Dara Ó Briain joins protests at rejection of Irish words on

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I think you mean Romani, not all of them are Romanian, we have this here too.

Thank you, so there's basically no connection between Romani and Irish travellers, except for the nomadic lifestyle?

No connection, they just happen to be similar in lifestyle and customs.

Yes , Romani. No connection as far as I know

Thank you, Amity, that clears it up for me. In Continental Europe, the lifestyle is only associated with Romani/gypsies, not the Irish. and they don't have the best reputation here either for a variety of reasons. I've had Romanian colleagues/friends who get extremely upset to be associated with the lifestyle (even if they're educated professionals with what you called a nice post code) so I imagine that would be similar to what you had to deal with.

Yeah, I know it's a... well, sensitive subject, I took advantage of the friendly company to ask

TuskenR: there's a large Romani community in Romania.

I don't know why I typed Romanian , must of slipped a gear in my brain while typing

Fairly similar words and mistakes happen - I hope the correction didn't upset you.

Just don't tell Romanian people "but you're so white", "you live in an actual house" or "you don't look Romanian" and you'll be fine

As a side note, it's funny how many people tell others they "don't look their nationality" when they never even set foot in said country. The joy of stereotypes I guess

I think the term “Romani” comes from the (false) historic assumption that they came from Romania: easy mistake to make

(I think “gypsy” is connected to a similar mistaken idea that ascribes them an Egyptian origin...)

Didn’t know about the Cromwell connection to the origin of Irish travellers.
Can however add in the tangent info that during the industrial revolution large numbers of Irish people were brought over to England to do the heavy work on infrastructure projects: apparently they were sought out for this because they were fitter, healthier and less bolshy than the urban English workers of the time. Bring it up because I’d casually assumed that Irish travellers were the descendents of the navvies as they were called... silly me.
(My source for that is E.P Thompson The Making of the English Working Class)

No worries, yes it sounds familiar, had Romanian acquaintances at one point and they did indeed have similar experiences.
I think your colleague was being facetious btw, or he was indeed a traveller and owning the pejorative term.

We weren't close but he was a cool guy, with a great sense of humour and a bit wild. He was living in his girlfriend's house who was a horse breeder so he might have been referring to his family. He was a bit drunk and sounding defiant when he said it - I thought it best not to ask

Out of curiosity: is it annoying when non-British people go OMG your accent is so cool or the stereotype of the Irish having a great sense of humour?

To be honest I dont think many Irish people think about the travelling communities origins or even know that their way of life came about because they were displaced like the rest of our ancestors.
I mean if you survived Cromwell and the hell that followed in his wake, eg lost the right to own land, famine, plague, more wars, I think a nomadic way of living seems like an obvious outcome.

Indeed Irish people have always had to leave Ireland for work, it's a legacy piece thats still impacting us today unfortunately.

My grandfather was involved in thr rebuilding of the UK after WW2, there wasnt any work here, I mean as a young nation we were skint, there werent any other options. I believe that earlier my greatfrandfather went to the UK for work too, while the other side of my family went to America for work and were fortunate enough to return.

Nah it's not annoying, its kinda funny because it didnt require any effort to be cool, lol. My British SO loves the accent though.
The great humour stereotype... well that one is completely accurate ...of course! eg Comedian exports like Dara

I'll take that as permission to continue positively stereotyping the Irish

And Dara really is cool, even without the accent

Interesting to read about the travellers.

The popular TV drama Peaky Blinders seems to swirl the origins of the Shelbys and the irish travellers,

My understanding is there really were Irish gyspy gangs in England but the Peaky Blinders seem to be a mix of traveller and gypsy. The Shelby family spoke Romanian in seasons 1 and 2 however this was fixed in season 3 where they spoke Roma.

On a side note the ethnic slur "pike" is applied to both Roma gypsies and travellers even though the travellers speak Cant and are genetically Irish.

There are Irish Travelers in the US too. Not as well known as the more common Roma/Gypsies.And not as much of a thing as they seem to be in the British Isles. But they do exist here. There was some news documentary about them like ten years ago on 20/20, or Sixty Minutes, or something. They seem to wander through the south. Have an unsavory reputation. And have weird customs. But are totally distinct from the other kind of Gypsies, and are fair skinned red haired blue eyed and as Celtic looking as any other Irish. Not at all like the other kind of Gypsies.

The behavior and customs of travellers is quite similar to gypsies and its likely in the early years following cvil strife during the Cromwell rebellions that free irishmen probably lived among gypsies and then after going their own way many stuck to the lifestyle other than adhere to catholicism.

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