Mrs. Toogood has been described in the media as an “Irish Traveler”. Is this the equivalent of “gypsie” from the Emerald Isle?
BTW- She is the woman caught beating her child on video.
That child seemed to take the beating rather matter-of factly for never having been beaten before.
Well this page says there are an estimated 7,000 Irish Travellers in the US.
Irish Travellers are indeed the Irish equivalent of gypsies. IIRC, some have their roots in Romany culture, and others began travelling following the Clearances, when British landlords threw tenant farmers off their land. They have a distinctly different culture from the mainstream in Ireland, and face a lot of prejudice, which tends associate them with petty crime and burglary. I am quite shocked at the open anti-Traveller prejudice of otherwise non-racist Irish people I know. Having said that, the cultural differences are so great that the few times I have interacted with travellers, I felt distinctly alienated.
http://www.paveepoint.ie is an irish based website.
The travellers in Ireland are an incredibly marginalised group against which hmmm, I am going to make a WAG and say that everyone in Ireland has some prejudice against them. Unfortunatly it’s also quite hard to get together some sort of integration since as well as the prejudice on the part of the settled community there is also the fact that the travelling community is (in general) very insular.
Ms. Toogood can call herself whatever she likes; she’s still a thief, a liar, and a child abuser.
I thinkIteki is right; practically everybody in Ireland (myself included) has some prejudice about travellers.
I don’t think that the Traveller community generally seeks integration with the settled community, so assuming that this is a desirable objective may itself be a manifestation of prejudice about travellers.
I know most Americans only know “gypsy”, but that ethnicity would prefer to be called “Roma” or “Rroma”. Gypsy is derived from the word “Egypt”, from where the English mistakenly assumed they migrated, when in reality they came from India/Pakistan. Furthermore, the word used to name the ethnicity in many languages has negative connotations (I believe the Slavic “cigany” is related to the root “cheat”). So, it’s a good idea to call them “Roma” as they would like.
UnuMondo
However none of the above is true of the Irish traveller community, who are an ethnically distinct group from the Roma community (which is not found in Ireland). While “gypsy” is not appropriate for the Irish travellers, “Roma” is equally inappropriate. “Traveller” is the preferred term.
Yes, sorry if I left this unclear. I understand that the Irish Travellers are a totally different group, I just wanted to educate some who might have thought “Travellers, eh? Are they like gypsies”
UnuMondo
Are they something like the “Pikey’s”(sic?) portrayed in the movie “Snatch”?
I’ve seen that video and I can’t understand why the woman was hitting the kid – it doesn’t look like the child is mis-behaving or anything. Not that any kind of behavior would justify a beating that harsh, but it appears to be totally unprovoked.
I think one story was that the woman’s child misbehaved in the store, and she waited until she got to the vehicle to “discipline” the little girl. I can understand people wanting to correct their children away from the people in the store, but not when their discipline becomes a battery.
Are the “Travellers” of the Eastern and Midwest US related to these Irish travellers? I hear the US group has a pretty bad reputation.
One of the US TV news magazines (20/20 or Dateline) did a story on an Irish Traveler group a few years ago. They seemed to all be related and while working the odd job here and there, they also “grifted”. The TV segment featured some interesting footage of these people doing store robberies, etc.
Also, does anyone remembers that case from a few years ago where a woman staying at a Disney resort was raped? Of course she sued, but, it was later found out that she and other family members had staged the whole thing. She (and her family members) were “irish travelers”.
I think the “Travellers” in the U.S. are, in fact, descended from Irish Travellers that immigrated to the U.S. decades ago. I saw a report on U.S. Travellers on a news show about 10 years ago (probably the one sydney mentioned) that was just mind-blowing. They showed a town in (if I remember right) North Carolina where practically everyone was a Traveller and had one of just a handful of last names and lived in big, fancy houses. According to the report, the men would travel around the country doing construction work (allegedly always fraudulent) and made so much money that they could all afford to live like that. It said that they had arranged marriages for their kids and would marry very young pre-teens to much older guys. This was, of course, quite illegal in the state in question, but the authorities usually looked the other way. They showed a home video smuggled out of a Traveller social event where these little girls, maybe 4 or 5 years old, were dressed up like Madonna and dancing around in an extremely suggestive way to try to get hitched up with some older guy. (They had obviously been coached by someone.)
Anyway, the whole time I was watching that report, especially when they showed that video, I was just gaping in amazement at the TV, but this is the first time since then that I’ve heard anyone mention Irish Travellers in the U.S.
Good movie on the subject starring Bill Paxton
Traveller (1997)
Decades? More like over a hundred years ago for most of them.
I don’t know why I am wandering round the boards posting that quote in threads, so please don’t ask me. I don’t know if I am trying to distance myself as an Irish person from this kid-beater or what, but either way, the group being referred to appear to be as Irish as people from Boston 
In the interest of fighting ignorance, I’ll provide these links.
I’m Irish too, but it appears this is an indigent minority, much misunderstood, similar to those called Gypsy’s.
They have a reputation, but it’s probably undeserved as most. The old rumor mill is alive and well.
http://www.travellersrest.org/index.htm
I say not; that I have been privileged to be kin to a clan of hard workers and survivors, by and large an honorable people. Perhaps there will be enough material in these pages eventually for visitors to make their own informed decision about that.
Are there grifters among us? Yes.
But there are many among you who may also be justly called “criminal.”
http://www.itmtrav.com/frame1.html
TM was established in 1990 and now has over eighty Traveller organisations from all parts of Ireland in its membership. The Irish Traveller Movement consists of a partnership between Travellers and settled people committed to seeking full equality for Travellers in Irish society. This partnership is reflected in all of the structures of ITM.
http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/gypsy/travell_old.htm
Occasionally Irish Travellers have been confused with the Roma or Gypsies in England, who despite centuries of coexistence, cultural interchange and limited intermarriage, remain a distinct people.
http://www.radstats.org.uk/no073/article1.htm
‘We were the First Greens’: Irish Travellers, recycling and the State
yes. The “pikeys” in Snatch are indeed Irish Travellers. “Pikey” is a derogatory term which I believe is derived from the fact that they are often seen walking along the turnpike. I don’t know how accurate the portrayal in the movie was(do people really still engage in coarsing(sp?)?). I have heard that the accent was fairly accurate.
I heard a radio interview today with a man who had written a book on the IT’s: Scam! Has anyone read it?