The groups of nomadic peoples that are increasingly well known for their home improvement scams are known as the Irish Travelers. Over the years they have been the subject of various news stories and exposes. Almost exclusively the coverage they receive revolves in some way around a new bunco crime being perpetrated among citizens. The origins and traditions of this small clan, the types of crimes they engage in, and some of the more prominent of their schemes can be helpful in insulating oneself against victimization.
The Irish Travelers began arriving in the United States during the Great Famine in Ireland in the mid 19th century. It is believed they are descendants of landowners and laborers who were displaced by Oliver Cromwell’s military campaign in Ireland in the 1600’s. As they maintain no written records of their history, their true heritage is still of some debate. Arriving in this country they were known as the Irish Horse Traders for their dealings in the horse trading industry. It has been suggested that as far back as their arrival they were engaging in schemes to defraud potential customers.
This clan of Roman Catholics live by a strict ethos they call the “Traveler Code”. No known written code exists, except perhaps amongst the clan itself. They have a separate and distinct lifestyle in which they rarely associate with outsiders, whom they call “country people”. If in the presence of country people, the Travelers speak an ancient Gaelic-derived language called Cant. They marry within their own group, they seldom receive an education beyond elementary school and secrecy is a way of life for the Travelers. (Dateline NBC)
The largest community of Irish Travelers in the United States is known as Murphy Village a...
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Duke, L. (2002, October 20). Unwelcome stares at quiet clan. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.rickross.com/reference/irish_travelers/irish_travelers10.html
McIlvain, J. (2002, September 23). Irish travelers' scams. Retrieved from http://troubleshooterjudd.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33:irish-travelers-scams&catid=8:home-remodeling-topics&Itemid=5
Ripley, A. (2002, October 07). Unwelcome exposure. TIME, Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003381,00.html
Roeper, R. (2002, September 24). Mom brings baggage from Irish travelers. Retrieved from http://www.rickross.com/reference/irish_travelers/irish_travelers5.html
Throne, K. (2001, June 1). Seven Irish travelers charged with fraud. The Augusta Chronicle. Retrieved from http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2001/06/01/met_310376.shtm
Irish American Magazine, Aug.-Sept. 2009. Web. The Web. The Web. 06 May 2014.
Such was the environment in which droves of Irish immigrants sought to better their lives and those of their children by fleeing their homeland with its disastrous potato famines, and economic, political and religious repression. There are today descendants of the Goodwin families living in the Pawtucket area. There is certainly every likelihood that living today in Tyrone are many distant cousins.
The McCourt family leaves their apartment in Brooklyn to set sail for Ireland, leaving behind an apartment with indoor plumbing and the memory of a dead sister in hopes of finding a better life amongst “the poverty, the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father, the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire, pompous priests, and bullying schoolmasters” of Ireland. This tragic story is told from the point of view of a child, Frank McCourt, whose father is a driftless alcoholic and whose mother does moan by the fire.
Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. Due to the Great Depression, Malachy could not find work in America. However, things did not get any better back in Ireland for Malachy. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting cliches about drunken Irish manhood are based. Week after week, Angela would be home expecting her husband to come home with money to eat, but Malachy always spent his wages on pints at local pubs. Frank’s father would come home late at night and make his sons get out of bed and sing patriotic songs about Ireland by Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry, who were hung for their country. Frank loved his father and got an empty feeling in his heart when he knew his father was out of work again. Frank described his father as the Holy Trinity because there is three people in him, “The one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the stories and prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland” (McCourt 210). Even when there was a war going on and English agents were recruiting Irishmen to work in their munitions factories, Malachy could not keep a job when he traveled to England.
Immigration to America from Europe was at an all time high in the mid-1800s. After the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s, a large group of Irish immigrated to the United States. Since then, increasing numbers of Irish people have been moving to the United States, especially in Chicago. The Irish had come to realize that the United States really is the land of opportunity. With jobs being available to the immigrants, many more shipped in to start new lives for their families. However, for quite a while they did not live in the nicest of areas in Chicago. Many of the Irish resided in low-class areas such as overcrowded parts around the Loop, and out in the West Side. Not only did the West Side shelter the Irish, but many Germans and Jews lived in that area.
