In the Field. Prof. George Gmelch
range of ethnographic data as possible. Only living in a camp would enable us to do this.
Early in the second month of our fieldwork, several people in Holylands suggested that we buy a wagon and move onto the site. It was foolish to pay rent, they said, when we could live at Holylands for free. One day Red Mick Connors and Mick Donoghue took George around to other camps in the city to find a barrel-top wagon to buy, and within a week they purchased one for £100 (US$250). It was in need of paint and a few repairs, but this gave us something tangible to do each day when we arrived in camp. And now that it was clear that we really intended to move in, the social distance between ourselves and Travellers lessened.
As we worked on the wagon, people stopped by to give advice, lend a hand, or simply chat. Some days we arrived to find that someone had worked on our wagon in our absence. Michael Donoghue painted its undercarriage a bright canary yellow—its proper color. His father, Mick, made a new window frame for its front Dutch-style door. Paddy Maughan found replacement shafts and later helped George bargain for a horse, a large black mare named Franny. When our fieldwork was over, we sold her to Paddy at the same price (US$350), not realizing she was in foal and, therefore, worth considerably more. (When we returned to Ireland in 2011, several Travellers confessed that they had known this at the time but that they had been warned by their parents not to tell us since that would interfere in another Traveller’s business.) I made curtains for the wagon’s windows and laid red linoleum tiles on its tiny floor. Nanny Nevin gave me a lucky horseshoe to nail above the door. Once the repairs were complete, we bought camping gear—sleeping bags, a lantern, pots and pans, dishware, wash basins, and a small camp stove—and moved in.
Our transition from regular visitors to camp members was completed the first night when we were awakened around midnight by the roar of trucks and vans racing into camp, followed by loud talking and laughter as people returned home from the pubs. Not long after the camp had settled back down to sleep, a loud argument broke out in the trailer next to us. Accusations and obscenities were hurled back and forth, followed by screams, thuds, and shattering glass. I crept out of bed and cautiously peered through the wagon’s small front window, catching an oblique glimpse of my new neighbor as she staggered out her trailer door. It was the first time either of us had ever heard, let alone witnessed, domestic violence. It would happen several more times during the year, raising an ethical dilemma, although there was no real way for me to intervene except to hide my neighbor when she fled. Only a close male relative like a brother or son would intervene on a woman’s behalf.
The next morning we acted as if nothing had happened. Everyone we saw, however, seemed subdued and somewhat sheepish. As Nanny Nevin walked by our wagon, she coyly asked me how well we’d slept but made no direct reference to the fight. Sam, the eight-year-old son of the family involved, came closest when he said, “You must have learned a lot last night.” Indeed we had. Many of the polite public fictions maintained for visiting outsiders had been broken. We soon realized that Thursdays, the day that the men received the “dole,” or unemployment payment, were days of heavy drinking for many that, not infrequently, ended up in arguments and, sometimes, domestic violence once they returned home.
Living on the site dramatically improved our rapport. We could now talk to people casually while going about our daily chores of hauling water, preparing meals, or searching for our mare. We no longer had to force conversations as the visitor must but could wait for opportunities to talk to arise naturally. People quickly became accustomed to us and comfortable with our presence. We had gotten backstage and were beginning to know and share the private lives of Travellers.
Our research and lives soon fell into an enjoyable routine. Because Travellers spent much of their time out of doors, they were more accessible than the people who had been in the villages in the west of Ireland and Mexico where we previously had done student fieldwork. Every family lit a campfire in the morning and kept it going until they went to bed at night. A blackened kettle of water was kept hot, and pots of tea were brewed throughout the day. Much of our fieldwork involved talking to people while sitting around a campfire. At night, most men and some younger couples went off to the pubs to drink. For several weeks we wanted to join them, since we imagined that it would be a good opportunity to talk, but didn’t feel confident enough to ask. Then one evening we were invited along by some of the Connors men and learned that they had been talking about doing so for a while but hadn’t been sure that we would want to be seen with them in public or go to the few working-class pubs that served Travellers. After that, we joined them most evenings, often sitting around the campfire afterward to talk and drink some more.
Figure 2-3. The late-morning routine at Holylands as people mobilize for work. The men on the cart are leaving to collect scrap metal in Dublin.
Sports provided another outlet for socializing. The boys and younger men in camp often played handball or a version of cricket using a tennis ball and a board as a bat. George had discovered the value of sports in building rapport and creating friendships while living in Mexico after he joined a village basketball team. With this experience in mind, and seeking a way to get more exercise, he suggested to several men that they form a soccer team. No one at Holylands had played on an organized team before, but the idea quickly spread, and soon a team was formed and christened the “Wagon Wheels.” During the week the teenagers and younger men practiced in a nearby field, often having to clear it first of their horses, which they illegally grazed there. On weekends they drove to different venues around the city to compete. Their matches—all against teams comprised of non-Travellers—were eagerly anticipated and underwent endless analysis afterward. George’s role in organizing the team and his play as goalie further cemented our place in camp. When we returned in 2011, there was much reminiscing about the wonderful times spent playing soccer and beating the buffers (settled people) during the Wagon Wheels’ first and only season. Even adults and children born long after our initial departure from Ireland knew about the team, although they mistakenly believed that it had been unbeaten the entire season—a lesson in how unreliable memory can be or how important embellishment is to good storytelling.
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION AND FIELD NOTES
Most of our data were collected through participant observation, that is, by observing and participating in the everyday life of the camp and then writing up detailed field notes. Participation, however, is always a matter of degree. We didn’t, for example, regularly accompany Travellers on their daily economic rounds. Our time was usually better spent by staying in camp where we could have extended conversations with people, observe the ebb and flow of camp life, and be around when unexpected events occurred. We also used the hours when most adults were away on their economic rounds to pursue other aspects of our research, such as visiting archives and government offices, interviewing settled people who worked with Travellers, or typing up our field notes.
Still, it was important to directly experience what men and women did when they left camp each day to earn a living and to observe the kinds of interactions they had with settled people. On a few occasions I accompanied women “gegging [begging] the houses,” and George joined the men on their scavenging and scrap-metal-collecting rounds, although they made it clear to him that a “scholar” like himself, by which they meant an educated person, should not knock on any doors. Being with Travellers on such occasions produced insights. While out with Mick Donoghue on his scrap-collecting and knife-sharpening rounds, for example, we encountered the disrespect Travellers often faced. As we drove through a middle-class neighborhood in Mick’s horse-drawn cart, several youths ran after us, yelling, “Knacker,” and tried to jump onto the back of the cart.5 A horse-buying trip to the Midlands with Bun Connors was memorable largely for what it revealed about illiteracy. Bun followed a long and convoluted route in his lorry, passing up several road signs that clearly indicated a more direct way.
We also hitched our mare, Franny, to our barrel-top wagon and journeyed into the Wicklow countryside for several days with the help of teenagers Anthony Maughan and Michael Donoghue in order to learn firsthand what traveling entailed. Our first afternoon, we experienced some of the discrimination Travellers faced when, soon after making camp, a farmer cycled by and not long after a patrol car arrived: the farmer had accused us of