Trivia

Shelta is an esoteric jargon based on Irish and Gaelic, and it is still spoken by tinkers and vagrants in some parts of Ireland and England.

Irish Travelers (sometimes known as "itinerants" or "Tinkers") are a very small minority group in Ireland. They make up less than 1% of the population with approximately 23,000 people in the Republic and another 1,500 in the North. It is also estimated that there are about 15,000 Irish travelers in Britain and another 7,000 in the USA.

Irish Travelers belong to a distinct ethnic group within Ireland. They have their own language, beliefs and social customs which have been made stronger over time due to their exclusion and marginalization from mainstream "settled" society.

Occasionally Irish Travelers have been confused with the Roma or Gypsies in England, who despite centuries of coexistence, cultural interchange and limited intermarriage, remain a distinct people.

Until not so long ago Irish Travelers were referred to as "Tinkers". This word referred to their occupation as tinsmiths and metalworkers and was derived from the Irish word "ceard" (smith) or "tinceard" (tinsmith). This word is now generally used in a derogatory sense. Most of the Travelers' traditional crafts such as spoon-mending, tinsmithing and flower-making have gone by the way now as a result of urbanization and the introduction of plastic and industrial technology.

Traveler musicians have included the great uilleann piper Felix Doran and the world-renowned folk musicians, The Furey Brothers. The music and singing of the Irish Travelers have been in decline since urbanization and the arrival of television. Fewer Travelers now rely on singing and making music for their livelihood as in times gone by.

There are a number of theories as to the origin of the Irish Travelers. Their secret language, Shelta, and the evidence of various historical references to them would seem to indicate that they are the remnants of an ancient class of wandering poets, joined by those who were pushed off the land during different times of social and economic upheaval such as Cromwell's campaign, the Battle of the Boyne (1690) and the Battle of Aughrim (1691). Many of the Travelers may also be the descendants of people who were left homeless as a result of the Irish potato famines of the nineteenth century.