Behind the Veil

Photographer Alen MacWeeney wanted to see Ireland's Travellers as they were

  • By David Zax
  • Smithsonian magazine, July 2007, Subscribe
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Cherry Orchard 1965 She was playful with the camera the photographer says.
Cherry Orchard, 1965: "She was playful with the camera," the photographer says. (Alen MacWeeney)

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David Zax is an intern at Smithsonian.


In the summer of 1965, an Irish photographer named Alen MacWeeney came to a field on the outskirts of Dublin that was strewn with scrap metal and stippled with sheds and the small covered wagons the Irish call caravans. Cherry Orchard, as the field was named, was an improvised campsite of Travellers, Ireland's traditionally nomadic ethnic minority. Something like gypsies—though unrelated to them—the Travellers were more commonly called "Tinkers" back then, since many did a bit of metalwork to mitigate their often dire poverty.

MacWeeney entered Cherry Orchard somewhat fearfully; he shared the deep mistrust of Travellers common to middle-class Dubliners at the time. He was hoping to get a picture of a Traveller woman for a photo essay on William Butler Yeats' poems, one of which describes a girl dancing "a tinker shuffle / Picked up on a street." He intended to get the necessary shot as quickly as possible and move on. Instead, he kept coming back for half a decade.

Though Travellers are known as a closed and clannish bunch, MacWeeney had no trouble making friends in Cherry Orchard and the other camps he went on to visit. The Travellers found it endlessly amusing to listen to the recordings he made of their singing, since most had never heard themselves before. They appreciated the rapt attention he paid to the folk tales they told him, and they treasured the portraits he gave them, sometimes fashioning foil frames for them out of chocolate wrappers. "He'd sit down with us all, light the fire, like one of our own.... He had time for you like," says Kitty Flynn, a Traveller woman MacWeeney befriended.

"I felt a need to show the world (or at least Dublin) what it had dismissed and overlooked," MacWeeney writes in his just published book, Irish Travellers: Tinkers No More. The book includes several dozen photographs taken between 1965 and 1971: of weddings and funerals, of work and play, of grown men horsing around and of children who seem far older than they are. ("It must have the longest history of almost getting published," he says, sounding both exasperated and relieved.) The squalor visible throughout is merely incidental; like the best portraits, MacWeeney's capture the dignity of each subject. Some of the photographs had previously been published and admired, particularly those of Traveller children; the image MacWeeney chose for the cover of his book is of a young girl playfully holding a scrap of cellophane over her face, opposite.

Without meaning to, MacWeeney became one of the foremost amateur anthropologists of Traveller culture. He recorded Kitty Flynn singing "Lovely Willie" because he thought her voice was beautiful and the song deep and soulful. He recorded her father as he told tale after tale because he thought the old man was funny and could spin a good yarn. But when MacWeeney finally took leave of his Traveller friends (to look for a publisher and "to pick up my neglected career," he says), he donated his recordings of their music and folklore to University College Dublin; it was the largest collection of Traveller-related material the institution had ever received.

Though there are more Irish Travellers today than ever (there were some 7,000 in the early 1960s; they now number about 25,000), the way of life that MacWeeney documented has all but vanished. Beginning in the '60s, the Irish government began to curb Travellers' freedom to travel. The sight of them on the roadside was an eyesore to many settled Irish, says MacWeeney, so Travellers were increasingly corralled into campsites and encouraged to live less peripatetic lives. Now, many younger Travellers choose to become "buffers"—settled people—and move into cities, where many feel ashamed of their distinctive accent. "Things is dying away," says Kitty, now 66, most of whose 14 children have married into settled life. "At that time things was better," she says of the era captured by MacWeeney.

Ten years ago, the photographer returned to Traveller camps to make a documentary film about his old friends. "Some had died, some had gone away; others picked up with me as though I'd only gone down to the corner for a pint of milk," he writes. But most of them had settled into houses or campsites.

Wherever he went, MacWeeney showed the photograph of the girl with the cellophane, asking who she was, what had become of her and how he might locate her. Someone said she might have been called Mary Ward. "We found everybody, with the exception of that girl," he says. Whether she remained in a Traveller camp or settled in the city, whether she sang Traveller songs to her children and passed on the tales she had been told, and whether she will recognize herself peering through cellophane on the cover of MacWeeney's book is anybody's guess.

David Zax is an intern at Smithsonian.


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Comments (9)

I have read the article behind the veil About Irish Travellers I am Irish as my father is before me And often use the word tinker and being Irish I'm a sketch Charcoal artist and currently doing a series about gypsies mainly from the 18 hundreds I would like to present some of my work to the Institute please contact me to my email thank you

Posted by bryan cox on December 19,2012 | 10:09 AM

could you please tell me where I could buy a copy of the CD and the documentary of cheery orchard thank you

Posted by jerry connors on September 10,2012 | 12:25 PM

So I read the article and it says on page 17 "to hear..." so where do we got to hear...?

Posted by KatieInAthens on December 10,2011 | 05:37 PM

im a irish traveller from south wales there was a documentery made in ireland about a group of travellers called chery orchard ,i was just wondering do any body no were i can this from as some of my relitives that were in it have since passed away .....dont hesatate to reply to the above email

Posted by mr. connors on March 4,2009 | 07:51 PM

where can i find or get the recordings of (traveller) may the road rise up, i would like to see it because some of my family were on it .and sadley qiet a few has passed away since. thank you

Posted by jhonny connors on February 21,2009 | 10:02 AM

Mr MacWeeney was more than gracious in describing the Travellers in present day Ireland. My mother told me when they were known to be in her town back in the County mayo, all would run and lock their doors, as the Tinkers were famous for fixing up your pots, while someone ran thru the house stealing. Present day tinkers or Travelers are settled in the South here in America, one famous spot is near Aiken SC. They send all their people out to hustle illegally and send the money back..they paid a million dollar court fine with cash a few years ago, their money telegrams gave them away. Facinating group, always intermarry, only 13 family names in the group..been there for years, Mr MacWeeny would find them worthy of a book My broher-in=law took me thru their little communiy. They were looping, a tradition whereby a young man would sit in his pickup across from a young lady in hers and chat as the young people do. The only problem is that each had their mom next to them as a chaperone. They are fussy about who you might marry. They are finicky about the dowry you pay her family, it is based upon the estimated net worth of the groom, actually based on his ability to provide well from his family record as hustlers. Enough said

Posted by Tom McDonnell on October 16,2008 | 06:40 PM

I purchased the book referenced in the article (Irish Travellers: Tinkers No More, by Alen MacWeeney) from Amazon.com and received the CD with it. I have not listned to it yet - I'm savoring the book first. Alan MacWeeney also co-directed a film with John T. Davis in 2000 called "Traveller"(former title "May the Road Rise Up"). This is a documentary which follows up on some of the same people in the 1965 photographs, thirty years later. I have emailed a source at Trinity College in Dublin in hope of finding a copy.

Posted by Anita Knighton on June 26,2008 | 11:07 PM

Yes, I have the same question as Thomas Mylod. I'd love to hear these recordings.

Posted by Carol Hanscom on February 5,2008 | 07:23 PM

Where are the Irish Travellers recordings by Alen MacWeeney refered to on p. 17 of the July 2007 Smithsonian???

Posted by THOMAS MYLOD on November 21,2007 | 02:29 PM



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