The tattie howkin, neep shawin, hay and corn harvest, all jobs where the travellers and the unemployed could garner a few bob, have indeed all gone, farms are now so mechanised that some farmers cannot even employ their own family members.
My last sighting of a travelling family with a horse drawen rig was in a Fife village, where, their cuddie must have died, the father was yoked between the trams and the rest of the family were all pushing behind up a lang stey brae.
When visiting our son in County Leitrim a few years back, on the day of a traveller funeral all the pubs remained closed for the full day.