The divide was crystal clear.

Damian Le Bas with his Transit van

Compared with the insults and slurs, the words Romanies, Gypsies, and Travellers were dignified, and we used all of them interchangeably. The greater part of our family owned their own yards and bungalows, but the name Travellers still seemed to make sense. There were wheels everywhere, and we were always on hair-trigger alert to hook up trailers and go when the need arose: we drove miles for a living, and had family who lived on the road. Some places with links to the Travellers were not easily romanticised. The sides of the M1, the A1, the A303 and the M25 are peppered with modern-day atchin tans . They are sites with access to opportunities to earn money, and – being less desirable to non-Gypsies – also the sorts of locales where less cash is needed to set up a camp.

Such places symbolise the misunderstood truth of many Traveller lives, which is that they are neither permanently nomadic, nor ever truly static. Howbeit, these yards provide a base, the highway is right beside them, ready for the times when family ties, work, a wedding, a funeral, the fair season, beckon. Councils refer to them as “sites close to the key regional transport corridors, favoured by Gypsies and Travellers”. Travellers call them :“Handy, being right by that main road”. Handy, yes, but still handcuffed to tragedy. Every family is haunted by stories of relatives, too often toddlers, who have been knocked down and killed by their literal closeness to roads.

The word “Gypsy” wasn’t often heard back when I was a teenager. When it was, it was usually as part of a story about the old days, where someone had shouted out, “Dirty Gypsies!” and nine times out of 10 a fight had ensued, which the dirty Gypsies – who, in my grandad’s words, were “rough, tough and made out of the right stuff” – almost always won.

In our world, arguments are often resolved by somebody leaving and the relationship being severed. If this doesn’t happen, then there will almost always be a fight. In the best-case scenario, it’ll just be a fair fist fight, nice and clean, one-on-one, with a referee to see fair play and as few spectators as possible to get sucked into the row. It can be between two men or two women: it’s usually men, but not always. These things are often organised quickly in a place right out of the way, so the law is unlikely to be an issue; plus, some police officers I’ve spoken to even seem to have a laissez-faire stance on it, possibly because they have seen worse ways of ending a row than a bare-knuckle fight. Worst-case scenario, it will not be clean and it will not be fair, and the more people that get involved, the more likely that is. If weapons come into it, then the police are especially likely to show an interest.

The proceedings of the Old Bailey from 1674-1913 are speckled with references to London’s Gypsies and Travellers. There is a website that explains why they were “over-represented in the proceedings”: they formed part of “what many contemporaries considered a dangerous and crime-prone “residuum”’, which seeped back into the city at autumn following the end of the temporary farm work. It goes on, telling how “in a working-class mirror to the elite’s “London Season”, October and November saw hundreds and thousands of men, women and children returning to the capital from hop-picking and market gardening, from touring the fairs and tramping in search of work”. It was a yearly migration from the city to the countryside and back that continued, for some, right up to the 1950s.

For all its flighty connotations, Gypsy culture can be stifling in its demands for living in line with its hidden rules. Rock stars employ “Gypsy” to mean those who have escaped from moral claustrophobia, but in reality, Gypsies are just as likely to feel confined as anybody else. In Glasgow, I watched as a troupe of little girls from the local Roma community danced in brightly coloured dresses at a community event. They clicked their fingers on outstretched arms and sang “ Ja tuke tuke ” to a furious klezmer beat. The audience clapped and twirled, unaware of the lyrics’ meaning: “Get away from me.”

N an talks of the old paradox that we have heard about all of our lives. The hardship of old times, versus the sense of togetherness that Travellers have lost. The gratitude for comforts that not long ago were undreamed of and unheard of, set against the moral corruption, unhappiness and constant malaise that have come from an overfast integration into the gorjies ’ consumerist world.

For centuries, politicians had guessed that if Gypsies could be settled in regular housing, then within a few short generations they would be just like everyone else. There would be no need for a word for outsiders, because we would be just like them. But that isn’t what has happened. Many Gypsies now live either in housing, or on permanent caravan sites, not in meadows or lanes or lay-bys or by the sides of old tips. And yet they are still what they are, changed in some ways, but different enough to draw the old line between themselves and the gorjies .

I sometimes wonder what Nan thinks I am. Of course, I am her great-grandson, born from her line, flesh and blood. But I’m not what she calls a “true Traveller”. Aside from my mixed roots, I wasn’t born to that life: I arrived into a changed era, one of stability, stasis, hot running water, and Christmases stacked with teetering piles of presents. The Romany bloodline never dies out. But the life of the Traveller changes, sometimes so much so that you could forgive the outside world for thinking the people themselves have vanished.

Lisa Wilkinson walking her horse Casper on the way to the Appleby Horse Fair

When I was small, Horsmonden in Kent was a typical Travellers’ horse fair. This meant that most people weren’t actually there for the horses. It’s true that a core of those who came, mostly men but quite a few women as well, were proper horse people. They came towing their boxes with strong cobs standing inside, tethered in the half-light; their two-wheeled sulkies – light trotting carts with a seat big enough for one or two people – and their harness, head collars and whips. But people came from far and near to the fair, and most of them weren’t interested in any equine displays. If they were, then it was simply because they provided an authentic backdrop. What they were interested in depended on the individual: but mostly, they were interested in each other. It is a quirk of our scatteredness: a few hundred thousand people at most, flecked across Britain’s damp islands, and we meet mostly at weddings, funerals and fairs. The horse trade has its ups and downs – as I write this, it’s down, the worst in my lifetime. But the horse fairs will persist, because their purpose goes beyond trade.

When the days are hot and tanned skins gleam with sweat in the sun, it is clear once again that horse fairs are shop windows for young brides and husbands. They always have been. This much, at least, is gospel, and proudly announced to journalists and inquisitive souls who come asking questions about the culture. But not every dalliance ends in a marriage, and rumours occasionally flare of unauthorised, ultra-brief flings at the fringes of fairs: dangerous liaisons that lead to bad names, fights, or worse, feuds that run on and on.

For the not so young, what they seek from each other is something subtler, less clear to outsiders, but an equally powerful draw. I suspect few would want to explain what it was, for fear of sapping its power by giving it voice. What the fairs offer is a chance to track the progress of our lives: to reminisce about previous years when we trod the same field, but equally to remark on how far we have come.

We polish and dress up our lives for the day and compare them to the lives of others, affirming their context, confirming their meaning. The fairs are where we remind ourselves who we are. It’s not that we don’t keep being who we are in between – of course we do. But the fairs provide a special concentration of Traveller experience, a tincture of what it is to be a Gypsy. At a horse fair we get to see, just for one day, what life would be like if the world shared our Gypsy priorities.

And then there are those who despise both horses and the fairs. For some families, the horse had its day a long time ago. I once asked my mate Charles if he and his family used to go to the fairs up north, which is where he comes from. He looked at me as though the question was perverse. “We don’t mind a day at the races, but Damian, can you see me or me dad, or any of us here, fucking about with horses? My great-great-grandad was a proper Gypsy man, and he was driving a Rolls-Royce a hundred year ago.”

T raveller culture, preoccupied though it can be with bygone times, has always preferred the tangible: today’s bread, the here and the now. As Nan says, “You can only eat one meal at a time.” In the past, writers took this as evidence that Gypsies inhabited a “heroic present”, lacking a sense of history and living so sharply in the moment that concepts such as deferred gratification were lost on them. I have always dismissed such ideas as inherently dangerous: they are liable to slide into essentialism, and the belief that races have irreconcilable differences. But maybe in turning so sharply away from a lie, I lost sight of a truth: that the present holds a finer promise than the past with its shadows and dust. In an inversion of the obvious, perhaps even the Traveller obsession with cemetery maintenance itself supports this view. After all, isn’t the act of placing flowers on a tomb a gesture of bringing a little life back to the dead?

After the fair at Horsmonden, I largely avoided gatherings of people, spending time in empty stopping places, visiting forlorn churches and well-kept graves. It is dawning on me that there is only so much I can learn from this. Another of Nan’s catchphrases comes to me: “There are no pockets in shrouds.” Perhaps this saying, a caution against overzealous pursuit of riches, masks a second meaning as well. There is a poverty to death; a limit to how much a skeleton can teach you about a life it no longer knows.

I realised how sparsely furnished my van was. Its naked pale blue surfaces stared at me like sheets of ice. For eight months, I had been travelling with what I thought were the bare essentials – bed, stove, wash gear, clothes and so forth. But there were other trappings of Romany life, when it was lived most richly: beautiful furnishings, gilded surfaces, portable pictures, talismans and silks. I’ve been missing a trick: the means by which a difficult life was rendered livable and even, at times, enviable.

When I asked Mum for help, she looked happy, as if pleased that I’d finally grasped the meaning of life. She gave me armfuls of folded materials. There was an Islamic purple velvet hanging, edged with golden stitching and arranged in a pattern of teardrops; matching Bedouin horse-cloths, constructed out of navy blue and orange-coloured diamond shapes of fabric; brightly coloured Indian tapestry cloths: two square ones, and one in the shape of an arch. They shouted in bright yellows and blues and greens and pinks, with tiny mirrors stitched into them alongside little embroidered birds, stars, flowers, chakra wheels and Hindu swastikas. I decorated the van, clipping the cloths to the plywood lining with bulldog clips and larger, stronger, rubber-tipped market grips.

The van was completely transformed. Its contents came together into a nomadic aesthetic all of its own; ramshackle, yet somehow making happy sense as a whole. My gran and grandad – Mum’s parents – wandered over to see what I’d been doing. They seemed stunned, but in a good way: “Looks like an old vardo ,” Grandad said, using the Traveller word for caravan. Gran remarked that the way I had hung the cloths reminded her of the inside of the Travellers’ square tents back when she was a little girl. Their approval came as a relief. I slammed the doors and smiled as I thought of the road ahead.

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This is an edited extract from The Stopping Places by Damian Le Bas, published by Chatto & Windus on 7 June. To order a copy for £10.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

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Britain's Gypsy Travellers: A People on the Outside

Despite the popularity of shows like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding , Britain’s Gypsy Travellers still face longstanding prejudice, warns Becky Taylor.

A Gypsy family camped in the New Forest, Hampshire in the 1890s

Two months later and Channel 4’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding is generating waves on television. While sympathetic and giving a voice to Gypsy Travellers, it nevertheless presents an exoticised image of their lives: the horse-drawn wagons, extravagant dresses and flamboyant wedding arrangements seem to encapsulate how they remain the ‘other’ of British society. As the opening voiceover put it: ‘For hundreds of years the Gypsy way of life was one of ancient traditions and simple tastes. Then their world collided with the 21st century. With unprecedented access to the UK’s most secretive community … this series will take you to the very heart of Gypsy life.’ If contemporary images of Gypsy Travellers seem to be polarised between vilification and the exotic, can the same be said for historical depictions of one of Britain’s oldest minority groups?

While the details remain contested, it is now broadly agreed that Europe’s Roma and Gypsy populations can trace their origins back to an Indian diaspora in the tenth century, with ‘Egyptians’ arriving in Britain by the early 16th century. Despite persecution, Gypsies established themselves, finding niches in both town and countryside, sometimes being protected by landowners who found them useful as a supply of casual labour, for entertainment and sometimes simply by the inconsistent application of the law. Their treatment reflected majority society’s deep ambivalence about the presence of Gypsies and a nomadic way of life. On the one hand it symbolised freedom from the responsibilities and duties associated with settled lifestyles – typified in folk songs such as ‘The Raggle-taggle Gypsy’; on the other it provoked an almost visceral hatred, a suspicion that Gypsies could evade the law and the codes of behaviour that bound settled society to a place and a parish.

