To try and get this baxck on track, this is a talk Pat and I gacve at Limerick Uni World Music Department for an afteroon on Travellers - it was also attended by Tom Munnelly, Sheila Douglas and Timothy Neat, among others
Pat and I used to share these talks and, a we are not trained speakers, found it necessary to script eveything we did
On thiss occassion, we made a bit of a hames of it as some of the speakers over-ran and we, at the end, had to cut out rather a lot of what we had to say
If the mods find these too large for the forum they are going to have to let me know
Jim

Dissemination of songs by Travellers

We’re here today, not exactly under false pretences because we made it quite clear that we couldn’t talk about Scottish influences on Irish Travellers from a personal perspective. We spent over twenty years recording Irish Travellers in and around the London area: their songs, stories and lore, without finding any signs of direct Scottish influence on the singers we met. So we have to confess our knowledge on the subject is somewhat limited and largely confined to what we’ve gathered from elsewhere, rather than from our own fieldwork.
There’s no doubt that there’s been a great influence on the Irish song tradition by the Scottish repertoire, mainly due to the Scots plantation of Ulster. However, the Irish influence on the British song tradition is probably as great. As you know, large numbers of Irish labourers crossed the water in the 19th and early part of the 20th century: there were the tattie howkers from the north of Ireland who went to Scotland to pick potatoes; the navvies, Irish men and women who went to work on building the railways, canals, in the iron foundries and mines and on the land. In 1841, just prior to the famine, over 126,000 people, 4.8% of the total population of Scotland, were Irish born . Fifty years later, at the time of the 1891 census, this figure had risen to nearly 194,000 . Over 70,000 of these were living outside the principal boroughs, and so would be more likely to reside in areas where the oral tradition was at its strongest. In 1993, we attended a conference in Aberdeen at which the late Peter Cook gave a paper on the Irish influence on the music and song traditions of Aberdeenshire. His conclusions were that the Irish navvies who were employed to carry out much of the work in building and expanding the railways in the north-east of Scotland in the nineteenth century, had a profound effect on those traditions.
An excellent analysis of the Scots influence on the Irish repertoire can be found in the joint paper by Hugh Shields and Tom Munnelly, entitled ‘Scots Ballad Influences in Ireland’,   and for examples we would recommend the Leader album of Hugh Shields’s recordings, ‘Folk Ballads from Donegal and Derry’ , and the cassette ‘Early Ballads in Ireland 1968–1985’ , edited by Tom Munnelly and Hugh Shields.
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It is difficult to see how one would go about separating the influence of Travellers from that of the wider population as so little work seems to have been carried out on the subject, or, if it has, little has been made generally available.
In the joint paper, Tom Munnelly wrote of Travellers from the Republic:

“Many of the families who crossed the border in search of tin, stayed for sev¬eral years and became acquainted with the Travellers who traditionally moved in Ulster. The eventual return of these families would seem to have been an im¬portant factor in the recent dissemination of Ulster Scots songs among the Travellers in the South, though this influence is difficult to quantify while we lack collections from Northern tinkers. The movement of Irish Travellers in Scotland is, similarly, a subject on which it is difficult to find information.”
Incidentally, one of the Travellers we recorded told us it was not only tin, but other goods in short supply. He talked about families of ‘pregnant’ men, women and children crossing the border with scarce cloth wrapped around their waists. One family he knew lived around the border and participated in the practice for seventeen years until, having become very prosperous, they returned to their native Kerry.
In 1980, Hamish Henderson of The School of Scottish Studies, drew attention to the neglect shown towards the Travellers’ role in keeping alive many of the traditional songs and ballads in his article, ‘The Ballad, The Folk and The Tradition’ . He wrote:
   
“The Scots travelling folk had preserved their own "clannit society" into Gavin Greig's day - indeed, they have, to quite a big degree, preserved it into ours - but collectors seldom went among them seeking ballads. Even Greig himself, one of the most energetic and successful collectors of all time, appears practically to have ignored them. And yet their vast ballad repertoire, distinctive singing styles and aptitude for making up their own songs, offer much of interest to the folklorist, not least because many of the older generation of tinker singers are completely or almost completely illiterate.”

