Nick Can tell you more about the English Travellers
The Irish Travellers tradition has been rescued to a point by their own organisation, Pavee Point and Limerick University has done a magnificent job in restoring the instrumental heritage in co-operation with a couple of families, notably, The Dunns of Limerick - they were street performers
The Legendary Piper, Johnny Doran was a regular visitor to this area and he is now remembered (or was - not sure that it's still happening) by an annual 'Johnny Doran Week-end' at Spanish Point
The Travellers I've come across seem to have picked up the ball again, but I don't think they're there yet
The Limerick Uni people have talked about a Travellers culture website as part of their World Music Department, using our collection as a base - I don't know if anything will come of that - fingers crossed
I know the collectors Collective has made some efforts to involve Travellers, but I have some serious reservations about them and their objectives
I only know that, the more I prod around researching our old songs, the more Travellers feature in their preservation

As far as electronic development, I have no objection to its use in preserving the songs - I wish we hadn't had to lug around a heavy Nagra that was worth more thna our car, instead of the incredibly usable equipment now available
My objection is whan it is used to change what is essentially acoustic music
Likewise I see no reason why the internet can't be used to distribute recordings of traditional music in order that they may be learned, but when it's presented as a welcome alternative to live performance, that sets the alarm bells ringing on several front
Our music is basically social - a sharing of talents among people rather than a one-way-street declaration of how good a performer you are - if we loose that I believe we lose the main function of the music
I don't want our future generations to be passive recipients of this music and watch them turn into sedentary, non-creating cabbages - does anybody ?
Jim Carroll