Rather than being polar opposites, however, we might understand these stereotypes as two sides of a coin – as the product of a tendency to view Gypsy lives through the lens of the preoccupations and assumptions of mainstream society – rather than being grounded in reality. Whether articulated positively or negatively these stereotypes stem from the assumption that Gypsies were irredeemably separate from the rest of the population.

Yet, contrary to these stereotypes, Gypsies and Travellers traded with, worked and lived alongside the rest of the population: an analysis of the traditional songs sung by Gypsies and Travellers, for example, shows significant overlap with those current in wider society, suggesting a high degree of interaction between the communities, particularly in casual agricultural and seasonal labour. Arthur Harding’s classic account of the East End underworld at the beginning of the 20th century, compiled by the historian Raphael Samuel,  revealed in passing how Gypsy Travellers were part of the everyday fabric of poor urban life. David Mayall’s work on the 19th century, my own on the 20th and that of the Dutch scholars Lucassen, Willems and Cottars for the European context all confirm the ways in which the lives of Gypsy Travellers and settled populations were intimately interconnected and often how the lines between them were in fact blurred. Gypsies lived in peri-urban encampments or even cheap lodging in cities over winter alongside working-class populations, making and selling goods, moving in regular circuits across the countryside in the spring and summer, picking up seasonal work, hawking and attending fairs. Far from being ‘a separate people’, their economic survival in fact depended on close engagement with the wider population.  

The stereotypes became increasingly entrenched over the course of the 19th century as Britain’s population became increasingly urbanised and the countryside became the repository for the working out of anxieties related to the rapidly changing social and physical landscape. Alongside phenomena like the folk song revival, the cult of the ‘outdoors’ and the early caravanning movements there emerged a movement of amateur ‘gentlemen scholars’, self-styled ‘gypsiologists’, who developed an interest in recording the origins, language and customs of Britain’s Gypsy Travellers. Focused around the activities of the Gypsy Lore Society (GLS), established in 1889, they became preoccupied with the foreign ancestry of British Gypsies and with developing theories about their ‘pure bred’ nature, which often tied blood lines to Romany language use and ‘proper’ nomadic living. The Gypsy caravan, which had only made its appearance in the 1830s as a result of the improving road system, became central to settled society’s image of ‘the Gypsy’, in part through paintings, such as those of the prominent GLS member Augustus John. Fed by an outpouring of writings on the subject from the 1880s, popular imagination saw Gypsies as a people who turned up out of the blue, camped on commons or byways in their bow-topped caravan, grazed horses, sold pegs, perhaps ‘tinkering’, ‘here today and gone tomorrow’. Just as the producers of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding promised ‘unprecedented access’, so too did numerous gypsiologists spend a summer living with a group of Gypsy Travellers gaining an insight into ‘the secret people’ before writing a book about their experiences. Crucially, such Gypsies were always portrayed as ‘pure blooded’ or ‘true’ Romanies, largely untouched by modern, industrialised Britain. As one gypsiologist, Arthur Symons, wrote in the early 20th century:

Why ... are we setting ourselves the impossible task of spoiling the Gypsies? ... they stand for the will of freedom, for friendship with nature, for the open air, for change and the sight of many lands; for all of us that are in protest against progress ... The Gypsies represent nature before civilisation ... the last romance left in the world.

Crucially, for these stereotypes to find resonance in modern Britain, gypsiologists constructed a theory around the decline in the racial purity of Gypsies as they increasingly mixed and married with ‘degenerate’ members of the settled population. They developed a racial hierarchy which placed ‘pure-blooded’ Gypsies, who were believed to speak the best Romany, at the top; followed by ‘didikais’, half-breeds, or ‘pikies’ – groups with varying proportions of Gypsy blood depending on which source one reads; and ‘mumpers’, who were vagrants with no Romany ancestry, at the bottom. As David Mayall observed:

To confuse the ‘true’ Gypsy with those of diluted blood was presented as a grave error that led to much injustice being directed towards the clean-living Romany. The latter, declining in numbers as the century progressed, were superior in manners, morals and occupations to their degenerate and impoverished ‘mumply-brothers’. These half-breeds were said to have inherited all the vices of the Romany and the Gaujo [non-Gypsy] but none of their virtues.

For gypsiologists anxious to discover a Golden Age and a pure Gypsy culture this outlook allowed them to pursue their pet theories, with any contradictory findings dismissed as the result of cultural pollution and miscegenation. This enabled gypsiologists to distance themselves from the squalid, urban Traveller encampments that existed around all Britain’s major cities and any other elements that impinged on romantic notions of a rural Gypsy idyll.

Just as the impetus to romanticise Gypsies gained ground in the later 19th century, so too did negative stereotypes, as a growing body of opinion saw Travellers as being out of step with modern society. Along with longstanding beliefs about the lazy and lawless nature of Gypsies came newer concerns about their unsanitary habits, which were seen as anachronistic in a nation that increasingly set store by its housing and sanitary legislation. Added to this were commonly expressed sentiments that they were escaping from paying taxes and consequently evaded the responsibilities that came with modern living. Such views gained ground particularly in times of social difficulty. During the Second World War Gypsies were a common scapegoat for the press, which depicted them as shirkers and deserters, able to escape conscription through their nomadism and evading rationing through poaching and foraging. As the South Wales Evening Post put it: ‘Many people wonder how Gypsies get off with food rationing. It is understood, however, that hedgehogs are not rationed.’

Lacking a political voice or a representative body Gypsy Travellers responded to this entrenchment of stereotypes not by challenging them but by working within their parameters. Thomas Acton first pointed to the practice of claiming to have ‘pure Gypsy blood’ as a means of asserting an individual’s right to travel, while scapegoating other travelling communities: ‘I’m a real Gypsy/Traveller/Romani, and we don’t do that, only the (ethnic category name with pejorative overtones)’. He observed that the effect of this ‘transference of blame’ was to divert the hostility of the accuser away from that particular individual to an absent outsider group which both parties could agree was fundamentally incapable of maintaining a nomadic lifestyle. While in the short run this was ‘an attractive strategy for the individual Traveller’, it was not without its shortcomings, as it served to confirm racialised definitions of

Travellers, equating a right to travel with spurious definitions of blood purity. It was not until the 1960s and the formation of the Gypsy Council that Gypsy Travellers as a community found a collective voice, one which tried to assert that all had a right to travel and that nomadism did have a place in modern Britain. While it scored some early successes, notably in the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, its influence both within and outside the travelling community has declined over recent years and has failed to dislodge the enduring stereotypes surrounding Gypsies.

Travellers have modernised alongside the rest of society and are not a ‘secret people’ living in the manner of their great grandparents. Crucially this change in their lifestyle has removed what settled society understands as the markers of ‘true’ Gypsies: bow-topped caravans, horses and so on. These images of Gypsies have become the rod with which their back is consistently beaten: failing to conform to romantic expectations, the stereotypes most often deployed in the popular press and by politicians are the negative ones relating to anti-social behaviour and an inability to adapt to the standards of ‘normal’ society.

This leads us back to the people of Dale Farm and the stars of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding . We may wonder at the dresses and tut over wedding venues cancelling bookings when they find they are to host a Traveller wedding, but this translates into neither an understanding of the place of Gypsy Travellers in British society nor positive political action. Living in an ex-scrapyard by the side of a busy dual carriageway, the Dale Farm homes are immaculate trailers from which furniture-selling businesses are run. Vulnerable through their lack of romantic visual appeal and unable to attract political representation, Travellers are facing the active prejudice not just of Basildon Council but of councils across the country, which decide not only that Travellers may not stay on their own land, but are also determined that there is no place for a Traveller community within its district. It is surely time for us to move beyond the stereotypes which have served Gypsy Travellers, settled society and historical analysis so ill for centuries and instead have the strength to embrace the diversity and richness represented by Britain’s nomadic communities. Seeing 80 families being put onto the highway will be Britain’s shame as much as Sarkozy’s expulsion of Roma from France.

Becky Taylor is author of A Minority and the State: Travellers in Britain in the 20th Century (Manchester University Press, 2008).

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  • Was your ancestor a Gypsy?

Not everyone described as a traveller, vagrant or hawker in historic records was a Gypsy, but many were. By gathering other types of information about a person or a family, it may be possible to confirm that you have Gypsy blood.

There are four main characteristics to look out for in an individual:

  • Typical Romany surname: common ones include Cooper, Smith, Lee, Boswell, Lovell, Doe, Wood, Young and Heron. But take a look at our Famous Families books for many more examples.
  • Typical Romany occupation: descriptions such as hawker, licensed hawker, pedlar, basket maker, mat maker, beehive maker, brush maker, chair bottomer, sieve bottomer, tinker, tinman, razor grinder, knife grinder,dealer, general dealer, marine store dealer, wardrobe dealer, peg maker, umbrella mender, chimney sweep, horse dealer, marine store dealer, general dealer or Egyptian.
  • Evidence of mobility: for example, a description in a document such as tent dweller, van dweller, stroller, itinerant or of no fixed abode. Or, in a census return, a different place of birth for each child.
  • Unusual forename: Romany parents often gave their children names that aren’t generally found in the settled community. Female examples include Anselina, Athalia, Britannia, Cinderella, Clementina, Dotia, Gentilia, Lementeni, Sabina, Tryphena, Urania, Fairnette, Freedom, Mizelli, Ocean, Reservoir, Sinfai, Unity and Vancy. Male examples include  Elijah, Goliath, Hezekiah, Nehemiah, Noah, Sampson, Shadrack,  Amberline, Belcher, Dangerfield, Gilderoy, Liberty, Major, Nelson, Neptune, Silvanus and Vandlo. You will, however, also find some British Gypsies with more familiar forenames such as John, Mary, Elizabeth and William.
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Romanichal facts for kids

Romanichal Travellers ( more commonly known as English Gypsies or English Travellers ) are a Romani subgroup within the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. There are an estimated 200,000 Romani in the United Kingdom; almost all live in England. Most Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax.

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Persecution, shipments to the americas, caribbean and australia, romanichal culture, british acts of legislation, images for kids.

The word "Romanichal" is derived from Romani chal , where chal is Angloromani for "fellow".

Romanichal are found across the United Kingdom , particularly England , Lowland Scotland and Wales . The Romanichal diaspora emigrated from the British Isles to other parts of the English-speaking world . Based on some estimates, there are now more people of Romanichal descent in the United States than in Britain. They are also found in smaller numbers in South Africa , Australia , Canada and New Zealand .

The Romani people in England are thought to have spoken the Romani language until the 19th century, when it was replaced by English and Angloromani, a creole language that combines the syntax and grammar of English with the Romani lexicon. All Romanichals also speak English.

Many Angloromani words have been incorporated into English, particularly in the form of British slang.

Many, but not all, Romanichals are noted for a fairer phenotype than that of other Romani groups in Europe. Lighter-skinned Romani are not uncommon, and a light phenotype, including individuals with blond hair and blue eyes, can also be seen in established Eastern European Roma communities.