In 1965, Hamish and Francis Collinson gave a striking example of the results of such neglect in an article on ballad collecting:

“One single example must speak for many. The late Geordie Robertson, who recorded "Robin Hood and the Peddlar" for the School of Scottish Studies, knew Gavin Greig quite well; he actually played the pipes at one of the productions of Greig's bucolic comedy "Mains's Woo'in". For years he lived on a croft within easy walking distance of Greig's school-house at Whitehills, New Deer. Yet Greig never made any attempt to collect songs from him. The reason was, in all probability, a social one; Greig got the great bulk of his wonderful collection from the farming community, and Geordie Robertson was a tinker - a settled tinker, a crofter and a "made horseman", but still a tinker. In Greig's day this represented a real social barrier and, as the School's collectors have found in the recent past - these social barriers, although much less solid these days, do still form a real stumbling block. It does not pay to let some informants know that one has been consorting socially with tinkers - let alone camping with them, or scrounging peats with them.”

What has been lost through the somewhat shortsighted practice of ignoring Travellers is inestimable; we can only go by what has been saved. For instance, ‘The Maid and the Palmer’, thought to be long lost, was recovered by Tom Munnelly from Roscommon Traveller John Reilly. This can be heard on the Topic album of John’s songs, ‘Bonny Green’ Tree’ . Similarly, as far as we can ascertain, the only recorded examples of ‘Famous Flower of Serving Men’ in Britain and Ireland have all come from Travellers, the only Irish version as far as we know being four verses from Tipperary Traveller, Mary Delaney. Any doubts about the value of the Travellers contribution to traditional balladry should be quickly dispelled by listening to another Roscommon Traveller, Martin McDonagh, with his magnificent rendition of ‘Lady Margaret’, the only sound version of ‘Young Hunting’ to have been recorded from a traditional singer on this side of the Atlantic. This was included on the cassette, ‘Songs of The Irish Travellers’, edited from Tom Munnelly’s collection. In Belfast in 1952, the BBC recorded Kerry singers Christie Purcell and his daughter Lal Smith along with Wexford Travellers Paddy and Mary Doran and Winnie Ryan. Their songs included ‘What Put The Blood (Edward), Our Goodman, and Seven Yellow Gypsies. Further examples of songs from Irish Travellers’ repertoire can be found on the double CD ‘From Puck to Appleby’ , a compilation selected from our recordings made mainly in the Greater London area in the 70s and 80s.
In the twenty-odd years we recorded Irish Travellers, the only piece we got that can be said to have been directly influenced by travelling in Scotland, was this one, which was written by the singer, who spent some time in Glasgow, working as a rag-and-bone man there and making a song about his experience at that trade..

Example 1. Rambling Candy Man – ‘Rich’ Johnny Connors.   1m. 40s.

