When I was a little girl, the travellers would come to our neighborhood to sell a pick-up truck of wooden lawn furniture, heaped to the sky. We would run after the truck chatting with the men who always joked, teased and laughed with us. It was great fun until my mother ended it by saying, "Don't you know they steal little children?" I can maybe understand the caution these days but back then it was nothing but fear of the unknown. Its probably the same now only more so.

The fact that they hang on the fringe of society, that they prefer travelling and that they "keep to themselves" makes it easy to blame them for just about anything.

Later on, I was in Ireland and met some travellers. I heard their language, their stories and their songs. I sometimes wonder if there would be any Irish folk tradition if it hadn't been protected and kept alive by these folks. It was an honour to spend time with them.