Constantine, Prince of Moldavia in his 1776 decree against the intermarriage between Moldavians and Romani wrote: "In some parts Gypsies have married Moldavian women, and also Moldavian men have taken in marriage Gypsy girls, which is entirely against the Christian faith." The French writer Felix Colson, writing in 1839 about his visits to slave holdings in Romania, remarked of some of the Romani slaves: "Their skins are hardly brown but blond and beautiful." Lighter-skinned Romani girls in Slovakia, noted for their beauty, were given the nickname "Papin" or "Papinori" (white goose) in the Romani language to indicate their light skin tone.

The same phenomenon of a light-skinned phenotype observed on the continent can be seen in other Romani communities, including the Romanichal in Britain, due to some limited intermarriage between themselves, settled people and/or other Traveller groups.

Stereotypically, darker skin is seen as a racial characteristic among the Romani. This attitude has proliferated the myth of the "True Romani", an inadvertent discriminatory term described by some Romani scholars as one that "...allowed writers and policy-makers to dismiss people as an unwelcome social blot on the land, people of 'little or no Romani blood' who gave the 'True Romany' a bad name."

Blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes are not uncommon features among both the Roma and British Romani groups. Examples include lighter-skinned Roma who were conscripted into fighting units during WWII; a Slovakian Roma called Otto Baláš wrote an account that stated: "They also took my cousin Paľo. He didn’t look like a gypsy—He was white." Other light-skinned Roma were able to pass as non-Roma and avoid the Romani genocide or Porajmos, as in the case of Vojtěch Fabián, who told a doctor he was a Roma but was admonished: "Never say you’re a Gypsy, you don’t look like one" and consequently was able to hide his Romani ethnicity from the authorities. Some Roma have been noted as passing for Slovak or Hungarian despite being of Romani descent, while the Bulgarian Roma, musician Ivo Papazov , has stated of the light-skinned phenotype: "I am one of the few light-skinned people in my family but I know I am Romani."

As with the varying phenotypes in continental Romani groups, the British Romanichal are an authentic subgroup of the Romani people . They display genetic markers distinct from those of other people of the British Isles . These markers show them to be most closely related to continental Romani groups like the Sinti from Germany, Austria and the Romani people from Eastern Europe. The Finnish Kale, a further sub-group of the Romani people, allege that they are descendants of Romani people from the UK.

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The Romani people have origins in India , specifically Rajasthan and began migrating westwards from the 11th century. The first groups of Romani people arrived in Great Britain by the end of the 15th century, escaping conflicts in Southeastern Europe (such as the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans ).

In 1506 there are recorded Romani persons in Scotland , arrived from Spain and to England in 1512. Soon the leadership passed laws aimed at stopping the Romani immigration and at the assimilation of those already present.

During the reign of Henry VIII , the Egyptians Act (1530) banned Romanies from entering the country and required those living in the country to leave within 16 days. Failure to do so could result in confiscation of property, imprisonment and deportation. During the reign of Mary I the act was amended with the Egyptians Act (1554) , which removed the threat of punishment to Romanies if they abandoned their "naughty, idle and ungodly life and company" and adopted a settled lifestyle, but on the other hand increased the penalty for noncompliance to death.

In 1562 a new law offered Romanies born in England and Wales the possibility of becoming English subjects, if they assimilated into the local population. Despite this legislation, the Romani population managed to survive, but it was forced into a marginal lifestyle and subjected to continuous discrimination from the state authorities and many of the local non-Romanies. In 1596, 106 men and women were condemned to death at York just for being Romani, and nine were executed. The others were able to prove that they were born in England.

Samuel Rid authored two early works about them in the early 17th century.

From the 1780s, gradually, the anti-Romani laws were repealed, although not all. The identity of the Romanichals was formed between the years 1660 and 1800, as a Romani group living in Britain.

RumneyDavey

England began to deport Romanichals as early as 1544, principally to Norway , a process that was continued and encouraged by Elizabeth I and James I . The Finnish Kale, a Romani group in Finland, maintain that their ancestors had originally been a Romani group who travelled from Scotland , thereby supporting the idea that they and the Scandinavian Travellers/Romani are distantly related to present-day Scottish Romani and English Romanichals.

In 1603 an Order in Council was made for the transportation of Romanichal to Newfoundland , the West Indies , France , Germany , Spain and the Low Countries . Other European countries forced the further transport of the Romani of Britain to the Americas. Many times those deported in this manner did not survive as an ethnic group , because of the separations after the round up, the sea passage and the subsequent settlement as slaves, all destroying their social fabric. At the same time, voluntary emigration began to the English overseas possessions . Romani groups which survived continued the expression of the Romani culture there.

In the years following the American War of Independence , Australia was the preferred destination for Romanichal transportation, due to its use as a penal colony. The exact number of British Romani deported to Australia is unknown. It has been suggested that three Romanichal were present on the First Fleet , one of whom was thought to be James Squire who founded Australia's first commercial brewery in 1798, and whose grandson James Farnell who became the first native-born Premier of New South Wales in 1877. The total Romani population seems to be an extremely low number when we consider that British Romani people made up just 0.01% of the original 162,000 convict population. However, it has been suggested that Romanichal were one of the main target groups and were discriminated against due to the transportation laws of England in the mid-18th century. It is often difficult to distinguish British Romani people of Wales and England from the majority of non-Romani convicts at the time, therefore the precise number of British Romanies transported is not known, although there are occurrences of Romani names and possible families within the convict population; however it is unclear if such people were members of the established Romani community. Fragmentary records do exist and it is thought with confidence at least fifty or more British Romanies may have been transported to Australia, although the actual figure could be higher. What is clear is that such deportation (as for all convicts) was particularly harsh:

"For Romani convicts transportation meant social and psychological death; exiled they had little hope of returning to England to re-establish family ties, cultural roots, continuous expression and validation that would have revived their Romani identity in the convict era."

One, however, is known to have returned. Henry Lavello (or Lovell) was repatriated with a full pardon with a son born to an Aboriginal woman who accompanied him back to England.

Racism against Romanichal and other travelling peoples is still endemic within Britain. In 2008 the media reported that Romani experience a higher degree of racism than any other group in the UK, including asylum-seekers, and a Mori poll indicated that a third of UK residents admitted to being prejudiced against Romani.

In the 17th century Oliver Cromwell shipped Romanichals as slaves to the American southern plantations and there is documentation of English Romanies being owned by freed black slaves in Jamaica , Barbados , Cuba , and Louisiana . Gypsies, according to the legal definition, were anyone identifying themselves to be Egyptians or Gypsies. The works of George Borrow reflect the influences this had on the Romani Language of England and others contain references to Romanies being bitcheno pawdel or Bitchade pardel , to be "sent across" to America or Australia, a period of Romani history by no means forgotten by Romanies in Britain today. One term reflects this in the contemporary Angloromani for "magistrate" is bitcherin' mush , the "transporter."

Historically, Romanichals earned a living doing agricultural work and would move to the edges of towns for the winter months. There was casual work available on farms throughout the spring, summer and autumn months; spring would start with seed sowing, planting potatoes and fruit trees, early summer with weeding, and there would be a succession of harvests of crops from summer to late autumn. Of particular significance was the hop industry, which employed thousands of Romanichals both in spring for vine training and for the harvest in early autumn. Winter months were often spent doing casual labour in towns or selling goods or services door to door.

Mass industrialisation of agriculture in the 1960s led to the disappearance of many of the casual farm jobs Romanichals had traditionally carried out.

During the 20th century onwards Romanichals became, and remain, the mainstay of travelling funfairs, scrap metal dealing, horse dealing, tree surgery, tarmacking, hawking, fortune telling and wooden rose making. They have also produced notable boxers such as Billy Joe Saunders as well as some notable footballers like Freddy Eastwood, and journalists, psychotherapists, nurses and a whole manner of professions.

Romanichal wagon

Originally, Romanichals would travel on foot, or with light, horse-drawn carts, and typical of other Romani groups would build Bender tents where they settled for a time. A Bender is a type of tent constructed from a frame of bent hazel branches (hazel is chosen for its straightness and flexibility), covered with canvas or tarpaulin. These tents are still favoured by New Traveller groups.

Around the mid- to late 19th century, Romanichals started using wagons that incorporated living spaces on the inside. These they called Vardos and were often brightly and colorfully decorated on the inside and outside. In the present day, Romanichals are more likely to live in caravans or houses.

Over 60% of 21st-century Romanichal families live in houses of bricks and mortar whilst the remaining 40% still live in various forms of traditional Traveller modes of transport, such as caravans, trailers or static caravans (a small minority still live in Vardos).

According to the Regional Spatial Strategy caravan count for 2008, there were 13,386 caravans owned by Romani in the West Midlands region of England, whilst a further 16,000 lived in bricks and mortar. Of the 13,386 caravans, 1,300 were parked on unauthorised sites (that is, on land where Romani were not given permission to park). Over 90% of Britain's travelling Romanichals live on authorised sites where they pay full rates (council tax).

On most traveller Romanichal sites there are usually no toilets or showers inside caravans because in Romanichal culture this is considered unclean, or 'mochadi'. Most sites have separate utility blocks with toilets, sinks and electric showers. Many Romanichals will not do their laundry inside, especially not underwear, and subsequently many utility blocks also have washing machines. In the days of horse-drawn wagons and Vardos, Romanichal women would do their laundry in a river, being careful to wash upper body garments further upstream from underwear and lower body garments, and personal bathing would take place much further downstream. In some modern trailers, a double wall separates the living areas from the toilet and shower.

Due to the (British) Caravan Sites Act 1968 which greatly reduced the number of caravans allowed to be pitched on authorised sites, many Romanichals cannot find legal places on sites with the rest of their families.

Like most nomadic groups, Romanichals travel around for work, usually following set routes and set stopping places (called ‘atching tans’) which have been established for hundreds of years. A lot of traditional stopping places were established before land ownership changed and any land laws were in place. Many atching tans were established by feudal land owners in the Middle Ages, when Romani would provide agricultural or manual labour services in return for lodgings and food. Nowadays most Romani travel within the same areas that were established generations ago. Most people can trace their presence in an area back over a hundred or two hundred years. Many traditional stopping places were taken over by local government or by settled individuals decades ago and have subsequently changed hands numerous times, however Romani have long historical connections to such places and do not always willingly give them up. Most families are identifiable by their traditional wintering base, where they will stop travelling for the winter, this place will be technically where a family is ‘from’.

Rumnichal Site UK

The Enclosure Act of 1857 created the offence of injury or damage to village greens and interruption to its use or enjoyment as a place of exercise and recreation. The Commons Act 1876 makes encroachment or inclosure of a village green, and interference with or occupation of the soil unlawful unless it is with the aim of improving enjoyment of the green.

The Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 states that no occupier of land shall cause or permit the land to be used as a caravan site unless he is the holder of a site licence. It also enables a district council to make an order prohibiting the stationing of caravans on common land, or a town or village green. These acts had the overall effect of preventing travellers using the vast majority of their traditional stopping places.

The Caravan Sites Act 1968 required local authorities to provide caravan sites for travellers if there was a demonstrated need. This was resisted by many councils who would claim that there were no Romanies living in their areas. The result was that insufficient pitches were provided for travellers, leading to a situation whereby holders of a pitch could no longer travel, for fear of losing it.

