irish travellers in america

The Irish Traveller community of Murphy Village, South Carolina, USA

Photo journalist Elisabeth Blanchet talks to Mike Carroll, an Irish Traveller from Murphy Village, South Carolina, USA, a community of around 2,000 Travellers of Irish descent who settled in Aiken County near Augusta, Georgia, in the early 1960's. Carroll is the author of the self-published book Irish Travellers: An undocumented Journey Through History and gives Travellers’ Times an exclusive insight of the every day life and the history of his people and community.

 Elisabeth Blanchet: Could you sum up in a few words the history of your family, where they come from, how they arrived in the USA and in Murphy Village?

Mike Carroll: My people were once a settle clan who lived in a quiet, peaceful community before becoming a nomadic subculture in Irish society.  A people forced to split up into eleven groups and travel the emerald-green hills in search of work to support their families. A chance encounter between a Protestant landowner and a young Traveller forever changed my forefathers’ destiny and took them from their ancestral home to Holland and eventually America.

When my forefathers arrived in America, they found life in the colonies closely resembled life in Ireland. Because of their inability to find stable employment, our clan returned to an itinerant lifestyle and travelled throughout the southeastern United States for many decades. During their travels, they often set up camp in an area known as "The Pines" in the small community of Belvedere, South Carolina. It is here where they met and befriended a Roman Catholic priest named Father Joseph John Murphy. He convinced my people to purchase land adjacent Saint Edward the Confessor Catholic Church to provide a stable home for the women and children of our group.

Murphy Village, in the beginning, was a wooded area adjacent a Roman-Catholic church (Saint Edward the Confessor) located a short distance from the Aiken County border in Edgefield County, South Carolina. My family migrated to “The Camp” from Brays Hill a geographic area located in Athens, Georgia. My family's migration to what was then called "The Camp" later called Murphy Village was encouraged by my grandfather, Barney B. Gorman.

EB: Can you tell us about your childhood and teenage years at Murphy Village?

MC: My parents feared the outside world and the malice that lurked just beyond the borders of our encampment. Most of the faculty and students at my school made it very clear that I was unwelcome and saw my attendance as a waste of school resources. As a young child, I was always surrounded by family and played with cousins who lived only a few steps away from my front door. A four-corner tree in our front yard where grandfather would tell stories about the history of our people, their struggles in America, and our ancestral home, Castlerea. I would often lay back on the freshly cut grass, close my eyes, and imagine the beauty of the gently sloping emerald-green hills of Ireland, often finding myself longing for a place I had never seen and a home I had never known.

Growing up as an Irish-American Traveller in the southeastern United States was difficult and presented many challenges. Our customs and traditions were very different from those of the local community, a community steeped in southern ideals. A culture depicted by a lady drinking lemonade as she watches the African slaves joyfully work in fields for the betterment of their master. A place that called its minority African population “Niggers,” Hispanic population “wetbacks,” and Irish population “Gypsies.”  It was during this time I realised that my people lived as if the outside world did not exist.

EB: Can you describe Irish-American Travellers’s traditions? Are they still important to the community?

MC: Irish-American Travellers cherish their traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. Forbidding sexual relations between a man and a woman before marriage. The importance of arranged marriages to guarantee the continuation of bloodlines. Arranged marriages have been a cornerstone of many cultures, African, Asian, Buddhism, Hinduism, India, Islam, Judaism, are among the numerous cultures that practice this tradition. This custom when practiced by Irish Travellers is put under a microscope and tainted with racism. The family of a girl provides a dowry. For hundreds of years, Irish Travellers named their first-born son in honor of his grandfather and many other traditions.

Long-standing traditions remain important aspects of our community. These traditions serve to reinforce our beliefs in religion and way-of-life. An ethnic minority must never be forced to abandon their culture in exchange for acceptance. 

EB: Irish Travellers are not recognised as an ethnic group in the US. Do you think they should and in that case, why?

MC: Irish-American Travellers in the United States must be recognised as an ethnic minority. The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was adopted on December 19, 1964, and came into force on March 23, 1976. The United States of America (USA) both ratified and is a signatory to this important international human rights document. Irish-American Travelers meet all the criteria required under Article 27 of this document and denying their recognition as a minority in the US is in violation of the ICCPR. Irish-American Travellers have a distinct culture, customs, and traditions and are seen by themselves and others as different, a fact that has repeatedly been documented. They are recognised as a minority in Ireland their country of origin, and the United Kingdom (UK).

