Good points Ebarnacle. In fact, (to bring this back to folk music), in some blood-libel songs where the Jew is the culprit (like Little Sir Hugh), when times change the Gypsy becomes the culprit instead.

One thing that confused me: in one of the articles larry cited above, the author writes about what is happening to Madelyne Toogood "just because she is Rom." But she is not Rom, in fact, she's an Irish Traveller. This is an example of a writer with an axe to grind being a bit loose on the details in order to prove her point, I think. She also says that if Madelyne were French, we would not be hearing about how the French beat their children, so the media harping on Roma is an example of prejudice. Now, I've seen literally NO article claiming that beating children is a cultural attribute of Romanies, or in fact of Irish Travellers. So again, the writer's setting up straw man arguments.

What the newspapers ARE reporting is that irish Travellers are a fairly secretive, nomadic culture, and that some of them are involved in home-repair scams. As I've said, this is all true. While it is an example of prejudice to point it out, as it would be to say "some blacks are muggers," or "some jews are cheap bastards," it's nothing you can cry libel over.

Finally, none of this has much bearing on the legal case, which, as we've seen, seems not be succumbing to pejudice at all. So what it boils down to for me is that this is a PR issue for the community, and Larry's their PR guy on Mudcat. Since I sympathize with the community, I understand Larry's wish to present them in a good light. But I don't think the legal system needs much help in this case, at least not so far.