It's interesting that travelling musicians are so revered in Irish culture, and that so much Irish music is devoted to stories of the travelling man, and that songs like "The wild rover" are sung in Karaoke bars from the meditterannean to south east Asia.

Irelands history of enforced poverty gave birth to thousands of travelling men and women, first within Ireland, then in search of newer lands overseas. Some of them had no choice at all and were used as slaves in Australia and the carribbean.

Someone like Pecker Dunne is appealing to the Irish psyche because he represents the Irishman who feels like an outsider in his own land.

".....all you young people
now here's some advice
before crossing the water
you'd better think twice
Cos you can't live without love
without love alone
and the proofs around london
in the nobody zone

Where the summer is fine
but the winter's a fridge
wrapped up in old cardboard
under charing cross bridge
And I'll never go home now
because of the shame
of a misfits reflection
in a shop window pane......

(from "missing you" by Christy Moore)