Meagher, Timothy. “The Columbia Guide to Irish American History.” Columbia University Press- New York, 2005
Kelly, James and Martyn J. Powell , Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, Dublin, 2010
Ireland, from Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. N.d. TS. Swift, "" Web. 30 Nov. 2013. .
The life of Irish immigrants in Boston was one of poverty and discrimination. The religiously centered culture of the Irish has along with their importance on family has allowed the Irish to prosper and persevere through times of injustice. Boston's Irish immigrant population amounted to a tenth of its population. Many after arriving could not find suitable jobs and ended up living where earlier generations had resided. This attributed to the 'invisibility' of the Irish.
There is particular consideration given to the political climate in this story. It is incorporated with social and ethnic concerns that are prevalent. The story also addresses prejudice and the theme of ethnic stereotyping through his character development. O'Connor does not present a work that is riddled with Irish slurs or ethnic approximations. Instead, he attempts to provide an account that is both informative and accurate.
During the mid 1840’s, blight in the potato crops in Ireland caused widespread starvation and migration of Irish citizens to the United States. Yet, the massive loss of life and massive exodus could have been avoided if British taxation upon the working class of Ireland was nullified. Though the struggle for liberation was already taking place, the potato famine furthered the cause and helped spread awareness. Furthermore, the potato famine made the average Irish family more reliant upon the government for subsidies and supports to get by.
Throughout the history of this nation there are thousands of upon thousands of immigrants coming to this country and achieving the American dream. The Irish immigrated to the United States in 1840 – 1850s in big numbers driven by hunger and by the oppression of the British. Many of them became successful politicians, police officers and businessmen. One of the brightest examples in the history of Irish immigration success is Henry Ford. His grandfather immigrated in the 1840s escaping the potato famine. Henry Ford himself was born in a poor family in Dearborn, Michigan went on to become the most successful car builder in the country (Hennigan). Between 1880 and 1920 the first wave of Italians mainly from South Italy immigrated in the United States (Hendin 13). Many escaped from the poor countryside in Southern Italy to seek better life in America. Shining ex...
Tierney, John. "The Gentry, Misjudged as Neighbors." New York Times 26 Mar. 2002, sec. B: 1.
McCann depicted Ireland’s effects of poverty very thoroughly, which took place in the late 1840s. Throughout the second chapter of “Transatlantic”, we are faced with scenes that depict the horrible living conditions Ireland had to deal with due to the lack of food and money. The Irish had suffered from much famine because of this. One scene from the novel that showed light on the problem was when the main character, Frederick Douglass, was getting a tour of the streets of Ireland. The streets started out clean and leisurely but as they traveled further, the potholes deepened and soon the staggering filth had presented itself. There were piles of human waste flushed down the gutters. In one particular moment in the book, Douglas had witnessed a tribe of boys in rags who jumped onto the side of the carriage and specifically one boy had raw welts running along his neck and face. They were begging for money so they could eat something that day. Webb, the man in charge of Douglass, told him to mind his pockets when Douglas gave the kid a penny. The fact that these kids were living in t...
The Travellers, a minority community indigenous to Ireland, have existed on the margins of Irish society for centuries. They share common descent, and have distinct cultural practices - early marriage, desire to be mobile, a tradition of self-employment, and so on. They have distinct rituals of death and cleansing, and a language they only speak among their own. Travellers are not overtly conscious of a sense of group history. Concern with ancestry is an obsession of those who value permanence of place. Rather, the individual is defined by his/her place within the relationship network. They live in extended patriarchal families, prefer trailers, tend to nomadism interspersed with occasional house dwelling, and maintain a nomadic mindset even when settled; a house is considered only a stopping place between journeys, whether the stop lasts 20 days or 20 years! There are an estimated 21,000 Travellers currently living in the Republic of Ireland, over half of whom have no access to toilet facilities, electricity, refuse collection or piped water.