EB: In the UK, Irish Travellers are among the most discriminated against ethnic groups. How about the USA?

MC: Irish-American Travellers are perceived as an undesirable group by most of the United States (US) population which has resulted in discrimination and racism. Like the schoolyard bully who hits his victim without fear of retaliation or public outcry, the mass media promotes the image of a race made up of only con-artists, criminals, and thieves. The medias false narrative is used to reinforce racist beliefs and intensifies racial discrimination against people who have endured such treatment for centuries. My book, entitled: "Irish Travellers: An undocumented Journey Through History" gives several examples of unjustified prosecutions and discrimination by law enforcement against our ethnic minority in the US.

EB: Looking at local papers headlines, there are tensions between the Murphy Village residents and the 'outside' world. Do you think there are efforts made on both sides to accept each other not?

MC: People often fear what they do not understand and reject those who live differently in favor of the familiar. This misunderstanding has led to propaganda and out-and-out lies about our ethnic minority and way-of-life. False accusations of criminal activity, underage marriages, and child abuse have forced our people to remain on the fringes of society. The media reports negative events involving our minority with glee, refusing to report the crimes committed against the innocent of our groups. Two years ago, the Department of Social Services (DSS), State of South Carolina investigated alleged underage marriages and sexual abuse of young girls in our community. In their effort to prove wrong, right, state officials conducted an early morning raid on local schools and took into protective custody Irish-American Traveller girls ranging in ages from 6 to 12 years. These innocent children were subjected to medical exams to prove their innocence without their parents’ approval. Truth holds little importance when compared to the media's hunger for increased ratings, readership, and sensationalism. Your question used the word “tensions” between Murphy Village and the "outside world." Perhaps you should have used the word intimidation or the phrase race hatred in the narrative of your question.

EB: There is an obvious wealth divide between the 'original' Murphy Village and the other side of the road where Travellers live in huge mansions. Could you explain why?

MC: Murphy Village was the original encampment and has seen little improvement since its development. As our community grew, it became necessary for future generations to move to adjacent lands. As years passed homes became larger depending on the financial success of each family. Like all communities, there are those who have been more successful in business, and this has led to a wealth divide in our community. Irish-American Travellers have invested money in real estate, rental properties, and mobile home parks, not only in South Carolina but neighbouring states.    

The most striking divide is the one that exists between the three encampments in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. South Carolina is the most developed, followed by Tennessee, and lastly Texas. 

EB: How do you feel about settling down?

MC: I believe Irish Travellers in Ireland, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) must settle down, educate their children and demand their rightful place in society. But I do miss the travelling: travelling the open road, not knowing what’s around the next corner, meeting new people, and seeing the natural wonders of the United States are all compelling and intoxicating.

EB: Do you think there will be more Irish Travellers going into higher education and marry outside the community? 

MC: I have always believed the pathway to success is education and children follow the paths taken by their parents. I married my wife when I was 19-years-old and looked into the eyes of my first born child when I was 20-years-old. I saw in my child's eyes the ability to overcome any hurdle and achieve any goal, but only if I took her by the hand and led her down the path. I attended university, became a mortgage underwriter, and encouraged my children to fight for what they wanted. My oldest son is going to medical school to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon. My second son is going to medical school to become a neurosurgeon. My daughter is a surgical nurse, and I have a daughter in school becoming an emergency room nurse. My daughter married a young, uneducated Traveller from our community.

My family has set an example of what is possible in our community in South Carolina. There has been a recent increase in high school graduates, but as a minority has a long way to go. Marriage to outsiders is not forbidden, but it is not encouraged.

EB: Do you think there is a danger of an extinction of your community at some point?

MC: This question is perhaps the most difficult to answer for several different reasons. History teaches us that to survive all cultures must evolve with an ever-changing world. For some, change comes slowly and often at great sacrifice requiring the loss of old-world traditions in favor of acceptance. Irish-American Travellers because of their reluctance to change have become people at odds with society. We are a people that belong more in the past than in the present. Arranged marriages, the need to find safety within our small community, and refusal to accept change all bring into question our longevity.

