"Was Margaret Barry a Traveller?"
Sort of - she was a street singer but I was once told she came from a settled background - she partnered the great fiddle player, Michael Gorman for a time in London
We have come across a couple of songs in Shelta - 'Stash all the Pavvies' (Look at all the Travellers) was one of the first songs we recorded; Tom Munnely issued one on his 'Songs of the Irish Travellers' album (Bernie Reillys Cant song, I think)
Travellers were still making songs when we started recording them - one of the best was 'Poor Old Man', a song about a feud between two Travelling families.
One of the best studies of Irish Cant/Shelta was carried out by schoolteacher Pádraig Mac Gréine PÁDRAIG Mac GRÉINE, who was still working with Travellers (and driving) right up to his 100 birthday - a truely amazing and admirable human being

21 - Poor Old Man (Roud 2509)   ‘Pop’s’ Johnny Connors

Three lines lilted.

"What brought you down from Kerry?" says the poor old man.
"Sure it’s the Connors’s is the blame and don’t the country know the same,
And look at them running down that lane," says the poor old man.

"Bad luck to you, young Gerry," says the poor old man.
"If you cook a stew* you don’t cook it near Ballaroo*
If you will, you’re bound sure rue," says the poor old man.
Three lines lilted.

"Oh, they were coming through Ross Town
And they had ponies big and brown,
And at me they did lick," says the poor old man.

"Bad luck to you, young Gerry," says the poor old man,
"I’ll run to take up my stick and I’ll got orders to drop it quick;
I’ll not, I’ll roar and squeal," says the poor old man.

"Bad luck to you, young Gerry," says the poor old man,
"But wasn’t I an unlucky whore, for to barricade my door?
Wasn’t I an unlucky whore?" says the poor old man.

[* Ballyroe, Co Kerry; * stew: great alarm, anxiety, excitement]

According to the singer, this song refers to a fight that took place in the town of New Ross, Co Wexford, sometime in the nineteen-thirties, between two travelling families, the Connors and Moorhouses. After a battle in the town, the Connors, coming off worst, fled and barricaded themselves in an abandoned cottage. The Moorhouses climbed on to the roof and brought the fight to a swift and bloody conclusion by tearing off the thatch and dropping down on their adversaries.

Other travellers have confirmed that the fight took place but they said that it was between two different branches of the Connors. Nobody is sure when the events took place although they thought it was over territory.
We were told: "The Waterord Connors was tinsmiths and the Wexford Connors didn’t want them coming into Wexford selling it."

One Traveler referred to the incident as "The second Battle of Aughrim"! The song is a parody of An Sean Bhean Bhoct, (The Poor Old Woman).