School: Cros Riabhach
- Location:
- Crossreagh, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: T. Ó Siordáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1003, Page 358
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Cros Riabhach
- XML Page 358
- XML “Travelling Folk”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Travelling Folk are generally spoken of as Gipsies thought they are really tinkers who have nothing foreign about them.
They object to the name "tinkers" and refer to themselves as "tinsmiths" or "tin people."
They travel about in carts drawn by ponies or horses and have generally three or four asses running loosely before them as an advance guard.
They camp by the roadside, generally occupying the same site as others of their tribe who have passed the way before, and sleep under their carts or in very rude shelters covered with sacking.
They call to all the neighbouring houses, first offering tin porringers, or gallons for sale, and ending up by begging: first a "grain of tea" or "a bit of bread" and if all fails a "drink of water."
They often make free with the neighbours' turf or "strip a gap" and turn their asses into pasture for the night.
A tinker and his wife who used to visit this district periodically were held in higher esteem than those of their(continues on next page)
