Thanks Brian - I hope that helps clear the foetid atmosphere that has been allowed to enter this discussion
The fact that the Travellers Vic mentions are dead rather makes the point that they were't hyped but have ben around for far longer than the revival
I only hope that someone will get around to putting up Peter Hall's magnificent collection on line one day - the CD Rom of Scots Travellers that Musical Traditions issued some time ago ought to have been enough to prove the Travellers worth as song carriers

We're hoping that Limerick Uni will put up our Irish Traveller collection, not just for the songs but also for the massed of information on how they operated in a living Tradition and passed between the settled and Travelling communities
Ironically, the Travellers in Ireland played a great part in putting their orally learned songs into print via their prominent involvement in the 'ballad-selling' trade

The Folk enthusiasts should have learned what might be lost from Gavin Grieg's adopting this negative and dismissive attitude towards Travellers
A piper on his estate in New Deer was overlooked as a possible source for songs when Grieg was hunting for them because he was a Traveller
When the School of Scottish Studies was set up, the Traveller banged on their front door and gave them one of the few Robin Hood Ballads found in Scotland

I've been working on Irish versions of Child Ballads - one of the most interesting source singers, a Famine Refugee who fled to New England, got some of Ireland's rarest Child Ballads from itinerant fruit pickers - Queen Eleanor's Confession, Hind Horn and (unbelieveably) The Broom of Cowden Knowes.

My late friend, Tom Munnelly, was delighted at the acknowledgement to John Reilly's contribution to Bronson's 'Tunes of the Child Ballads'

"Tom Munnelly, in sheer goodwill, sent me a tape of his spectacular find of “The Maid and the Palmer” (Child no. 21), from Irish tradition"

He treasured Bronson's letter saying "your finding this rare ballad has immortalised your name in ballad scholarship"

Some people didn't need to 'Go to Specsavers to see what was before their eyes   
Jim Carroll