Perhaps it might be useful if we gave some background information on our own involvement. We were first made aware of the importance of Travellers to the oral tradition through recordings and folk club appearances of Jeannie Robertson, Margaret Barry and the Stewarts of Blair, but it was Ewan MacColl’s ground-breaking series of radio programmes, ‘The Song Carriers’, broadcast in the early 1960s, that drove home their vital role in preserving and disseminating songs and ballads. The Radio Ballad, ‘The Travelling People’, helped put the Travellers’ experiences in the modern world into context.
What we thought we’d do today, rather than sit here telling you what we don’t know, is to try to deal with the Travellers’ role in the passing on of traditional song, both within the Travelling community and also between the Travelling and settled peoples, mainly using our own work with Irish Travellers.
In the summer of 1973, we made our first contact with Irish Travellers on sites in The Greater London area. What we found in the first six weeks was quite astonishing. We discovered a fairly active singing tradition: a number of singers with substantial repertoires and a ready willingness to allow us to record them. Previously, our knowledge of Traditional singers was of people in their mid-sixties and upward, but of the singers we initially met, the most senior was in his early forties and the youngest and most stylish of them was in his mid twenties. Within that relatively short period, we recorded over a hundred songs and had compiled a list of potential contacts who, if they were all to be followed up, would keep us busy for several years.
Most of the singers, certainly those with the largest repertoires, had a very wide range of material, which included native Irish and Anglo-Scots-Irish songs, from the classic Child ballads to made-up songs about travelling life – comic songs, lyrical songs, murder ballads, bawdy songs and, like Scots Travellers but unlike English ones, mostly full versions. One interesting aspect was the number of bawdy songs the Irish Travellers had, also in common with Scots Travellers, which appears not to have been the case with settled Irish singers. Among the oldest we found was The Blind Beggar, a version of the 17th century broadside, ‘The Rarest Ballad That Ever Was Seen of The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green’. The complete ballads we were given included The Outlandish Knight, Edward, Lord Randall, and The Grey Cock. We also got fragments of Famous Flower of Serving Men and Lord Gregory. But these and others, such as There Is An Alehouse, The Three Butchers, Captain Thunderbolt, and Willie Leonard, are all as likely to have turned up anywhere in Britain and Ireland. Some of them can be said to have originated in Scotland, but we’re not aware of any cases where they’ve been got directly by our singers from Scots Travellers, the majority of them having been learned from family members or other Irish Travellers.
So fruitful were our first forays in the field that we were forced to stop after six weeks and work out a more coherent approach to what we were attempting. It was eighteen months before we took up the project again.
Previously it had been possible to carry out several hours of recording, go for a pint, then come back to the site and participate in sessions of singing, yarn swapping, or just conversation. Now, every trailer was equipped with a television set and, although the singers were still around, the opportunity for singing to an attentive audience had diminished radically.
However, after a couple of months with some of the singers we’d recorded previously, we met a man who was to influence our method of approach for the future.
Singer and storyteller Mikeen McCarthy (small Michael) turned out to be a mine of information, and it was from him that we learned a great deal about Travelling life, lore and traditions, particularly about the role that the songs and stories played in the community. He had a prodigious memory, a wonderful eye for detail and a superb ability to relate what he knew. He was more than happy to let us record him and we quickly became close friends. Throughout the thirty years that we knew him, we never lost touch; whenever he moved site he phoned to let us know where he was, and our friendship lasted right up to his death last November. We also got a great deal of information from him on the dissemination of songs, both among Travellers and in the settled community. In all, we recorded over one hundred tapes of him singing, telling stories, or just talking.

Mikeen was born into a Travelling family in Cahersiveen in Kerry in 1931. Both his parents were singers. His father, Michael senior, was a tinsmith, and according to Mikeen, was well-known for his singing and storytelling in his native Kerry and was widely appreciated for this by the settled community as well as by fellow Travellers. He was what Mikeen called a “fireside singer”, not singing for a living but going to houses as he travelled from parish to parish, or around the fire by the caravan, horse-drawn in those days. It was chiefly from him that Mikeen developed a love of singing and storytelling. From March to October the family would travel a regular circuit through Kerry and West Cork. In the winter months they rented a house and, during this time, the children attended school and obtained a rudimentary education; just how rudimentary can be seen from this page of a song he wrote out for us.

Picture of page of Mikeen’s ‘Dingle Puck Goat’.

Mikeeen described to us his father’s relationship with the settled people, ‘Gorgies’ and how they would gather in the evenings to hear the stories:

Example 2. Mikeen talking about ceilidhing round the fire. 1m 27s.