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 removed the duty of local councils to provide authorised pitches and gave the Council and Police powers to move travellers on, subject to certain welfare issues. The official response of the government was that travellers should buy land and apply for planning permission to occupy it. However, those that did so found it extremely difficult to get planning permission, with more than 90% of applications by travellers refused.

In the first phase of the Second World War , the Nazis drew up lists of Romani individuals (many of them Romanichals) and persons with Romani ancestry from the United Kingdom to be interned and subjected to Porajmos in the event of the country's occupation.

The crisis of the 1960s decade, caused by the Caravan Sites Act 1968 (stopping new private sites being built until 1972), led to the appearance of the "British Gypsy Council" to fight for the rights of the Romanichals.

In the UK , the issue of "travellers" (referring to Irish Travellers and New Age Travellers as well as Romanichal and other groups of Romani people) became a 2005 general election issue, with the leader of the Conservative Party promising to review the Human Rights Act 1998. This law, which absorbs the European Convention on Human Rights into UK primary legislation , is seen by some to permit the granting of retrospective planning permission. Severe population pressures and the paucity of greenfield sites have led to travellers purchasing land and setting up residential settlements very quickly, thus subverting the planning restrictions.

Romanichal including other ethnic groups of travellers, Irish Travellers and New Age Travellers, argued in response that thousands of retrospective planning permissions are granted in Britain in cases involving non-Romani applicants each year and that statistics showed that 90% of planning applications by Romanies and travellers were initially refused by local councils , compared with a national average of 20% for other applicants, disproving claims of preferential treatment favouring Romanies.

They also argued that the root of the problem was that many traditional stopping-places had been barricaded off and that the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 passed by the previous Conservative government had effectively criminalised their community, for example by removing local authorities’ responsibility to provide sites, thus leaving the travellers with no option but to purchase unregistered new sites themselves.

Romanichal wash day

Romanichal in Warwickshire County, 1905

Romanichal Vardo

A British Romanichal family living in a Vardo, 1926

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Who are the Travellers, and Why are They so Hated?

Travellers

Essex Police successfully evicted the Irish Traveller residents of Dale Farm on Wednesday.

The controversial land seizure escalated into a war zone, according to a number of English news outlets, with residents and activists defending the fortified community from an invading police force. Burning mobile homes blocked paths as officers attempted to remove people from the area.

Twenty-three people were arrested, two stunned by Taser guns and at least six people were injured.

Dale Farm was just the latest eviction in England, where traveller communities have been persecuted for centuries.

So who are the travellers and why are they so hated?

The Irish Travellers, sometimes called Pavees, are an ethnically Irish nomadic community. In England, they live in small, tight-knit groups and are characterized as living on Caravan sites -- an English equivalent to a trailer park. Because of the nomadic and informal nature of traveller communities, they frequently settle in unauthorized plots and common fields.

Long subject to discrimination, hatred and eviction, England has passed a number of laws to protect traveller communities, and authorities are required to provide new caravan sites when clearing an area like Dale Farm. Nonetheless, there have been a number of forced evictions in recent years.

Along with Romani Gypsies, Irish Travellers remain an object of widespread prejudice in British society. What we're seeing take place at Dale Farm today is the culmination of years of intolerance, author Owen Jones wrote in The Telegraph.

There's a lot of talk about the travellers breaking the law -- but, in reality, it's a position they've been forced into. Rather than spending millions of pounds to forcibly throw families out of their homes, we should be looking at how build a society that's far more accepting of minority groups. As things stand, riot police charging protesters has become one of the defining images of Cameron's Britain.

The unofficial status of many of the traveller communities allows the government to ignore them.

I was aware that they had to bring in water in stainless steel milk cans for their everyday use, and I wondered what they did with their disposable nappies [diapers] and other human waste, Dale Farm resident Germaine Greer said in a Telegraph editorial, referring to a visit the traveller encampment at Stump Cross Roundabout in Essex.

I rang the local council and asked whether, as the travellers were only yards from the sewage treatment plant, they mightn't have sewerage, given there were so many children on the site. I was told the pitch was illegal and the travellers were there on sufferance.

But where does the prejudice come from?

The lawbreaking that Jones speaks of is one part of it. Traveller communities are often built without legal permission, sometimes on public greens and sometimes on privately-owned land. When the travellers first moved to Dale Farm in the 1960s, much of it was already designated as a scrap yard.

As the community grew over the decades, more homes were built on land that was part of the green belt, a ring of land around London protected from urbanization and city sprawl.

Officially, this is why the Dale Farm community was cleared. After nearly a decade of legal battles, the Basildon city council will be able to restore Dale Farm to green belt specifications over the next few months.

The Traveller community is being criminalized- it has been made illegal for them to travel, but they are not being allowed to settle, Natalie Fox, a spokesperson for Dale Farm Solidarity, told the Dale Farm Supporters blog. If Traveller families are not allowed to make their home on a former scrapyard, then where will they be allowed to live?

Not all the residents of Dale Farm are Irish Travellers. Some are Romani, a similar nomadic group that has spread across continental Europe. Traditionally a traveling community with roots tracing back to India, the Romani peoples are also oft subject to extreme, institutionalized persecution.

Facing de facto discrimination in most European countries, the Romani, or Gypsy, community is economically troubled and many Romani live in slums, shanty-towns or in substandard housing. Like the travellers, these communities have been subject to forced eviction and displacement in the past.

Land disputes aside, the travellers are an ostracized group, and an Irish researcher found in May that they were nearly as despised as drug addicts and alcohols. As discovered by many Americans and Britons on the BBC show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, travellers still face discrimination in the workplace, forcing many of them to lie in order to be employed.

While there is no definitive logic for these prejudices, the travellers' inclusiveness doesn't help the situation. They are a tight-knit, insular community steeped with unwavering tradition. While they fight for rights, they also sometimes fight against assimilation into normative society.

Irish Travelers are said to be 'endogamous,' that is, they marry within their own group and marriage outside the group is frowned upon. Traditionally, children are home-schooled, Southern Cross newspaper said in 2008.

Like the Romani, they are also widely considered to be violent, unkempt grafters - general menaces to society. Both men and women are thought of as drunks who like to brawl and gamble. In 2007 the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs of Georgia published a letter titled Irish Travelers Perpetuate a Tradition of Fraud.

These descendants of Irish immigrants live in nomadic clans and make their living by perpetuating home improvement fraud and selling substandard machinery at huge mark-ups, the statement, which has been removed from the Georgia state Wed site, read.

Additionally, many Irish citizens were shocked when a family feud at a traveller camp in 2008 turned into an all-out riot.

Petrol bombs, stones, chainsaws, golf clubs, a samurai sword and other dangerous missiles were used in the clashes. The row has been described by an eyewitness as 'like a scene from 1980s' Belfast.' The Independent reported at the time.

Nonetheless, travellers are protected under the Caravan Sites Act of 1968, which restricts the eviction of caravan sites. The same local authorities that evict travellers are required to secure the establishment of such sites by local authorities for the use of gipsies [sic] and other persons of nomadic habit, and control in certain areas the unauthorized [sic] occupation of land by such persons.

So far, the Dale Farm travellers have not been shown where they will be relocated, despite a promise that land has been set aside. So Wednesday night, with many caravans burned or broken, about 82 families are left to fend for themselves.

The memory of Dale Farm will weigh heavily on Britain for generations- we are being dragged out of the only homes we have in this world, Dale Farm resident Kathleen McCarthy stated . Our entire community is being ripped apart by Basildon Council and the politicians in government.

© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.

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ROMA GYPSIES

Of the u.k., romany / romanichal.

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Romanichal Travellers ( UK : /ˈrɒmənɪtʃæl/ US : /-ni-/ ), (more commonly known as English Gypsies or English Travellers) are a Romani sub-group in the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world.

Romanichal Travellers are thought to have arrived in the Kingdom of England in the 16th century. They are very closely related to the Welsh Kale , Scottish Lowland Travellers , Norwegian & Swedish Romanisæl Travellers and Finnish Kale .

The word "Romanichal" is derived from Romani chal, where chal is Angloromani for "fellow".

Distribution

Nearly all Romanichal Travellers in Britain live in England, with smaller communities in South Wales, Northeast Wales, and the Scottish Borders. They can be found all over these areas, with counties like Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire and Yorkshire have especially high concentrations of Romanichal communities.

The Romanichal diaspora emigrated from Great Britain to other parts of the English-speaking world . Based on some estimates, there are now more people of Romanichal descent in the United States than in Britain. They are also found in smaller numbers in South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand , and there is a small Romanichal community in Malta who are descended from British Romanichal migrants who moved there during colonial times. In the US most Romanichal are in the Deep South and New England regions. Most South African Romanichal are in the Cape region, Most Canadian Romanichal are in the Vancouver region, most New Zealand Romanichal are in the Auckland region and most Australian Romanichal are in the Eastern States of Australia.

In Great Britain, there is a sharp north–south divide between Romanichal Travellers. Southern Romanichal Travellers live in the Southeast, Southwest, Midlands, East Anglia and South Wales, and Northern Romanichal Travellers live in the Northwest, Yorkshire, Scottish Borders and Northeast of Wales. The two groups' dialects differ in accent and vocabulary.

The Romani people in England are thought to have spoken the Romani language until the 19th century, when it was replaced by English and Angloromani, a creole language that combines the syntax and grammar of English with the Romani lexicon. Most Romanichals also speak English.

There are two dialects of Angloromani, Southern Angloromani (Spoken in the Southeast, Southwest, Midlands, East Anglia and South Wales) and Northern Angloromani (Spoken in the Northeast, Northwest, Yorkshire, Scottish Borders and Northeast of Wales). These two dialects along with the accents that accompany them have led to two regional Romanichal Traveller identities forming, these being the Southern Romanichal identity and the Northern Romanichal Traveller identity.

Many Angloromani words have been incorporated into English, particularly in the form of British slang .

The Romani people have origins in India , specifically Rajasthan and began migrating westwards from the 11th century. The first groups of Romani people arrived in Great Britain by the end of the 16th century, escaping conflicts in Southeastern Europe (such as the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans ).

In 1506 there are recorded Romani persons in Scotland , arrived from Spain and to England in 1512. Soon the leadership passed laws aimed at stopping the Romani immigration and at the assimilation of those already present.

During the reign of Henry VIII , the Egyptians Act (1530) banned Romanies from entering the country and required those living in the country to leave within 16 days. Failure to do so could result in confiscation of property, imprisonment and deportation. During the reign of Mary I the act was amended with the Egyptians Act (1554) , which removed the threat of punishment to Romanies if they abandoned their "naughty, idle and ungodly life and company" and adopted a settled lifestyle, but it increased the penalty for noncompliance to death.

In 1562 a new law offered Romanies born in England and Wales the possibility of becoming English subjects if they assimilated into the local population. Despite persecution and this new option, the Romani were forced into a marginal lifestyle and subjected to continuous discrimination from the state authorities and many non-Romanies. In 1596, 106 men and women were condemned to death at York just for being Romani, and nine were executed. Samuel Rid authored two early works about them in the early 17th century.

From the 1780s, gradually, the anti-Romani laws were repealed, although not all. The identity of the Romanichals was formed between the years 1660 and 1800, as a Romani group living in Britain.

Persecution

Racism against Romanichal and other travelling peoples is still endemic within Britain. In 2008 the Romani experienced a higher degree of racism than any other group in the UK, including asylum-seekers, and a Mori poll indicated that a third of UK residents admitted to being prejudiced against Romani.

