Is this victorian era?

Eh, I live in the U.S. and I've known them as as Travellers or Irish Gypsies as long as I can remember...

~Cheryl

 

well, this thread has moved off into uncharted waters....!! ( not my doing..)

 

Entirely different groups.

Irish travellers are of that ethnicity, and are devout Roman Catholics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers . Mostly from Rathkeale and the local area.

Gypsies are Romani, which does not mean Romanian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people . Origin is probably India. They have their own very distinctive language, too.

The umbrella welfare organisations, who I've worked with, clearly differentiate the two heritages. It's a bit like lumping together, oh, say Filipinos and Hispanics in terms of wrongness. This is fascnating on the subject: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/sci...erent-from-settled-irish-as-spanish-1.2969515

(Then, you get into fairground and canal peoples, who are also travellers with a very distinct heritage. )

 

Hi,
Only one experience with Travellers. In Dublin one year I had a rock in my left shoe and as I limped towards a park bench. Two young girls grabbed my arms and started singing nonsense. I quickly jammed my hands into my pockets. Both girls tried to get their hands into my pockets. After a couple of minutes they realized I was NOT drunk when I started to yell Guards and grabbed one girl by her dress. She pulled away and ripped her dress and firmly cursed me out.
greg

 

...and her frock coat,and bipperty bopperty hat

SORRY I JUST CANNOT HELP MYSELF I LOVE DAVE

 

Oh God YOU could do better than that!!

 

Exactly, very different. We also have Gypsies in the Netherlands, mostly Sinti and Roma. Their culture has a clear Asian origin, and many of them still look very NW Indian. They speak Romany, a language related to NW Indian languages. Romany is one of the officially recognized 'Dutch' languages.

And we have 'Woonwagenbewoners', our Travellers, who are all of European origin, with a European culture. They speak Dutch. They are mostly descendants of fairground people and people who couldn't afford houses during the 1930s Depression. The first group are called 'Reizigers', the second 'Burgers'.

In the Dutch Travelling Peoples, the Sinti are the elite, then come the Roma, then the Reizigers, and the Burgers are last.

 

To avoid slavery some leaders of Romani kumpanias introduced themselves on entry in Eastern Europe as Counts of 'Little Egypt', who had to flee their country because they were Christians.
There were slight variations to this story, but the purpose was always to be accepted and not enslaved. They never pretended to be wealthy merchants.

Unfortunately they couldn't avoid slavery for long. Centuries of slavery had a negative effect on Gypsy/Romani culture in countries like Romania and Spain.
British Romanichal were sold as slaves in the early days of North American colonization.

In the 18th century Dutch authorities took it a step further. They executed Gypsies simply for being Gypsy.
Fortunately many provinces didn't obey government regulations and many Gypsies were hidden and employed by church authorities and by farmers. There are even records of them working on the restoration of Medieval churches.
Because some Dutch Sinti groups could survive in freedom, their culture is still pretty close to the original Romani culture of centuries ago. The region where I live is one of the regions where Sinti were sheltered, and in spite of the holocaust, when many Dutch Gypsies were murdered, we still have an important Sinti community here.