Dear Captain Birdseye:
Let's look back to where this thread got away from the music. A fellow posted a link to a site, where there were bigoted references to Travellers.
Now, I would not be too hard on Jim for possibly not getting the fellow's name right... I often testify in cases about "Gypsy" rights. Before I fact check, study, prepare. However, here, this is more like a chat over a pint among friends, friends who do not always agree. Now, even I, who is acknowleged by courts as an expert on the discrimination against "Gypsies" in such a conversation might make a slight error, a wrong name... but it is often the refrain of the dominant culture, that the oppressed are not alone in their oppression. Yes, even in the USA, White, Middle Class folks, might have their rights trod upon. However, this does not mean there is no such thing as oppression, discrimination and racialism.
I expect you are a well meaning and good fellow. I also think, if you walked a few miles in a Traveller's shoes... you might begin to understand our fustration.
In the Ireland I knew... oh many years ago... decades ago... folks often crossed other people's land with an expectation of hospitality. However, even then, Travellers expected something else. A few years back, I returned to Ireland to deliver a paper on Irish Travellers in the USA... and found rocks placed at the margins of roads, to keep Travellers from stopping... I found a very different place... bad as it once was, the halting sites were... different. Many gone... some really good, a real partnership between the settled folks and Travellers, but some were really bad... and the common land... almost gone.
Let's not argue over the little things. I hope some day, I can, or Jim might, take you to meet folks... walk with folks... see the world from the downside up... because I really do thing you might see things differently. I still trust in most people's best intentions.
One reason we get mixed up on the details... is that there are so many stories, so many Travellers killed, beaten, run off. No people should be held to account for the actions of others of their ilk. Where would settled people be? What wars have Travellers started? What genocides have Travellers committed? What famines have Travellers used for land clearence? Those who have bitten back at the settled community have taken a flea bite compaired to the wrongs committed against them.
But, dear friend Captain, let's pray for a time when folks stop all wrongs against each other... go joyfully through the world, greeting that of God in all we meet... that is so much more a goal then proving wrong against each other.
Listen to the radio show, if it can reach you... I wish I could, (and thanks on that particular point, Jim ... )
Let's both, Country Folk and Traveller pray for a better day.
Baxt hai sastimos
Lor