Shipments to the Americas, Caribbean and Australia

England began to deport Romanichals, principally to Norway , as early as 1544. The process was continued and encouraged by Elizabeth I and James I .

The Finnish Kale , a Romani group in Finland, maintain that their ancestors had originally been a Romani group who travelled from Scotland , supporting the idea that they and the Scandinavian Travellers/Romani are distantly related to present-day Scottish Romani and English Romanichals.

In 1603 an Order in Council was made for the transportation of Romanichal to the Low Countries , France , Newfoundland , Spain , and the West Indies . Other European countries forced the further transport of the Romani of Britain to the Americas.

Many times those deported in this manner did not survive as an ethnic group , because of the separations after the round up, the sea passage and the subsequent settlement as slaves, all destroying their social fabric. At the same time, voluntary emigration began to the English overseas possessions . Romani groups which survived continued the expression of the Romani culture there.

In the years following the American War of Independence , Australia was the preferred destination for Romanichal transportation due to its use as a penal colony. The exact number of British Romani deported to Australia is unknown. It has been suggested that three Romanichal were present on the First Fleet , one of whom was thought to be James Squire who founded Australia's first commercial brewery in 1798, and whose grandson James Farnell became the first native-born Premier of New South Wales in 1877. The total Romani population seems to be an extremely low number when we consider that British Romani people made up just 0.01% of the original 162,000 convict population. However, it has been suggested that Romanichal were one of the main target groups and were discriminated against due to the transportation laws of England in the mid-18th century.

It is often difficult to distinguish British Romani people of Wales and England from the majority of non-Romani convicts at the time, therefore the precise number of British Romanies transported is not known, although there are occurrences of Romani names and possible families within the convict population; however it is unclear if such people were members of the established Romani community. Fragmentary records do exist and it is thought with confidence at least fifty or more British Romanies may have been transported to Australia, although the actual figure could be higher. What is clear is that such deportation (as for all convicts) was particularly harsh:

"For Romani convicts transportation meant social and psychological death; exiled they had little hope of returning to England to re-establish family ties, cultural roots, continuous expression and validation that would have revived their Romani identity in the convict era."

One, however, is known to have returned. Henry Lavello (or Lovell) was repatriated with a full pardon with a son born to an Aboriginal woman who accompanied him back to England.

In the 17th century Oliver Cromwell shipped Romanichals as slaves to the American southern plantations and there is documentation of English Romanies being owned by freed black slaves in Jamaica , Barbados , Cuba , and Louisiana . Gypsies, according to the legal definition, were anyone identifying themselves to be Egyptians or Gypsies. The works of George Borrow reflect the influences this had on the Romani Language of England and others contain references to Romanies being bitcheno pawdel or Bitchade pardel, to be "sent across" to America or Australia, a period of Romani history not forgotten by Romanies in Britain today.

Historically, Romanichals earned a living doing agricultural work and would move to the edges of towns for the winter months. There was casual work available on farms throughout the spring, summer and autumn months; spring would start with seed sowing, planting potatoes and fruit trees, early summer with weeding, and there would be a succession of harvests of crops from summer to late autumn. Of particular significance was the hop industry, which employed thousands of Romanichals both in spring for vine training and for the harvest in early autumn. Winter months were often spent doing casual labour in towns or selling goods or services door to door.

Mass industrialisation of agriculture in the 1960s led to the disappearance of many of the casual farm jobs Romanichals had traditionally carried out.

During the 20th century onwards Romanichals became, and remain, the mainstay of asphalt paving, hawking, horse dealing, fortune telling, scrap metal dealing, tree surgery, tarmacking, travelling funfairs, and wooden rose making. They have also produced notable boxers such as Henry Wharton and Billy Joe Saunders as well as some notable footballers like Freddy Eastwood Ben Hughes Australian and World Whip Cracking champion, and journalists, psychotherapists, nurses and all manner of professions.

A didicoy ( Angloromani ; didikai, also diddicoy, diddykai) is a person of mixed Romany and Gorger (non-Romanichal) blood.

Originally, Romanichals would travel on foot, or with light, horse-drawn carts, and would build bender tents where they settled for a time, as is typical of other Romani groups. A Bender is a type of tent constructed from a frame of bent hazel branches (hazel is chosen for its straightness and flexibility), covered with canvas or tarpaulin.

Around the mid- to late 19th century, Romanichals started using wagons that incorporated living spaces on the inside. These they called Vardos and were often brightly and colorfully decorated on the inside and outside. In the present day, Romanichals are more likely to live in caravans or houses.

Over 60% of 21st-century Romanichal families live in houses of bricks and mortar whilst the remaining 40% still live in various forms of traditional Traveller modes of transport, such as caravans, trailers or static caravans (a small minority still live in Vardos ).

According to the Regional Spatial Strategy caravan count for 2008, there were 13,386 caravans owned by Romani in the West Midlands region of England, whilst a further 16,000 lived in bricks and mortar. Of the 13,386 caravans, 1,300 were parked on unauthorised sites (that is, on land where Romani were not given permission to park). Over 90% of Britain's travelling Romanichals live on authorised sites where they pay full rates ( council tax ).

On most Romanichal Traveller sites there are usually no toilets or showers inside caravans because in Romanichal culture this is considered unclean, or 'mochadi'. Most sites have separate utility blocks with toilets, sinks and electric showers. Many Romanichals will not do their laundry inside, especially not underwear, and subsequently many utility blocks also have washing machines. In the days of horse-drawn wagons and Vardos, Romanichal women would do their laundry in a river, being careful to wash upper body garments further upstream from underwear and lower body garments, and personal bathing would take place much further downstream. In some modern trailers, a double wall separates the living areas from the toilet and shower.

Due to the (British) Caravan Sites Act 1968 which greatly reduced the number of caravans allowed to be pitched on authorised sites, many Romanichals cannot find legal places on sites with the rest of their families.

Like most Itinerant groups, Romanichals travel around for work, usually following set routes and set stopping places (called 'atching tans') which have been established for hundreds of years. Many traditional stopping places were established before land ownership changed and any land laws were in place. Many atching tans were established by feudal land owners in the Middle Ages, when Romani would provide agricultural or manual labour services in return for lodgings and food.

Today, most Romani travel within the same areas that were established generations ago. Most people can trace their presence in an area back over a hundred or two hundred years. Many traditional stopping places were taken over by local government or by settled individuals decades ago and have subsequently changed hands numerous times; however Romani have long historical connections to such places and do not always willingly give them up. Most families are identifiable by their traditional wintering base, where they will stop travelling for the winter, and this place will be technically where a family is 'from'.

British acts of legislation

The enclosure act of 1857 created the offence of injury or damage to village greens and interruption to its use or enjoyment as a place of exercise and recreation. the commons act 1876 makes encroachment or inclosure of a village green, and interference with or occupation of the soil unlawful unless it is with the aim of improving enjoyment of the green..

The Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 states that no occupier of land shall cause or permit the land to be used as a caravan site unless he is the holder of a site licence. It also enables a district council to make an order prohibiting the stationing of caravans on common land, or a town or village green. These acts had the overall effect of preventing travellers using the vast majority of their traditional stopping places.

The Caravan Sites Act 1968 required local authorities to provide caravan sites for travellers if there was a demonstrated need. This was resisted by many councils who would claim that there were no Romanichals living in their areas. The result was that insufficient pitches were provided for travellers, leading to a situation whereby holders of a pitch could no longer travel, for fear of losing it.

The crisis of the 1960s decade, caused by the Caravan Sites Act 1968 (stopping new private sites being built until 1972), led to the appearance of the "British Gypsy Council" to fight for the rights of the Romanichals.

In the UK , the issue of "Travellers" (referring to Romanichal Travellers, Irish Travellers , Funfair Travellers (Showman) as well as other groups) became a 2005 general election issue, with the leader of the Conservative Party promising to review the Human Rights Act 1998 . This law, which absorbs the European Convention on Human Rights into UK primary legislation , is seen by some to permit the granting of retrospective planning permission. Severe population pressures and the paucity of greenfield sites have led to travellers purchasing land and setting up residential settlements very quickly, thus subverting the planning restrictions.

Romanichal Travellers and Irish Travellers argued in response that thousands of retrospective planning permissions are granted in Britain in cases involving non-Romani applicants each year and that statistics showed that 90% of planning applications by Travellers were initially refused by local councils , compared with a national average of 20% for other applicants, disproving claims of preferential treatment favouring Travellers.

They also argued that the root of the problem was that many traditional stopping-places had been barricaded off and that the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 passed by the previous Conservative government had effectively criminalized their community, for example by removing local authorities' responsibility to provide sites, thus leaving the travellers with no option but to purchase unregistered new sites themselves.

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Kale (Welsh Roma)

The Kale (also Kalá, Valshanange; Welsh : Roma yng Nghymru) are a group of Romani people in Wales . Many claim to be descendants of Abram Wood , who was the first Romani to reside permanently and exclusively in Wales in the early 18th century, though Romanichal Travellers have appeared in Wales since the 16th century. [2] Welsh Kale are almost exclusively found in Northwest Wales, specifically the Welsh-speaking areas. Romanichal Travellers inhabit South Wales (In and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport) and North East Wales (In an around Wrexham as well as in parts of Wales close to Liverpool and Chester).

Generally speaking, the Kale have employed a tribal structure in which a group of several family units would be under the authority of a male chieftain. However some Kale families are matriarchal with a senior woman being chosen by consensus among the other women of the family to take the leadership role.

The Welsh Kale are extremely closely related to English Romanichal Travellers , Scottish Lowland Romany Travellers , Norwegian and Swedish Romanisæl Travellers and Finnish Kale . Many Welsh Kale have migrated to the United States over the centuries. Most Welsh Kale who migrated to the US have become absorbed into the Romanichal communities of the US, with large portions of American Romanichal Travellers claiming Welsh Kale heritage.

The Kale speak Welsh Romani . Originally the variants of Welsh Romani and the Angloromani of the Romanichal constituted a common "British Romani" language. Both Welsh Romani and Angloromani share characteristics and are closely related to each other and to Romani dialects spoken in Scotland (Scottish Cant), Finland (Finnish Kalo) and Norway and Sweden (Scandoromani). Welsh, English, Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish Romani share common ancestry from a wave of Romani immigrants who came to England in the 16th century. The Welsh Romani language survived in North Wales until at least 1950. A sort of " pidgin " dialect arose in the late 19th century, mostly consisting of Romani, Welsh and English.

Integration into Welsh culture

While preserving their travelling lifestyle the Kale grew to claim several aspects of Welsh culture, including conversion to Christianity, taking on Welsh surnames, and participating in regional and national eisteddfodau . Notably, John Robert Lewis, the husband of Abram Wood's granddaughter, would win prizes for harping in 1842, 1848 and 1850.

Another descendant, John Roberts, earned the sobriquet "Telynor Cymru", and taught his whole family various instruments. His illustrious career culminated in a performance before Queen Victoria at the Palé Hall on 24 August 1889 on the occasion of the Royal Visit to Wales. John Roberts played with his nine sons, all of them on the harp.

Scottish Gypsy and Traveller Groups

Scottish Travellers, or the people in Scotland loosely termed gypsies or travellers , consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities that speak a variety of different languages and dialects that pertain to distinct customs, histories, and traditions.

