The 'what constitutes a real Gypsy' discussion opens up an extremely unpleasantly racist can of worms and has done a great deal of damage to the Travellers situation today. Intermarriage and settlement have made the gypsy - tinker argument a largely irrelevent one, but it still constanly raises its ugly head and has gone a long way to dividing the Travelling community and preventing them from obtaining their rights to sites, education and other facilities, certainly in the UK.
Jim Carroll