Travellers' Rest

A tragedy in Texas:
Five young Irish Traveller boys were killed in a truck collision on Sunday afternoon, on the second day of a new year that they will never enjoy, a new century that they can never know. A country man named Ruben Molinar Sr. was seriously hurt in the crash and was brought to Harris Methodist Fort Worth hospital. There are lessons to be learned belatedly from this terrible accident and while I offer prayers to God for their souls and Mr. Molinar's full recovery I will also pray that we heed those lessons. Will you join me in that?

A Disappointing Misstatement:
There was an article in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram today (Feb. 20, 2000) quoting the above paragraph and citing it as an "official" statement released by the Irish Travellers. That is, of course, not merely an exaggeration; it is an untruth and, as you will note from the copies below of that newspaper's messages to me and my responses, it is an untruth that cannot possibly be the result of any simple misunderstanding:

At 08:53 AM 1/7/00 -0600, Bud Kennedy wrote:
>Richard, can you help?
>
>I'm a reporter at the Star-Telegram newspaper here. As you may or may not have heard, three _______* boys were killed along with a _____* and a _______* in a truck rollover last weekend.
>

[*It is the general practice on this website not to print the family names of any Irish Travellers except for my own, which is not shared by any other Irish Travellers.]
>
Well, Bud,
I heard the information from a cousin, just today, who got it from her brother, who originally got it from CNN or some such source. So your information is probably better than mine as well as more current.
>
>We are trying delicately to avoid ethnic insults or steretyping, but the boys had fake driver licenses showing them as older, and some of the addresses don't match either.
>
Five more young Americans were killed in a high-speed collision on this New Year's holiday weekend. It is a great loss, especially since they were all related and so young, to their immediate and extended family and to the greater society. I don't know any of the details about their I.D. but I can safely say that many teenagers in this country have been known to inflate their age one way or another on official documentation. At any rate, home addresses and transient workers, whatever their ethnic identity, have at best an informal relationship.

Melody McDonald's articles about the accident and its aftermath seemed to be fair and accurate. I would like to compliment her and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for their restraint in not dredging up extraneous speculations about the boys' families, which is so often the practice elsewhere.
>
>Obviously, the families are not talking.
>
Obviously. They are surely in mourning and, if capable of any other considerations at this time, praying for the full recovery of Mr. Molinar, the driver of the other truck in the accident.
>
>Who are some sources for information on families in Fort Worth or Texas?
>
There are no spokespersons that I know of for the families of which you write. Our normal taciturnity is almost legendary (well, perhaps not mine); you can only imagine the extent to which it is compounded by the effects of such a loss on the immediate families as well as the greater community.
>
>Your page mentions Fort Worth. Has it always been a campground?
>
>--Bud Kennedy
>
Yes, for the military since its inception in 1849; for our family since not long after the Civil War (and perhaps before that, I cannot say for sure).
Richard Waters

At 03:07 PM 2/3/00 -0600, Melody McDonald wrote:
>Mr. Waters,
>
Good evening, Ms. McDonald,
I'm really the wrong person to ask about the Irish Travellers in Texas. The closest I come to this tragedy is having a first cousin who grew up with the grandmother of one of the boys who was killed, and he was only a visitor to Texas at the time.
You are welcome to peruse my web site: www.travellersrest.org. I would recommend the Travellers, What's New, and Controversy pages, especially those to do with the media and law enforcement, for general information about my mother's people. But please bear in mind that it is all one man's opinion.

