Critical Mick

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The Outsiders: Exposing the Secretive World of Ireland's Travellers
by Eamon Dillon
Merlin Publishing, 2006

Snatch This, Too

In the mid-90's, Bill Paxton and Mark Wahlberg starred in Traveller, a film about US-based Irish Travellers. The reviewer on IMDB criticized the flick's ethnic group for being made up. He had never heard of Travellers.

They're real, and everyone in Ireland can relate a tale or two about Travellers that doesn't include Marky Mark or the Funky Bunch.

Numbering about 50,000 worldwide, the Irish Travellers are a tiny, insular minority whose customs call for living a gypsy's lifestyle on the road. Though few in number, the Travellers have high visibility. They live in caravans of mobile homes and trailers, often moving between designated state-supported "halting sites" or camping along roads and on public lands. Pavee Point have a quick FAQ and other interesting material on their website. I understand that the singer Dolores Keane has a Traveller background. Brad Pitt portrayed one in Snatch, and they're the minority group targeted in Ken Bruen's The Killing of the Tinkers. But songs, films and crime fiction aside, what are they like?

Eamon Dillon's The Outsiders: Exposing the Secretive World of Ireland's Travellers provides a fascinating insight. After the basics are related in an Introduction, Dillon devotes twelve chapters to different characters or topics. Focused chiefly upon the criminal elements that he encountered as a journalist, Dillon's book is well-researched and engagingly written. Readers are left with a deeper understanding of events that were only half-remembered from yesterday's headlines.

Dillon explores the Traveller connection to the black market tobacco trade, the more heavy-duty smuggling of drug runners, and the vandals who run illegal dumping operations out of the backs of old Ford transit vans. He also relates excellent detail on the highly-organized mobile gang who specifically target the cigarette stocks in isolated shops- armed robbers who have never been jailed. (One received a shotgun blast from a storekeeper, but birdshot to the chest just made the gang mad. They ran the shopkeeper over and, due to the loco Irish legal system, drove away completely free.) Chapters are devoted to the swindlers who, posing as builders, landscapers or pavers, con unsuspecting home owners and small businesses for work that is poorly or never done. The Outsiders also features the career criminals who survive by travelling the country, thieving anything that is not bolted down. And, there's an unprecedented section on the ten thousand US-based Irish Travellers operating out of Texas and the Carolinas.

Dillon also takes a swing at the illegal bare-knuckle boxing contests. I, for one, was amazed how often certain bookies attempted to literally strong-arm retired boxers into a fight. Threatening a huge man whose occupation was bashing heads does not sound like a wise move, especially if the boxer is a man like Joe "The Hulk" Joyce. When a gang tried to intimidate Joyce by breaking into his house one night, he charged them with a pitchfork! I don't care how much potential commission could come from the betting, or sales of the fight on homemade DVD. "Enjoy your retirement!" I would shout back, over my shoulder. "I believe I'll retire, too!"

Eamon Dillon's 2008 true-crime book, The Fraudsters, was an important book with the power to save its readers from serious misery: an informed party can spot and evade scams. The crimes in The Outsiders are equally scary, equally real, and equally likely to leave the bookshelf and come knocking on your door.

Do not let that stop you, though. When a Traveller came knocking, not long after I finished Dillon's book, I took him up on his offer to do a few odd jobs around the garden. It was spring cleaning time, and we worked outside for a few hours. Necessary tasks were done, an interesting conversation passed the time, and no one broke into the gaff that night to steal my collection of precious, precious signed first editions. So, be informed, but not scared: if settled people provide the opportunity for Travellers to earn an honest living, everyone will benefit.

and life is grand! And I say this at the risk of falling from favor with those of you who have appointed yourselves to except me to say something darker.

Critical Mick says: Of the twenty major organized crime gangs that the Gardai say are operating in Ireland today, one is a Traveller gang. The Outsiders: Exposing the Secretive World of Ireland's Travellers reveals the world that this gang operates in. Though it largely overlooks the experiences of the honest members of the community, Mr. Dillon deserves praise for each of these 261 pages. This is true crime that is unique and is uniquely Irish.

Zombentino, baby!

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2010 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 30 March, 2010.