Irish Travelers — A pariah people

Sunday, October 13, 2002

By Andrew M. Greeley

Madelyne Gorman Toogood, the so-called video-taped mom, is in deep trouble because she is an Irish Traveler, a member of a pariah group and hence an approved object of hate. The Travelers, like the Gypsies (properly called the Rom), earn their living on the road. They exist on the fringes of society with no permanent home. Therefore they are considered rootless and evil. Hitler's holocaust not only killed most of the Jews in Europe, it also killed most of the Rom. No one has seriously objected to their murder.

In Ireland the Travelers are often called Irish Gypsies, though in fact genetically they are Irish and not Asian. The Rom are apparently the lowest of low caste Indians who fled thousands of years ago and may have made a stop in Egypt, hence their nickname. Yet the Rom and the Travelers have similar cultures based not on racial background but on survival on the road. (The Rom are also pacifists though they are rarely given credit for that.) In Ireland the Travelers are also called Tinkers because their ancestors mended pots, kettles, pans and anything that needed to be mended. Today they are officially known as itinerants and call themselves Travelers. Several derogatory adjectives are often connected with the words which one cannot quote in a family newspaper. While some people in Ireland defend their rights (including church leaders) they are still a group that others feel free to hate.

In the 19th century, several extended families of Travelers migrated to the United States, settling in the northern sections of Southern States. They extended their occupation to the building trades and now travel the country and work as carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers and plumbers in the North during spring and summer and settle in towns in the South during the winter. The best source book on them is "Ethnic Awareness and the School" by Mary Elizabeth Andereck, on whose dissertation committee I had the good fortune to serve. She was the principal of a Catholic school in a northern Mississippi town to which the Travelers came to seek education for their children.

While their itinerant culture is different from those of settled folk, Mary Beth Andereck points out, they adore their children and live in extended families which watch over both children and their parents. They don't trust settled folk because in their long experience the settled people are hostile to them. Moreover, they don't view their itinerant culture as inferior to any other and will struggle fiercely to defend it. Indeed they were celebrated in the wondrous Irish film "Into the West" with Gabriel Byrne and the biggest white horse in all the world.

Toogood was harsh to her daughter, indefensible behavior as she herself admits. Yet how many times does one see in the supermarkets or shopping malls a mother "losing it" with a child. If every mother who slapped a daughter, pulled her hair, or dragged her along the floor was to lose custody of the child, the foster homes of America would be overflowing. In this case the little girl was apparently unhurt. To separate Toogood and her child is to ruin two lives.

However, sensing that he was dealing with people who were pariahs, the prosecuting attorney demanded the father of the child be fingerprinted and photographed, argued that the little girl might not be the one who was beaten, and arrested the mother again for giving commercial mailboxes as her home address — though if you're an itinerant these could be the only home addresses you have. She was also accused of child pornography because she had the doctor who examined her child take a picture to demonstrate that the child had not been physically harmed!

He would not dare play those kinds of games with someone from suburban South Bend or a Hispanic or an African American. Travelers, however, because they have no one to support them or argue their case (except one lawyer) and live differently from most people and speak bad English (Toogood says "ain't") are fair game for a government official who sees a chance to get his picture on the TV screen.

There is much praise today for multi-culturalism, the celebration of and respect for cultural diversity. If you accept victimization of the pariah, then you're whole multi-cultural pose is hypocrisy. Where, one wonders, is the American Civil Liberties Union or the Diocese of Fort Wayne/South Bend or the great Catholic University in the area whose leaders have always proclaimed the "preferential option for the poor."

Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, author and sociologist. He teaches at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. His column on political, church and social issues appears each Sunday in the Daily Southtown. Father Greeley's e-mail address is Agreel@aol.com, and his home page, which includes homilies for every Sunday, is www.agreeley.com.