We'd be all tucked into bed but we wouldn't be asleep, we'd be peeping out through keyholes and listening out through the side of the canvas, we'd be stuck everywhere, and he'd know it.
And the fire'd go on. One of the lads 'd come up for the light of a cigarette or something, he'd be already after topping the cigarette, 'twas just an excuse, "Could I have a light out of the fire Mick" they'd say to my father.
Sure, my father'd know, he'd know what he'd be up to of course and he'd say, “‘Tisn't for the light of a fire you came up at all now, 'tisn't for the light of a cigarette you came up for now” and he'd start to laugh.   
And bejay, another feller'd come and he'd say it again, "bejay, before I know where I am there'd be ten of you there".   
And bejay, the word wouldn't be out of his mouth and they would be coming up along, coming up along, and the next thing one feller'd shout to the other, “can’t you go down and bring up a gual of turf”, and before you’d know where you are there’d be a roaring fire, ‘twould band a wheel for you.    Oh, there could be twenty, maybe more, maybe thirty, it depends, maybe there could be more than that again.    There’d be some round the fire in a ring, there might be another twenty standing on the road. There wouldn’t be any traffic at that time on the by-roads in Ireland, d’you know.   They’d be all standing out along the road then.
So ‘tis there you’d hear the stories then and the songs, all night, maybe till one o’clock in the morning.   And the kettle... the tea’d go on then, there’d be a round of tea and....   That’s the way it’d go on.
We were off ceilidhing then, they’d invite him off to a house; he’d always bring one or two of us with him.   Same thing’d go on at the house then, that’s where he learned all those great stories and great songs from, I suppose, ceilidhing from house to house, different counties, different stories, different songs.   

It was obvious from what Mikeen told us, that relations between Travellers and settled people were much closer in his youth than it is today, though this was very much to do with the role of the travellers as tradesmen; also the fact that they tended to stick to one area and therefore became known and recognised in the community. This is part of an interview we did with him about where he would stop at night when they were on foot, in this case, on Valencia Island.

Example 3. Valencia Island. 1m. 28s.

M Mc I used to do the islands with him. We’d go into Valencia Island, me and him and he’d only bring his tools, that’s all, on his back, and I might bring what they call a stake or a hatchet stake (te) and he’d only bring a little amount of tin with him, and then well, he’d go into the one farm house in the middle of the island, you know, and while he’d be there then every night he used be working on the floor of the house.
We might be in the island then maybe, could be there three weeks without coming out, that was on Valencia Island now.
J C        Where would you stop while you were on the island?
M Mc Oh, farmhouses,
J C        You’d stop at the farmhouses?
M Mc Well in them days like, they always had either the feather bed, or a mattress, or maybe straw, they always had them upstairs waiting for a visitor like, in them days. They believed in visitors coming like; well they always had one of them, always there, tick of feathers or something.
J C        You’d be welcome would you?
M Mc Oh jay, what welcome. Then he’d sit inside them when his days work ‘d be done and the neighbours ‘d start coming from far and near then and after the tea then, everyone have a mug of tea or something, around. The storytelling ‘d start then and the songs and the step-dancing. It’d be getting later then; I remember my father used start telling ghost stories and they’d be half afraid to go home then. (Laughter) We go back around there yet; it’s as long back as I remember like; they’d be still asking me about my father back there, you know.

The influence of Travellers on the settled song repertoire was confirmed to us on a number of occasions. North Clare singer, Martin Howley, learned several of his songs from Travellers, including the extremely rare ‘Fair Margaret and Sweet William’, which he got from a woman named Sherlock. Not far away from Martin, the two Flanagan brothers, Michael and Austin, from Luagh, near Doolin, told us that, when Travellers were in the area they would abandon work around the farm and go off just to learn songs from them.
The passing on of songs was quite common between Travellers themselves, though it was considered bad manners to sing another person’s song in their presence. Particularly welcome were visitors from another area because then it was quite likely that they would have new songs to pass on.