EB: How do you see the future of your community?

I see our community retaining their ethnicity and traditions, but eventually abandoning of life on the road in favour of a settled way-of-life.

By Mike J Carroll and Elisabeth Blanchet

To order Mike Carroll’s book click on this link: Irish Travellers: An Undocumented Journey Through History

From the Irish countryside to the American South: Traveller Emigration to the US

Irish Travellers are well known for moving around Ireland and the rest of the British Isles. But, over the years, they’ve also ventured further afield. From the early 1800s on, they began to arrive in the US and became a particularly prominent community in the American South.

Although the full story of the Traveller diaspora isn’t clear and there are few sources written by its own community members, here’s what we know about their arrival in the US.

Why Travellers left Ireland

Members of the Traveller community left Ireland for the same reasons as other Irish emigrants. Many left during the Great Famine in the 19th century, while others left during subsequent economic downturns.

But, over the years, Travellers had their own unique reasons to emigrate too. For example, to avoid discrimination and forced settlement.

During a lecture hosted by EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, sociologist and human rights activist Dr. Sindy Joyce explored some of these reasons:

“Some families would have moved because of persecution; there were times when children were being taken off the community and being put into industrial schools,” she said. “But there were also times when it would have been for better economic opportunities… a lot of people of the Famine years would have moved because of the hardship.”

Some emigration to the US was even forced. As Ian Hancock, director of Romani Studies at the University of Texas, noted in 1986 : “From Cromwell’s time on, large numbers of British Travellers, including the Irish Travellers, were transported to the Americas.”

However, the largest period of migration to the US appears to have taken place in the mid-19th century, as a result of the Great Famine.

Where did they go?

According to a 1971 journal by Jared Harper and Charles Hudson, Irish Travellers first settled in Tonawanda, New York; Pittsburgh and Germantown, Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C. This information, the journal says, comes from the Travellers’ own oral history.

The work of Frederick S. Arnold, an American folklorist, offers an insight into just how widespread the Irish Traveller community in the US was. In 1898, he visited a camp outside New York where a man called Lackey Costello offered to teach him some Cant – the language of Irish Travellers.

Arnold stayed at the camp for a couple of days. After this, he sought out other Irish Travellers to speak Cant with. He found them throughout the states of Connecticut, Massachussetts and New York.

Many of the first Travellers to arrive in the US in the 1800s moved South – particularly after the American Civil War. Later arrivals mainly lived in the North. The former are known as Sawries, while the latter are called Greenhorns, according to Hancock.

In the South, Irish Travellers became well-known as horse and mule traders.

Establishing communities in the South

During the Great Depression, the US government funded the Federal Writers’ Project which created travel guides for each state. The guides for Atlanta and Tennessee both mention Irish Travellers and their history there.

According to ‘ Atlanta, a city of the modern South ’, the roots of many southern Travellers can be traced back to families that initially emigrated to Washington and established a livery stable there. These were the Rileys, the McNamaras, the Carrolls, the Sherlocks, the Garmons, the Costellos, the Dartys and the O’Haras.

As time passed, they began to travel the country in their wagons and found further opportunities down south.

Annual gatherings

One group, led by a man called Pat O’Hara, established a base in Nashville, Tennessee. Then they moved on and settled in Atlanta, Georgia. Here, some Travellers purchased land but most of them eventually returned to the road.

However, in 1881, when a leading Traveller called John McNamara was buried in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery, the community established a strong tie with the city. So it became a tradition to have funeral masses in the Gothic, red brick Church of the Immaculate Conception once a year.

Warren LeMay from Cincinnati, OH, United States, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Here, the scattered community came together to hold funerals, weddings and business meetings every April. The Atlanta guidebook notes “the vigorous beauty of black-haired, blue-eyed Irish girls in the finery of bright dresses and costume jewelry”, while it labels the men as “good American citizens” because they enlisted during times of war.

At some point, it was decided to have annual reunions in Nashville, Tennessee, too. During the last week of April, Travellers who were based west of the Allegheny Mountains would set up camp here. Those to the east continued to gather in Atlanta.