There are four distinct communities that identify themselves as Gypsies/Travellers in Scotland: Indigenous Highland Travellers, Romani Lowland Travellers, Scottish Border Romanichal Traveller (Border Gypsies) and Showman (Funfair Travellers).

Lowland Travellers and Border Romanichal Travellers (Romani Groups)

Lowland scottish gypsies/travellers.

The ethnic origins of Scottish Lowland Travellers are not clear, but can be categorised into two main theories:

They are Romani in origin and have a common ancestry with the English Romanichal , and their language and culture simply diverged from the language and culture of the Romanichal like what happened with the Welsh Kale.

They are a fusion or mix of Romani and an indigenous Lowland Scottish Traveller group, and their roots are just as Romani as they are Scottish.

Regardless of both theories, Lowland Gypsies are still viewed as a Romani group, with Romani culture clearly being a massive part of Scottish Lowland Gypsy culture.

Lowland Scottish Romani Travellers share many cultural features with other British Romani Travellers ( English Romanichal Travellers and Welsh Kale Travellers ) such as a belief in the importance of family and family descent, a strong valuing and involvement with extended family and family events, a preference for self-employment, purity taboos (among the Romani people the purity taboos are part of the Romanipen ) and a strong commitment to an itinerant lifestyle. They are particularly very closely related to the Romani groups of England, Wales, Norway, Sweden and Finland. They speak Scottish Cant , which is a para-Romani language (similar to Angloromani and Scandoromani ) meaning that it is a mixed language. Scottish Cant is a mix of Scots and Romani.

There is written evidence for the presence of Roma travellers in the Scottish Lowlands as early as 1505, when – during the reign of James IV – an entry in a book kept by the Lord High Treasurer records a payment of four shillings to a Peter Ker to take a letter from the king at Hunthall , to the "King of Rowmais". Two days later, the King authorised a payment of £20 to a messenger from the "King of Rowmais".

In 1530, a group of Romanies danced before the Scottish king at the Holyrood Palace and a Romani herbalist called Baptista cured the king of an ailment. Romany migration to Scotland continued during the 16th century and several groups of Romanies were accepted there after being expelled from England. Records in Dundee from 1651 note the migrations of small groups of people called "Egyptians" in the Highlands, and are noted to be of the same nature as the English Gypsies.

By 1612, communities of Romanies were recorded to exist as far north as Scalloway in the Shetland Islands . The Finnish Kale , a Romani group in Finland , maintain that their ancestors were originally a Romani group who travelled to Finland from Scotland , this is because Finnish Kale and Norwegian & Swedish Romanisæl Travellers are distantly related to present-day Scottish Lowland Romani Travellers, English Romanichal Travellers, and Welsh Kale, with all of these groups having common ancestry, being descended from the Romani who arrived in Britain in the 16th century.

Romani people in the South of Scotland enjoyed the protection of the Roslyn family and made an encampment within the Roslyn castle grounds. However, as with its neighbour England, the Scottish parliament passed an act in 1609 against Romani groups known as the “Act against the Egyptians”; which made it lawful to condemn, detain and execute Gypsies if they were known or reputed to be ethnically Romani. Scotland has had a Romani population for at least 500 years; they are a distinct group from the Highland Travellers. Lowland Gypsies Romani Travellers share a common heritage with English Romanichal Gypsies and Welsh Kale . They enjoyed a privileged place in Scottish society until the Reformation , when their wandering lifestyle and exotic culture brought severe persecution upon them.

Travelling groups from other parts of Britain often travel in Scotland. These include English Romanichal Travellers, Irish Travellers and Funfair Travellers (Showman). English Romanichal Gypsies/Travellers from the north of England mainly in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Cumbria commonly travel into the Scottish Borders. The annual gathering at Appleby Horse Fair could be considered part of the common culture that Lowland Scottish Travellers living in the Lowlands and Romanichal Border Gypsies living in the Scottish Borders share with the UK's other Travelling groups.

Scottish Romanichal Travellers (Scottish Border Gypsies)

It is also important to note that Romanichal Traveller communities exist in the Scottish Borders, they are linguistically (Due to speaking Northern Angloromani) and culturally (Due to following Romanichal traditions and customs) identical to the Romanichal Traveller communities in Northern England. They are known locally as Border Gypsies. They live in separate and distinct communities from Scottish Lowland Travellers, although both are Romani groups with Romani cultures, languages and heritage.

Scottish Romanichal traders were upwardly mobile, by 1830 they travelled to the potteries in Staffordshire and buying china and other goods, selling the items chiefly in Northumberland, while based in Kirk Yetholm in Roxburghshire .

By 1874 these Gypsies were commented on as "Having physical markers in their dusky complexion that is characteristically Gypsy]...and...[a language that is clearly Romani". Some Scottish Romanichal Travellers from the Scottish Borders are even members of Romani organisations based in England. Scottish Romanichal Travellers are known locally as Border Gypsies. Border Gypsies had a 'Royal' family, from an early date. The Faa family occupied this role until 1847 when it passed to the Blyths, commonly called Faa-Blyths. The last 'king' died in 1902 and there has been no more recent claimants. Besides the Faas and Blyths, common Border Gypsy (Scottish Romanichal) surnames include Baillie, Tait, Douglas, Gordon, McDonald, Ruthven, Young and Fleckie.

Scottish Cant (Also known as Scots-Romani or Scotch-Romani)

The Lowland Gypsies speak a mixed language of Scots and Romani called Scottish Cant (Also known as Scots-Romani or Scotch-Romani) which includes many words of Romani origin, mostly Angloromani origin words. Up to 50% of Scottish Cant originates from Romani-derived lexicon.

Music and song

The Raggle Taggle Gypsies (1720)

Donnie Munro's "Where the Roses" and "Queen of the Hill", from the album An Turas, are based on the author's childhood experiences with the Tinker People in the Scottish Highlands.

Irish Travellers Gypsies also known as

Irish parvee or mincéirí.

Irish Travellers ( Irish : an lucht siúil, meaning "the walking people"), also known as Pavees or Mincéirí, are a nomadic Indigenous ethnic group whose members maintain a set of traditions. They are predominantly English-speaking, though many also speak Shelta . Religiously, the majority of Irish Travellers are Catholic .

Although they are often referred to as "Gypsies", Irish Travellers are not genetically related to Romani Gypsies . Genetic analysis has shown Travellers to be of Irish extraction, and that they likely diverged from the settled Irish population in the 1600s, during the time of the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland . The centuries of separation has led to Travellers becoming genetically distinct from the settled Irish. Traveller rights groups long advocated for ethnic status from the Irish government, succeeding in 2017.

Irish Travellers mostly live in Ireland , as well as in large communities in the United Kingdom , the United States and Canada . As of 2016, there are 32,302 Travellers within Ireland. They represent 0.7% of the total population of the Republic of Ireland.

Nomenclature.

Travellers refer to themselves as Minkiers or Pavees, or in Irish as an Lucht Siúil ("the walking people").

" Pikey " or "pikie" is a slang term, which is pejorative and is a derogatory term aimed towards Travellers. It is used in the UK  to refer to Travellers. In a pejorative sense it means "a lower-class person", perhaps 'coarse' or 'disreputable'. It is not well received among Irish Travellers, as it is an ethnic slur . In Ireland the derogatory term "knacker" is often used.

The historical origins of Irish Travellers as a distinct group is still unknown. It continues to be the subject of academic and popular debate. Research has been complicated by the fact that the group appears to have no written records of its own.

Deeper documentation of Shelta and the Travellers dates to the 1830s, but knowledge of Irish Travellers has been seen from the 1100s, as well as the 1500s-1800s. Many decrees against begging in England were directed at Travellers, passed by King Edward VI around 1551. One such decree was the “Act for tynckers and pedlers”. The identity of Irish Travellers resembles other itinerant communities, some aspects being self-employment, family networks, birth, marriage, and burial rituals, taboos and folklore. Because they worked with metal, Travellers had to travel throughout Ireland and work on making various items such as ornaments, jewellery and horse harnesses to make a living. As a result, by 1175, they were referred to as “tinkler,” “tynkere,” or Tinkers, as well as Gypsies, all of which are derogative names to refer to their itinerant way of life.

Origin theories

Many different theories have been put forward to explain the origins of Ireland's itinerant population. It has been suggested Travellers are related to Romani due to a similarly itinerant lifestyle, but genetic testing has shown no evidence for a recent ancestral component between Travellers and Romani Gypsies.

One idea is of their being distantly related to a Celtic group that invaded Ireland. Another theory is of a pre-Gaelic origin, where Travellers are descended from a community that lived in Ireland before the arrival of the Celts. Once Ireland was claimed as Celtic, this group was seen as lower class There is also a theory that an indigenous, itinerant community of craftsmen are the ancestors of Travellers, and they never settled down like the Celts. Other speculations on their origin are that they were descended from those Irish who were made homeless during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the 1650s, or made homeless in either the 1741 or the 1840s famine due to eviction.

According to a 2003 book by Jane Helleiner, current scholarship is investigating the background of Gaelic Ireland before the English Tudor conquest . The mobile nature and traditions of a Gaelic society based on pastoralism rather than land tenure before this event implies that Travellers represent descendants of the Gaelic social order marginalised during the change-over to an English landholding society. An early example of this mobile element in the population, and how displacement of clans can lead to increased nomadism within aristocratic warrior societies, is that of the Clan Murtough O' Connors , displaced after the Norman invasion .

Population genetics

Present genetic evidence indicates that they are genetically Irish In 2011, researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and the University of Edinburgh analysed DNA samples from 40 Travellers. The study provided evidence that Irish Travellers are a distinct Irish ethnic minority, who have been distinct from the settled Irish community for at least 1000 years; the report claimed that they are as distinct from the settled community as Icelanders are from Norwegians . However, this apparent distance may be the effect of genetic drift within a small homogeneous population and may therefore exaggerate the distance between the two populations. A genetic analysis of Irish Travellers found evidence to support: (1) Irish ancestry; (2) several distinct subpopulations; and (3) the distinctiveness of the midland counties due to Viking influence.

In 2017 a further genetic study using profiles of 50 Irish Travellers, 143 European Roma, 2232 settled Irish, 2039 British and 6255 European or worldwide individuals confirmed ancestral origin within the general Irish population. An estimated time of divergence between the settled population and Travellers was set at a minimum of 8 generations ago, with generations at 30 years, hence 240 years and a maximum of 14 generations or 420 years ago. The best fit was estimated at 360 years ago, giving an approximate date in the 1650s. This date coincides well with the final destruction of Gaelic society following the 1641 Rebellion and during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in which Cromwell's forces devastated the country.

Irish Travellers are not an entirely homogeneous group, instead reflecting some of the variation also seen in the settled population. Four distinct genetic clusters were identified in the 2017 study, and these match social groupings within the community.

Genetic disease studies

Genetic studies by Miriam Murphy, David Croke, and other researchers identified certain genetic diseases such as galactosemia that are more common in the Irish Traveller population, involving identifiable allelic mutations that are rarer among the rest of the community.

Two main hypotheses have arisen, speculating whether:

this resulted from marriages made largely within and among the Traveller community, or

suggesting descent from an original Irish carrier long ago with ancestors unrelated to the rest of the Irish populationThey concluded that: "The fact that Q188R is the sole mutant allele among the Travellers as compared to the non-Traveller group may be the result of a founder effect in the isolation of a small group of the Irish population from their peers as founders of the Traveller sub-population. This would favour the second, endogenous, hypothesis of Traveller origins."