Example 4. Learning songs from other Travellers. 46 seconds.

J C.    Where would you hear the song first; you’d find the song from Travellers, or from Gorgies or who?
M Mc. Oh, from Travellers mostly, the Travelling people at that time when they’d wander on they’re all going to ceilhiding.    Well us in Kerry now like, if we met some Galway person coming down along, there wouldn’t be a word said that night in the house, we’d be waiting for the Galway man to sing, or the Galway woman because there’d be a different song, or a different air, and then, before they’d leave like, they’d write out the song and they’d have it; get them to write it out and then you’d be singing because they’d be as anxious for our songs that we would for them like.    But we’d write them songs out then, and next thing, if people liked it, as one man said, whatever you liked yourself you’d get another man to like it. So we’d write them out theirself then and bring them into the printing office and get them re-wrote on ballads.

Mikeen’s comment on getting them “re-wrote on ballads” refers to what was probably the greatest influence that Travellers had on the Irish song tradition. These were the song sheets that were sold, mainly at the fairs and markets, throughout Ireland right up to the 1950s. They were printed on coloured paper and contained the words of one song. The trade was carried on almost exclusively by Travellers.

Picture of ballad sheets.

In the 1940s, Mikeen and his mother, along with other members of the family, sold the ballads in their native Kerry. Mikeen furnished us with a description of how they were produced, taking them to the printer and having an order of them run off. He described how an illustration would be selected, if possible relating to the subject of the song, and, if available, naming an air to which it should be sung. The songs were by no means all traditional; titles he mentioned were ‘Little Grey Home in the West’, ‘Smiling Through’, ‘Hello Patsy Fagin’ and ‘Eileen McMahon’, as well as ‘Rocks of Bawn’, ‘Sailor’s Life’, ‘Betsy of Ballentown Brae’, ‘The Blind Beggar’ and ‘Willie Reilly and his Colleen Bawn’.
Mikeen’s father did not participate in the trade but a number of his songs appeared on the sheets, often at the request of people who knew his father as a singer. Mikeen described to us at great length the process of selling them.

Example 5. Ballad selling. 2m. 54s.

J C.       Where did you sell mainly, where did you sell your songs?
M Mc.    Fair days now, inside the pubs.
J C.       In Kerry, or would you travel out as well?
M Mc. Oh, I’d travel away too, Kerry, Clare, all over, wherever there’d be fairs, anywhere you’d go when the fellers’d be half steamed in the pubs, ‘tis then they’d start buying them.   
J C.      You say your mother would sell them as well?
M Mc   Well she’d never hardly sell the songs that she wouldn’t know, because she couldn’t read, you see. But she’d sell the songs she used to know.
J C    How would she get them written out, would she get somebody who could write to do it?
M Mc   Yeah, the printing office we used to go to now, he knew us that well he’d have them all ready wrote out, so she’d want a gross of those songs, that’s twelve dozen, twelve dozen of the next songs he knew her well like; “now Jane, I’ve The Wild Colonial Boy”, for instance or “The Blind Beggar”, we’ll say, all those songs, “I’ve all those in print now”.   They’d all be laid out on the counter then in all different colours, there’d be kind of pink, orange colour, yellow, and white, all that, you know, and they’d be all in bundles like. Well you’d pick and chose them, whichever one you want, about threepence a dozen I think that time, fourpence more times.
J C    How many would you sell of each song, what would be a good sale?
M Mc   Well, ‘twould be a long day’s selling like, and if it would be a big fair, if I sold say two or three dozen of each song, you should sell at least a gross anyway, like, twelve dozen.
You’d go into a pub, only you’d have the ballads in your hand, just walk over to the group and you’d say, “would you like to buy some songs, some ballads”.    They’d start looking at them then.    Well they’d take them all away, they’d start reading them all then and picking them out and they’d ask you then, “could you sing that one for us, could we know the air of it”.    “Yeah”, I’d say; I’d sing it then. They’d buy me a bottle of lemonade or something and I’d sit down and I’d sing it and then I often had to sing it maybe two or three times ‘cause there’d be some girl maybe or some boy interested in it.    Then they’d want to get into the air of it like.
J C.         So you did in fact teach them the air.
M Mc.   Yeah, you’d have to teach them the air and they’d have to go over the ballad then again and maybe I’d have to sing it again with them, you know, but they wouldn’t want your time for nothing, oh, they’d pay you very well, whatever you’d want to eat, or something like that, inside in the pub.   ‘Tis like the records now, it reminds me of the same thing Jim. You’d get a hit ballad, so I’d get that in print straight away then. But ‘twould just travel through our parish or through a town, from one town to another, and fair to another and you’d get the new ballad come out and you’d sell twenty times as much of that ballad as you would of the rest of them, when they come out new like.   The Blind Beggar sold very well now, that one. All those songs now, The Wild Colonian Boy; several songs like that now.
J C.    What would you say was the oldest song that went onto a ballad that you know?
M Mc.   Oh, The Blind Beggar, I’d say, I’d say that was the oldest.