In the 1940s, when the Tennessee guidebook was written, around 3,000 Travellers set up their green tents and trailers in a field below an underpass. In the local Mount Calvary Cemetery, visitors can still see elaborately adorned graves bearing Traveller names like Gorman and Sherlock.

Economic success

Throughout the 1800s, animal trading proved to be a successful business for Travellers in the South. As Harper and Hudson explain, some got jobs in large stock centres, while others drove animals out into the countryside to trade with farmers. Occasionally, they would open a shop and trade from there.

According to the Tennessee State guide , written in 1949, Irish Travellers bought many fine animals. But they were also known to take on sick mules and overworked horses, which often recovered under their care. Some families shared depots in cities like New Orleans and Atlanta where they could store their animals before selling them at auction.

The guide says they traded animals abroad too. In fact, it claims that “much of the mountain artillery of the Italian Army was carried into the hills of Ethiopia on the backs of mules bought for the Italian Government by the Irish Nomads.”

While it is difficult to confirm this assertion, Harper and Hudson note that the Travellers enjoyed a boom in mule trading during World War II. A newspaper article published in the Las Vegas Age on December 3rd, 1943, also gives some credence to the claim.

It reads: “In 1935, before Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, he practically denuded Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas of mules. The Italian government bought about 300,000.”

Discrimination

While the Irish Traveller community flourished in the US South, members weren’t always welcomed with open arms. In 1927, the state of Georgia introduced an anti-Traveller tax. It placed a $250 levy on each group of “horse-traders” or “gypsies”, who lived in tents or travelled in covered wagons and automobiles.

Irish Travellers in the South today

Despite the discrimination faced by some Travellers, the community still has a strong presence in the American South.

Murphy Village in South Carolina is probably the best-known community today. Located just a couple hours from Atlanta, it is home to around 2,000 Travellers of Irish descent. According to locals , the town is named after Fr. Joseph Murphy – a Catholic priest who convinced them to settle near his church back in the 1960s.

Today, roughly 10,000 people in the US identify as Irish Travellers. This is a significant figure considering the population in Ireland stands at around 30,000 . However, because the US census doesn’t record Irish Traveller ethnicity, the true number remains unclear.

To learn more about the emigration patterns of Irish Travellers, watch our lecture ‘ Irish Traveller Communities Abroad ’. EPIC’s Historian in Residence, Dr Maurice Casey, explores the topic in detail.

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Irish Travellers are prospering in America and "make most of their money from life insurance"

KNOWN FOR GENERATIONS as a highly secretive and insular community, the Irish Travellers in the US are descended from a group of families that crossed the Atlantic as early as the 1830s.

It’s estimated there are as many as 10,000 people in the states who identify themselves as part of the community, although that number could be far greater – the problem being the US Census doesn’t recognise them as a separate ethnic group.

In recent years, US Travellers have begun to let their guard down a little. There was an episode of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding that focused on the South Carolina area of Murphy Village a few years ago, for instance – although a producer of that show later  told a local paper that “the men just didn’t want to talk to us”.

TV3 documentary-maker Paul Connolly found a similar story when he attempted to make contact with the community. Arriving in the area along with two members of the Navan Traveller Workshop , the journalist says it was difficult at first, but they eventually managed to “break the ice” with the locals.

However, the presenter also wanted to focus on another community – Oakhaven in Tennessee – and says that when his team first arrived they were “high-tailed out by a couple of vans”. Unsure how to proceed, Connolly managed to secure an appearance on a local morning TV news show, explained what he was about, and soon heard word that he was being invited to visit the area. As filming began and an element of trust was built, he found similar traditions amongst both groups:

What was amazing was that same customs had been preserved. They still speak Cant – but it’s a Gaelic-based Cant , unlike here – and they have the same traditions about money, about male and female roles in the community.

“However,” he says, “what most people find interesting about them is that they are incredibly, incredibly wealthy”.

(Tv3 Press)

The TV3 promotional material for ‘Travellers in America: A Secret Society’ depicts the documentary’s subjects showing-off palatial ‘mcmansions’, designer clothing brands and expensive cars. Asked how they earn a living, Connolly says the men work at “trades – tarmacing, roofing and so on”. However – “most of the income comes from insurance”. He explains:

It’s just very, very clever. In America, there’s a clause which allows you to insure anyone with a blood connection – and as they have intermarried for generations, there’s a likelihood there will be a blood connection. So they’ve worked out a way of profiting from this, and that, according to the Travellers I’ve spoken to, is how they make their money and how they’re so wealthy. Some of the more morbid characters we came across referred to it as ‘Death Watch’.