More specifically, they found that Q188R was found in 100% of Traveller samples, and in 89% of other Irish samples, indicating that the Traveller group was typical of the larger Irish population.

Irish Travellers speak English and sometimes one of two dialects of Shelta —Gammon (or Gamin) and Irish Traveller Cant . Shelta has been dated back to the 18th century but may be older. Cant, which derives from Irish , is a combination of English and Shelta. Jean-Pierre Liégeois  [ fr ] writes that the Irish Traveller Gammon vocabulary is derived from pre-13th-century Gaelic idioms with ten per cent Indian origin Romani language vocabulary. Since Shelta is a mixture of English and Irish grammar, the etymology is not straightforward. The language is made up mostly of Irish lexicon, being classified as a grammar-lexicon language with the grammar being English-based. Gaelic language expert Kuno Meyer and Romani language linguist John Sampson both asserted that Shelta existed as far back as the 13th century, 300 years before the first Romani populations arrived in Ireland or Britain.

Shelta is a secret language. Irish Travellers do not like to share the language with outsiders, named “Buffers”, or non-Travellers. When speaking Shelta in front of Buffers, Travellers will disguise the structure so as to make it seem like they are not speaking Shelta at all. There is fear that if outsiders know the entirety of the language, it will be used to bring further discrimination to the Traveller community.

The Irish state and Irish Travellers

There was no specific state focus on Travellers prior to the creation of an independent Irish state in 1922. Issues with traditionally travelling groups came under loosely defined vagrancy laws , originating from when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom . In 1959 the 1959–63 government of Ireland established a "Commission on Itinerancy" in response to calls to deal with the "itinerant problem". This was made up of senior representatives of the Irish state, judges, Gardaí, religious organisations and numerous farming lobby groups such as Macra na Feirme . The Commission had no Traveller representatives, neither were they consulted. The Commission had the following terms of reference:

to enquire into the problem arising from the presence in the country of itinerants in considerable numbers;

to examine the economic, educational, health and social problems inherent in their way of life;

to consider what steps might be taken—

to provide opportunities for a better way of life for itinerants,

to promote their absorption into the general community,

pending such absorption, to reduce to a minimum the disadvantages to themselves and to the community resulting from their itinerant habits and

to improve the position generally; and

to make recommendations.

The Commission's 1963 report defined "itinerant" as "a person who had no fixed place of abode and habitually wandered from place to place, but excluding travelling show-people and travelling entertainers". It recommended assimilation of travellers by settling them in fixed dwellings, viewing the Netherlands' approach to its travelling minority as a model. This assimilation was to be achieved by the effective criminalisation of nomadism, and the report paved the way for an increasing state emphasis on criminal laws and penalties for trespass.

At the time, about 60% Irish travellers lived in barrel-roofed horse-drawn wagons, with almost 40% still using tents in summer (fewer in winter).

The Travelling People Review Body (1981–83) advocated integration rather than assimilation, with provision for serviced halting sites. The Body's membership included travellers. The Task Force on the Travelling Community (1993–95) moved to an intercultural paradigm.

On 30 May 2019 the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) established a joint committee "on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community".

Population They have a much higher fertility rate than the general Irish population; the Central Statistics Office of Ireland recorded in 2016 that 44.5% of Traveller women aged 40–49 had 5 or more children, compared to 4.2% of women overall in this age group.

The 2016 census in the Republic of Ireland reported the number of Irish Travellers as 30,987, up from 29,495 in 2011. In 2006 the number was 22,369. A further 1,700 to 2,000 were estimated to live in Northern Ireland .

From the 2006 Irish census it was determined that 20,975 dwell in urban areas and 1,460 were living in rural areas. With an overall population of just 0.5% some areas were found to have a higher proportion, with high Traveller concentrations in Clare, Dublin, Galway and Limerick. There were found to be 9,301 Travellers in the 0–14 age range, comprising 41.5% of the Traveller population, and a further 3,406 of them were in the 15–24 age range, comprising 15.2%. Children of age range 0–17 comprised 48.7% of the Traveller population.

Following the findings of the All Ireland Traveller Health Study (estimates for 2008), the figure for Northern Ireland was revised to 3,905 and that for the Republic to 36,224.

United Kingdom

In 2011, for the first time, the census category "Irish Traveller" was introduced as part of the broader Gypsy/Traveller section. The self reported figure for collective Gypsy/Traveller populations were 63,193 but estimates of Irish Travellers living in Great Britain range are about 15,000 as part of a total estimation of over 300,000 Romani and other Traveller groups in the UK.

The London Boroughs of Harrow and Brent contain significant Irish Traveller populations. In addition to those on various official sites there are a number who are settled in local authority housing. These are mostly women who wish their children to have a chance at a good education. They and the children may or may not travel in the summer but remain in close contact with the wider Irish Traveller community.

There are also a number of Irish Traveller communities in the Home Counties .

United States

An estimated 10,000 people in the United States are descendants of Travellers who left Ireland, mostly between 1845 and 1860 during the Great Famine . However, there are no official population figures regarding Irish Travellers in the United States as the US census does not recognise them as an ethnic group. While some sources estimate their population in the US to be 10,000, others suggest their population is 40,000. According to research published in 1992, Irish travellers in the US divide themselves up into groups that are based on historical residence: Ohio Travellers, Georgia Travellers, Texas Travellers, and Mississippi Travellers. The Georgia Travelers' camp is made up of about eight hundred families, the Mississippi Travelers, about three hundred families, and the Texas Travelers, under fifty families."

The largest and most affluent population of about 2,500 lives in Murphy Village, outside of the town of North Augusta, South Carolina . Other communities exist in Memphis, Tennessee , Hernando, Mississippi , and near White Settlement, Texas , where the families stay in their homes during the winter, and leave during the summer, while smaller enclaves can be found across Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Irish Travellers in the US are said to speak English and Shelta, a form of Cant. The Cant spoken in the US is similar to the Cant spoken in Ireland, but differs in some respects in that the language has transformed into a type of pidgin English over the generations. They typically work in asphalting, spray-painting, laying linoleum, or as itinerant workers to earn their living.

Travellers have a distinctive approach to religion ; the vast majority of them are practising Roman Catholics and they also pay particular attention to issues of healing .They have been known to follow a strict code of behaviour that dictates some of their moral beliefs and influences their actions.

Traveller child ren often grow up outside educational systems. The Irish Traveller Movement , a community advocacy group, promotes equal access to education for Traveller children.

In December 2010, the Irish Equality Tribunal ruled in favour of a traveller child in an anti-discrimination suit which covered the admission practices of CBS High School Clonmel in County Tipperary . In July 2011, the secondary school in Clonmel successfully appealed the decision of the Equality Tribunal that its admission criteria were indirectly discriminatory against children from the Traveller community.

Irish Travellers have a long history of bare-knuckle boxing . Toughness and the ability to fight are viewed as particularly important among Traveller men, and their involvement in boxing has extended to traditional amateur and professional boxing . Irish Traveller Francie Barrett represented Ireland at the 1996 Olympics, while Andy Lee fought for Ireland at the 2004 Olympics and later became the first Traveller to win a professional boxing world championship when he won the WBO middleweight title in 2014. Tyson Fury is of Irish Traveller heritage and defeated long-reigning Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 to become the unified heavyweight world champion.

In the Traveller community, bare-knuckle boxing is seen as a way to resolve disputes and uphold family honour, as shown in the 2011 documentary Knuckle . This behaviour can lead to injuries, notably "fight bite" where, when punching an opponent, a tooth may cut the hand and bacteria in the opponent's mouth may infect the wound. This infection can lead to permanent disability if the afflicted is not provided treatment.

Apart from boxing, Irish Travellers, including women, are involved in sports such as football (soccer) and Gaelic handball .

The health of Irish Travellers is significantly poorer than that of the general population in Ireland. This is evidenced in a 2007 report published in Ireland, which states that over half of Travellers do not live past the age of 39 years. (By comparison, median life expectancy in Ireland is 81.5 years.) Another government report of 1987 found:

From birth to old age, they have high mortality rates, particularly from accidents, metabolic and congenital problems , but also from other major causes of death. Female Travellers have especially high mortality compared to settled women.

In 2007, the Department of Health and Children in the Republic of Ireland, in conjunction with the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland, commissioned the University College Dublin 's School of Public Health and Population Science to conduct a major cross-border study of Travellers' welfare. The study, including a detailed census of Traveller population and an examination of their health status, was expected to take up to three years to complete. The main results of the study were published in 2010.

The birth rate of Irish Travellers has decreased since the 1990s, but they still have one of the highest birth rates in Europe. The birth rate for the Traveller community for the year 2005 was 33.32 per 1,000, possibly the highest birth rate recorded for any community in Europe.

On average there are ten times more driving fatalities within the Traveller community. At 22%, this represents the most common cause of death among Traveller males. Some 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday, compared to just 1% of the general population. In Ireland, 2.6% of all deaths in the total population were for people aged under 25, versus 32% for the Travellers. In addition, 80% of Travellers die before the age of 65.

According to the National Traveller Suicide Awareness Project, Traveller men are over six times more likely to kill themselves than the general population.

Teenage marriage is common among Irish Travellers. Couples tend to marry very young. According to Judith Okely, "there is no large time span between puberty and marriage" of Travellers. Okely wrote in 1983 that the typical marriage age for females was 16–17 and the typical marriage age for males was 18–19. As of the Census of Ireland 2011 the average age of an Irish Traveller was 22.4 and 52.2% were aged under 20. Yet only 252 15–19-year-old enumerated Irish Travellers identified themselves as married.

In contrast, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government (DEHLG) "definition of a [Traveller] family includes unmarried Traveller men over 18 as a unit" because, according to Abdalla et al., "it is understood that they will marry at this age and require an additional unit of accommodation."

Irish Travellers generally marry other Irish Travellers. Consanguineous marriage is common among Irish Travellers.

Irish Travellers lived as cohabiters who "married at one time without religious or civil ceremony." Into the early 20th century about one-third of Irish Travellers were "married according to the law."

According to Christopher Griffin, arranged Irish Traveller marriages in the early 21st century "safeguard the girl's [interests] by securing a man who won't mistreat her." According to Julie Bindel , in Standpoint , some Irish Traveller females in the UK are forced into marriages, but Bindel points out that data is difficult to obtain because "the line between an arranged marriage and a forced one is not always clear."

Social conflict and controversies

Discrimination and prejudice.

Travellers are often reported as the subject of explicit political and cultural discrimination, with politicians being elected on promises to block Traveller housing in local communities and individuals frequently refused service in pubs, shops and hotels.

A 2011 survey by the Economic and Social Research Institute of Ireland concluded that there is widespread ostracism of Travellers in Ireland, and the report concluded that it could hurt the long-term prospects for Travellers, who "need the intercultural solidarity of their neighbours in the settled community. ... They are too small a minority, i.e., 0.5 per cent, to survive in a meaningful manner without ongoing and supportive personal contact with their fellow citizens in the settled community." The general prejudice against Travellers hinders efforts by the central government to integrate Travellers into Irish society. Because Travellers are a minority group within Ireland and the United Kingdom, they have always faced discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity as Travellers. They experience discrimination in not having equal access to education, being denied service in pubs, shops, and hotels, and being subject to derogatory language.