It seems obvious that Travellers have always played a vital role in the dissemination of songs and stories throughout these islands and, for a period up to the 1950s, the selling of ballad sheets was of primary importance in Ireland. Some of the older inhabitants of Miltown Malbay, where we live, remember Bully Nevin, selling the sheets in Miltown on fair days.
We’ll finish with Mikeen describing one of his more lucrative fair days in Listowel in the 1940s.

Listowel Fair. 1m. 9s.

But I remember one day I was in Listowel Fair and I was selling ballads anyway. So I goes into a pub, I was fifteen years of age then.   
Actually, I never wanted to pack it up, it was ashamed of the ladies I got, you know.   
But there was an American inside anyway, he wasn't back to Ireland I'd say for thirty years or something, he was saying.   So I sang that song now, The Blind Beggar, and he asked me to sing it again, and every time I sang it he stuck a pound note into my top pocket.
He said, “will you sing again?”
So Jay, the pub was full all round like, what we call a nook (te) now that time, a small bar, a private little bar off from the rest of the pub.   
And, “will you sing it again”?   
“I will, delighted” again, of course, another pound into my top pocket every time anyway. And the crowd of us was around of course and they were all throwing in two bobs apiece and a shilling apiece and I'd this pocket packed with silver money as well. So he asked me, “will you sing it for the last time”.   
Says I, “I'll keep singing it till morning if you want”. (laughter )   
I'd six single pound notes in it when I came outside of the pub. I think I sold the rest of the ballads for half nothing to get away to the pictures.

Notes
1      The Irish in Scotland 1798 – 1845; James E Handley; Cork University Press. (1943).
2       The Irish In Britain; from The Earliest Times to the Fall and Death of Parnell; John Denvir; Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner   
       and Co. (1894)
3    ‘Scots Ballad Influences in Ireland’, Ceol Tíre No. 15 – (newsletter of the Folk Music Society of Ireland); (1979)
4      Leader Records, LEA 4055 (1972).
5      European Ethnic Oral Traditions, (1985).
6      The People’s Past’, ed. Edward J Cowan, pub. Polygon Books for Edinburgh University Students Publication Board (1980)..
7      Hamish Henderson & Francis Collinson, New Child Ballad Variants From Oral Tradition. Scottish Studies. Vol.9, No. 1.
8      The Bonny Green Tree – Songs of an Irish Traveller. Topic Records 12T359, (1978).                                                         
9      Songs of The Irish Travellers 1967 – 1974. Rec.by Tom Munnelly. European Ethnic Oral Traditions (1983).
10    From Puck To Appleby – Songs of Irish Travellers in Britain. Rec. by Jim Carroll & Pat Mackenzie. Musical Traditions MTCD325-6 (2003)