As an ethnic minority, my estimate is that Irish Travellers number over thirty thousand in the USA, and you'll never have any reason to write stories about the overwhelming majority of us. So, when you start listening to all the war stories from law enforcement people (who like to have somebody convenient to blame for unsolved crimes), ask them about the felony conviction rate for Irish Travellers, or how many of them have ever served prison time. Then ask about the comparable rates for other minorities; I wager that you'll hear an awful lot of "hemming and hawing" instead of cold hard facts.
>
>I am a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. As you know, five
>Irish Traveller boys were killed last month in a wreck here. I am in the
>process of writing a follow-up story about the wreck and about Irish
>Travellers, in general.
>
>I want this story to be fair, objective and informative. However, most
>of my information is coming from law enforcement authorities across the
>country and anthropologist who deal mainly with the Irish Travellers in
>Ireland.
>
If you're looking for an academic who has dealt with all sorts of Travellers and Gypsies in the USA, I would suggest the eminent scholar, Professor Ian Hancock of the University of Texas. His e-mail address is: xulaj@mail.utexas.edu (xulaj)
>
>I need to talk to someone who will give me specifics about about the
>Travellers in the United States, and, preferably, those that live in
>Texas. Would you please help me. My number is 817-___-____.
>
>Melody McDonald
>
I hope you will continue to report only "hard news" and refrain from the idle speculation and innuendo that we often encounter.

>Mr. Waters do you know any Travellers in Texas that I could speak to?
>
The answer is no, Ms. McDonald, as I have already e-mailed in response to Bud Kennedy; I don't know any Irish Traveller who would serve as a source for your newspaper or any other, especially on a matter this painful. In any event I was about 1500 miles away from the tragedy when it occurred and therefore would not be qualified to comment on it personally, even were I so inclined.

If you want to print the truth and you don't know the full truth, you'll have to print what is truthful that you do know and admit that you don't know the rest. Or you can fill space with unsubstantiated rumor. The responsibility for that choice is yours. Sorry, Ms. McDonald, but we don't place any value on being "newsworthy."

Statement of Policy:
The other day I received an e-mail purporting to be from a screenwriter/movie producer, requesting my help in developing a film that would supposedly set the record straight about Travellers. Well, I had my own reasons to doubt the genuineness of the offer, but regardless of whether it was real or false, my answer would have been the same, as follows:

Merry Christmas, Mr. ___________,
Thank you for your interest but I'm afraid that the overwhelming majority of Irish-American Travellers, like the Amish, disapprove of mass media publicity, favorable as well as unfavorable. We are an ethnic minority with mostly good and some not so good elements, no more nor less than most other minorities. I don't speak for any other Travellers but I think I can safely say without fear of contradiction that all we ask is the right to go about making an honest living without being hounded for what amounts to being old-fashioned in our cultural values and lifestyle.

In short, Mr. ___________, the idea of co-operating with or even encouraging a venture such as you describe is foreign to our nature. Were you to find an ethnic member of the Travelling People willing to do so, in my opinion, he or she would be so misrepresentative as to be worthless for your purposes and ours.
Richard J. Waters

The principal purpose of this web site has become to provide as accurate and fairly balanced picture of Irish-American Travellers as is possible, only to those people who are already aware of our existence and actively searching for information about us on the Internet. It is intended to defuse the misinformation that already exists, not (repeat: NOT) to provide wide-spread publicity about the Travelling People, either pro or con, to the general public.

Controversy:
The current edition of Controversy is an examination of the plight of Travellers in Ireland (borrowing freely from others' expertise) and how some of the best intentioned people who are academics and social workers may or may not be helping.

Another future edition of Controversy is in the planning stage, that will be mostly devoted to the nomadic character of the Traveller as a source of conflict with the settled or "country" people of Ireland and the USA.

Music:
The information on Irish Traveller music presented here last month has been archived in What's New 12/27/99 and also copied to a Travellers' Music page linked to the main Travellers Page.

Shelta:
One way to say "Merry Christmas to you and a happy New Year" in Shelta (the oldest known form of the Irish Travellers' Cant) would have been: Buri Talosk Rispu t'duilsha a munya Grooth Streihmed.

By the way, there are four words in that language which offer tantalizing hints of a possible solution to the mysterious origins question: Where and when do the Irish Travellers come from? Surprise! In my humble opinion, it's very likely not anywhere or anywhen you might expect. More to come. Oh yes; the words are shoru, shrish, shrittel and shrug, if you would like to get started without me.

Coming Attractions:
I am still planning to expand Fiction3 and, additionally, expound in mostly fictional form on a mythical history for the Travelling People of Ireland. Again: more to come.