In 2016, the USA's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for the United Kingdom stated that Irish Travellers (among other groups) widely reported discrimination in the country, and highlighted that the High Court had ruled the government had illegally discriminated against Travellers by unlawfully subjecting planning applications to special scrutiny.

Pejorative names

Travellers are often referred to by the terms tinkers , gipsies / gypsies , itinerants , or, pejoratively, they are referred to as knackers in Ireland. Some of these terms refer to services that were traditionally provided by the group: tinkering or tinsmithing, for example, being the mending of tinware such as pots and pans, and knackering being the acquisition of dead or old horses for slaughter . The term gypsy first appears in records which date back to the 16th century when it was originally used to refer to the continental Romani people in England and Scotland , who were mistakenly thought to be Egyptian . Other derogatory names for itinerant groups have been used to refer to Travellers including the word pikey .

Work and income

According to the 2002 Irish census, "the labour force participation rate for male Travellers (72%) slightly exceeded that for total males (70%) while the rate for female Travellers (38%) was considerably below that for females in general (47%). Unemployment among male Travellers measured 73 per cent according to the self-assessed principal economic status question on the census form. The national measure of unemployment for males on a comparable basis was 9.4 per cent according to the 2002 census results. Corresponding rates for females were 63 per cent for female Travellers and 8 per cent for the female population overall."

Many Travellers are breeders of dogs such as greyhounds or lurchers and have a long-standing interest in horse trading. The main fairs associated with them are held annually at Ballinasloe (County Galway), Puck Fair (County Kerry), Ballabuidhe Horse Fair (County Cork), the twice yearly Smithfield Horse Fair (Dublin inner city) and Appleby (England). They are often involved in dealing scrap metals, e.g., 60% of the raw material for Irish steel is sourced from scrap metal, approximately 50% (75,000 metric tonnes) segregated by the community at a value of more than £1.5 million. Such percentages for more valuable non-ferrous metals may be significantly greater.

Since the majority of Irish Travellers' employment is either self-employment or wage labour , income and financial status varies greatly from family to family. Many families choose not to reveal the specifics of their finances, but when explained it is very difficult Irish Travellers are recognised in British and Irish law as an ethnic group . An ethnic group is defined as one whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry. Ethnic identity is also marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and by common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioural or biological traits.

The European Parliament Committee of Enquiry on Racism and Xenophobia found them to be among the most discriminated-against ethnic groups in Ireland and yet their status remains insecure in the absence of widespread legal endorsement. Travellers are often viewed by settled people in a negative light, perceived as insular, anti-social, 'drop-outs' and 'misfits', or believed to be involved in criminal and mendicant behaviour, or settling illegally on land owned by others.

Violence and crime

In 1960 a government body was set up to conduct research into the Travelling Community in the Republic of Ireland. The Commission on Itinerancy operated under the auspices of the Department of Justice, the persons were appointed by the Junior Minister Charles Haughey . One finding was: that "public brawling fuelled by excessive drinking further added to settled people's fear of Travellers". Furthermore "feuding was felt to be the result of a dearth of pastimes and [of] illiteracy, historically comparable to features of rural Irish life before the Famine."

In 2008 a faction fight riot broke out in D'Alton Park, Mullingar involving up to 65 people of the Nevin , Dinnegan and McDonagh families. The court hearing in 2010 resulted in suspended sentences for all the defendants. The cause may have been an unpaid gambling debt linked to a bare-knuckle boxing matchA 2011 report, conducted by the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain, Voices Unheard: A Study of Irish Travellers in Prison (Mac Gabhann, 2011) found that social, economic and educational exclusion were contributing factors to the "increasingly high levels of imprisonment" of Irish Travellers.

In 2016, Irish Travellers from the southern East Coast of the United States pled guilty to charges of perpetrated scams on homeowners and government agencies. By 2017, 52 had pled guilty to violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

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COMMENTS

  1. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people (UK)

    Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (abbreviated to GRT) is an umbrella term used in the United Kingdom to represent several diverse ethnic groups which have a shared history of nomadism.The groups include Gypsies, defined as communities of travelling people who share a Romani heritage, resident in Britain since the 16th century; Ethnic Travellers, the traditional travelling people of Ireland and ...

  2. Romanichal

    Romanichals (UK: / ˈ r ɒ m ə n ɪ tʃ æ l / US: /-n i-/; more commonly known as English Gypsies) are a Romani subgroup within the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. Most Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax. Romanichals resident in England, Scotland, and Wales are part of the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller ...

  3. Gypsy Roma and Traveller History

    Some Travellers of Irish heritage identify as Pavee or Minceir, which are words from the Irish Traveller language, Shelta. Romany Gypsies. ... These communities and other nomadic groups, such as Scottish and English Travellers, Show People and New Travellers, share a number of characteristics in common: the importance of family and/or community ...

  4. The Gypsy Lore Society

    Gypsy and Traveler Groups in the United States. Cale: Spanish Gypsies, or Gitanos, are found primarily in the metropolitan centers of the East and West coasts. A small community of only a few families. English Travelers: Fairly amorphous group, possibly formed along same lines as Roaders (see below), but taking shape already in England before ...

  5. Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller ethnicity summary

    Gypsies (including English Gypsies, Scottish Gypsies or Travellers, Welsh Gypsies and other Romany people) Irish Travellers (who have specific Irish roots) Roma, understood to be more recent migrants from Central and Eastern Europe; The term Traveller can also encompass groups that travel. This includes, but is not limited to, New Travellers ...

  6. Angloromani language

    Angloromani or Anglo-Romani (literally "English Romani"; also known as Angloromany, Rummaness, or Pogadi Chib) is a mixed language of Indo-European origin involving the presence of Romani vocabulary and syntax in the English used by descendants of Romanichal Travellers in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States, and South Africa.

  7. 'I don't look like most people's idea of a Gypsy'

    English Romani had German-derived words in ... one with a good and flexible grasp of the ancient Travellers' tongue. Besides, if Romani is to retain one of the functions which has kept it alive ...

  8. Dale Farm: Who are the UK's travellers?

    Both Irish Travellers and Romany Gypsies are recognised as distinct ethnic minority groups in English law because they are communities which share a history stretching back hundreds of years.

  9. Gypsies, Roma, Travellers: An Animated History

    Many Roma, Gypsies, and Travellers are engaged in recycling and have been for centuries, long before major environmental concerns. We were also healers and herbalists for the "country people.". Mobility has, for many Roma, been part and parcel of identity. It's "not all wagons and horses," though, and Roma have been engaged with ...

  10. Full article: What field? Where? Bringing Gypsy, Roma and Traveller

    9. An exception here was those living in the Scots borders, including in the 'Gypsy village' of Kirk Yetholm, who claim Romani ancestry. For more on these discussions see Colin Clark, "Defining ethnicity in a cultural and socio-legal context: the case of Scottish Gypsy/Travellers', Scottish Affairs, 54: 1 (2006): 39-67.On Irish Travellers see George Gmelch, 'Special Issue.

  11. 9 myths and the truth about Gypsies and Travellers

    7) Criminal Justice System. Far too many Gypsies and Travellers are in prison, as many as five per cent of the population according to Government research. Meanwhile 0.13 per cent of the general ...

  12. Britain's Gypsy Travellers: A People on the Outside

    Arthur Harding's classic account of the East End underworld at the beginning of the 20th century, compiled by the historian Raphael Samuel, revealed in passing how Gypsy Travellers were part of the everyday fabric of poor urban life. David Mayall's work on the 19th century, my own on the 20th and that of the Dutch scholars Lucassen, Willems ...

  13. Roma

    Roma, an ethnic group of traditionally itinerant people who originated in northern India but live in modern times worldwide, principally in Europe.Most Roma speak some form of Romany, a language closely related to the modern Indo-European languages of northern India, as well as the major language of the country in which they live. It is generally agreed that Roma groups left India in repeated ...

  14. Was your ancestor a Gypsy?

    By gathering other types of information about a person or a family, it may be possible to confirm that you have Gypsy blood. There are four main characteristics to look out for in an individual: Typical Romany surname: common ones include Cooper, Smith, Lee, Boswell, Lovell, Doe, Wood, Young and Heron. But take a look at our Famous Families ...

  15. Romanichal Facts for Kids

    Romanichal Travellers ( more commonly known as English Gypsies or English Travellers) are a Romani subgroup within the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. There are an estimated 200,000 Romani in the United Kingdom; almost all live in England. Most Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax.

  16. Irish Travellers

    Irish Travellers (Irish: an lucht siúil, meaning the walking people), also known as Pavees, Mincéirs (Shelta: Mincéirí) or Mincéirí, are a traditionally peripatetic indigenous ethno-cultural group originating in Ireland.. They are predominantly English speaking, though many also speak Shelta, a language of mixed English and Irish origin. The majority of Irish Travellers are Roman ...

  17. Who are the Travellers, and Why are They so Hated?

    Along with Romani Gypsies, Irish Travellers remain an object of widespread prejudice in British society. What we're seeing take place at Dale Farm today is the culmination of years of intolerance ...

  18. Roma Gypsies of the U.K.

    Romanichal Travellers ( UK: /ˈrɒmənɪtʃæl/ US: /-ni-/ ), (more commonly known as English Gypsies or English Travellers) are a Romani sub-group in the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. Romanichal Travellers are thought to have arrived in the Kingdom of England in the 16th century. They are very closely related to ...

  19. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller performers 'under-represented' on-screen

    Many people have seen a television programme about people from a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller background. But the likelihood is that it was a documentary, rather than a drama or comedy. On 8 April ...

  20. DNA study finally reveals origins of Ireland's Traveller community and

    A STUDY of Irish Traveller genetics has revealed the group have no connection to Roma gypsies, and split from the settled Irish population earlier than previously thought. That's according to new research undertaken by scientists from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University College Dublin, the University of Edinburgh and the ...

  21. Engaging Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller Communities in Research: Maximizing

    1. Romanian Roma 2. English Gypsy: English Roma: 1. Slovakian Roma 2. Scottish Showpeople: Irish Traveller: Actual: 1. Romanian Roma 2. English Gypsy 3. Irish Traveller: English Roma (but included within the English Gypsy categorization as they agreed they belong to the same ethnic group) 1. Slovakian Roma 2. Scottish Showpeople 3. Romanian Roma

  22. Romani people

    In the English language (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), Rom is a noun (with the plural Roma or Roms) and an adjective, while Romani (Romany) is also a noun (with the plural Romani, the Romani, Romanies, or Romanis) and an adjective. Both Rom and Romani have been in use in English since the 19th century as an alternative for Gypsy.

  23. Spanish tourist gang-raped in India

    A tourist who was travelling on a bicycle with her husband was allegedly gang-raped overnight from 1 to 2 March in the Dumka district of India's Jharkhand state - a well-known tourist destination.

  24. Germany to face travel chaos with rail, airport strikes to resume

    The German train drivers' union said on Monday it would commence a fresh round of nationwide strikes as a dispute with national train operator Deutsche Bahn escalated, setting the stage for ...

  25. Romani people in the United Kingdom

    Romani people have been recorded in the United Kingdom since at least the early 16th century. Records of Romani people in Scotland date to the early 16th century. Romani number around est. 225,000 in the UK. This includes the sizable population of Eastern European Roma, who immigrated into the UK in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and also after EU expansion in 2004.

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