In the Field. Prof. George Gmelch

Figure 2-4. Taking a lunch break on the road in county Wicklow, with Anthony Maughan and Michael Donoghue.

      We each kept separate field notes and regularly reviewed them to see what information was thin or missing and to formulate new questions. We jotted these questions down on paper, which we carried with us to consult during the day. When we had heard the same answers often enough to be confident of the accuracy of the information, we moved on to new topics. We seldom took notes openly. Since most Travellers were illiterate at the time and could not have known what we were writing, we felt that it would be insensitive to do so. Instead, we each returned to our wagon during the day to write down a few key words and details from which we could later type up complete field notes. These “jotted notes” were usually enough to recall an entire conversation or event.

      Only when the information we were being told was detailed or a conversation had evolved into an interview did we openly take notes. Examples included family histories when many names and places were mentioned or when someone was attempting to teach us Gammon (also known as “Cant” or “Shelta”), the Travellers’ secret argot. We rarely used a tape recorder as it usually attracted a crowd of children and young adults who wanted to sing into it. In retrospect, we probably could have taken notes more openly after the first couple months. Doing so would have let people know when we wanted to have a serious conversation and signaled that we felt what they had to say was important enough to record.

      The importance of keeping good field notes had been drilled into us in graduate school and the field schools we had each attended. Not only do your notes form the bulk of your data, they are also a nice measure of what you have accomplished. Well disciplined, we tried to set aside time every day for typing our notes. In this pre-computer era and lacking thumb drives or cloud storage, we each made carbon copies and mailed them home. We stored our originals away from Holylands, along with the electric typewriter we typed them up with, to prevent any possibility of their being taken or lost. Our joint efforts over the thirteen months of fieldwork produced nearly three thousand typed pages of notes. Proud of this “evidence” of our diligence, the first thing we did upon returning to California was to build two wooden file boxes to hold them.

      Although we both arrived in Ireland with a clear “problem” to study, anthropologists of our day were less concerned with theory than with ethnography—detailed descriptions of a culture. Furthermore, no one at the time had done extended fieldwork with Travellers, and little was known about their lives. Consequently, we believed we should collect as much data about their culture and history as possible, whether or not we could see a direct connection to either of our specific projects.⁶ George, for example, collected information on and later wrote an article for a folklore journal about the history of the barrel-top wagon.

      Many topics came up spontaneously, initiated by Travellers. Individuals frequently stepped up into our wagon, shut the door, and sat down to talk. Anthropologists as neutral outsiders who have shown great interest in the people they live among often become confidants. Information and feelings that could not be shared with other Travellers because of family rivalries or fear that the information might someday be used against them could be discussed with us. We didn’t need to remind each other never to reveal to other Travellers what we learned in private.

      Being a couple proved to be an advantage in the field. Singly, we would not have been able to interact freely with members of the “opposite sex.” Travellers described themselves as “jealous,” and we observed incidents of men arguing and sometimes beating their wives after learning that they had spoken to another man on the site even when the interaction had been totally innocent and other people had been around. Our immediate neighbor, Red Mick Connors, once returned home from the pub and upon learning that his wife Katie had given another man a match so he could light his cigarette, began yelling at her. Katie had been surrounded by her children and had not left the doorway of her trailer to do so, which I had witnessed and intervened to tell Mick. When on my own, I had access to women, children, teenagers, and the elderly of both genders. George’s situation was reversed, although he had to be careful to avoid being alone with teenage girls. As a couple, we could not only share our observations about the opposite gender but join in a greater range of activities such as going to the pub with other couples at night.

      Like all anthropologists, we relied heavily upon the friendship and assistance of a few individuals who became our primary teachers, or “key informants” in the jargon of the day. We were mindful of developing friendships and collaborations with members of each of the three major “clans” (the word that Travellers used for their large extended-family groupings) living in camp: the Connors, the Donoghues, and the Maughans. I became particularly close to Nan Donoghue, the woman who had been beaten our first night in camp, and later wrote her life history.⁷ George was particularly close to Red Mick Connors, and the feeling was mutual. When we returned in 2011, his adult daughter Mim told George that he had been “me daddy’s best friend.” Anthropologists often develop close friendships with people in the field.

      ADJUSTING TO FIELDWORK

      Fieldwork is a process of adjustment for both the anthropologist and the people he or she studies. We had habits that Travellers then regarded as unusual, if not bizarre. In our early weeks on the site, children gathered around us in the morning to watch us brush our teeth, talking and pointing: “Ah, would you look, Sharon’s scrubbing her teeth.” On our return in 2011, we learned from some of these children, now older adults, that they had begun brushing their own teeth as a result. And we heard other stories of how Travellers had been scrutinizing us at the time we were observing them. They were surprised that I knew how to drive a car and that I wore jeans, something almost no Travelling women did at the time. Reading a book was unusual since all but one of the adults at Holylands were illiterate. When women asked me why we did not have children, I told them about birth-control pills and explained that we wanted to wait. At the time, birth control was unknown among Travellers. The Roman Catholic Church had deemed it a sin, and the state had made it illegal. Today, this is no longer the case, and Traveller family size has dropped as a result. Other women remarked with mild amazement that we never yelled at each other (we undoubtedly did, but never publicly).

      Our most difficult adjustment was to the loss of privacy. Travellers found it odd when one of us went for a walk alone. The idea that anyone would want to be on their own struck them as odd, since they did nearly everything in the company of others. Growing up in large families and living in crowded conditions, they were unaccustomed to privacy. Wagon and trailer walls were thin, and there were always people around. Travellers, especially youths and men, routinely entered other families’ dwellings without warning or sat down at another family’s campfire to listen for a while and then leave, sometimes without uttering a word. We could expect visitors at any time. George installed a latch inside our wagon’s Dutch-style front doors as a deterrent, but most people merely opened the top windows and leaned in to talk or else reached down, unhooked the latch, and entered. This loss of privacy was a small price to pay for the acceptance and friendship we received, as well as the information it provided.