However, Connolly contends, “the community doesn’t regard it as odd or sinister”.

It’s a typical part of their lifestyle. As a wedding present someone will say ‘you can take a policy out on me!’ – so it’s a loophole that hasn’t been closed, I guess.

Another clip of the show, shown by TV3 at the launch of their new line-up at Ballymount this week, shows a woman who lives in one of the communities talking about their traditions regarding marriage – calmly explaining to the presenter that it’s fine for a thirteen year old girl to have sex with her ‘husband’ once “she’s started her cycles”.

According to Connolly, this was one of the hardest aspects of their way of life to find the truth about: “We’d heard a lot about this but one of the biggest things was trying to cut through the line of fact and fiction”.

What we discovered is that the girls are matched with older men at the age of six or seven – but there’s nothing untoward here at this stage. It’s all to do with legacy – if you marry into another rich family then pride of place in the town will stay with you for years to come. So at six or seven, families just say ‘they might make a good pair’. Then, at the ages of thirteen or fourteen they will have a marriage ceremony, but they won’t in fact be married. The controversial aspect though is that these thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girls will be in a mock marriage with 22- or 23-year-old men.

The couples get married formally once the girl reaches the legal age, but Connolly says he was told that some families allow couples to have sex years before that point. The woman in the clip was one of two members of the community who attested to the practice on camera.

The journalist says the overall impression he was left with was one of a welcoming people who “haven’t fully assimilated into our world” and he says the tradition of encouraging young girls to get married is one divisive custom they appear to be “clinging onto”.

‘Travellers in America: A Secret Society’ airs on Tv3 in September.

Read: At Home With The Healy-Raes to air on TV3 >

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The Picture Show

Daily picture show, documenting the irish travellers: a nomadic culture of yore.

Lauren Rock

Throughout my life I have regularly traveled to my mother's home city of Dublin. During these trips I would regularly see groups of people living in caravans on the sides of the road, and I always wondered who they were and what their lives were like.

I later found out they belonged to a small ethnic minority called "Travellers" — nomads who spend most of their life, literally on the road. While their history has been hard to document — they have no written records — they are thought to have separated from the settled Irish community at least 1,000 years ago.

The Travellers (until recently also called "tinkers" or "gypsies") often live in ad hoc encampments, in direct contrast to "settled" people in Ireland. They are thought to be descended from a group of nomadic craftsman, with the name "tinker" a reference to the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil. (The reference is now considered derogatory.)

In 1965 Dublin-born photographer Alen MacWeeney stumbled across a Travellers' encampment and became fascinated with their way of life. He spent the next six years making photographs and recording their stories and music. Despite shooting the photos in the late '60s, it wasn't until 2007 that he found a publisher for his work.

Bernie Ward, Cherry Orchard Courtesy of Alen MacWeeney hide caption

Bernie Ward, Cherry Orchard

In his book, Irish Travellers: Tinkers No More — which also comes with a CD of Traveller music recordings — MacWeeny shows us a gritty, intimate portrait of the people he eventually came to call friends. He compares the Travellers to the migrant farmers of the American Depression: "poor, white, and dispossessed."

"Theirs was a bigger way of life than mine, with its daily struggle for survival, compared to my struggle to find images symbolic and representative of that life," he said in his book.

MacWeeney got his start at age 20 as an assistant for Richard Avedon in Paris and has since made a career as a portrait and fashion photographer. But his images of the Travellers reveal a raw and intimate side to his work.

"Traveller families have always been very close-knit, held together in a tight unspoken knot, with lifelong bonds and sometimes varying a lifelong set of troubles," he said.

Today, however, the Traveller lifestyle has changed dramatically from even a few decades ago. Many have embraced modern culture and become "settled," no longer living apart from the mainstream. There is even a reality TV show, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding , which showcases Traveller girls and their theatrical, over-the-top weddings.

But MacWeeney believes that the Travellers are "reluctant as settled and envy the other life of travelling." His book stands as a document of an era, and a way of life that is slowly fading into the past.