'Dividing the various travelling communities by surrounding some of them with a meaningless aura of romanticism will hasten the end of Travelling life'

There was a cheap plaster plaque in our house as a kid 'The interior of an Irish cottage'. There my Grandads old shilleligh gathering dust in the shed. A few old John McCormack records 'The Old bog Road', 'The rocky Road to Dublin'. My other Grandad's songs and stories, clog dancing...scarcely tolerated. A few old stories (mostly bloody depressing) from my Grandma and her sisters, one or two old faded newspaper cuttings and photographs.

that's all most of us have of our past, our roots. People take the piss out of the Yanks and their green beer on St Patricks day. I can sort of relate to that. The oklahoma Bomber, Timothy Mcveigh's insistence that he was '10th generation Irish'.

Do you know ralph McTell's song 'The Gypsy'. You'll find the lyrics on the Weather the Storm site.
http://www.weatherthestorm.it/_private/lyricsuk.htm



romanticism ....maybe. perhaps its just the buman trait of trying to give things a positive spin.