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**** you mother you racist **** !
tinkering was a profession amung the travelling communitys in ireland back in the day when you couldent just throw something out you had to get it mended
Many of them earned their living by crafts such metalworking: until not so long ago, all Irish travellers were referred to as tinkers, the word deriving from the Irish tinceard (tinsmith). Today it is often seen as an insult and many get upset if you call them tinkers. I am proud of it. In those days, people could not afford to buy a new pot or kettle if they found a hole in their old one. They had to repair things, a skill that has almost disappeared in our modern consumer society. How many young women – or men, for that matter – can even darn a sock today? Most of the travellers’ traditional crafts – spoon-mending, tinsmithing, flower-making – have gone by the way, destroyed by new inventions and mass production, but in those days they were vital.
My great-grandfather, Bartley Gorman – who took the mantle King of the Tinkers after beating Jack Ward – was a genuine travelling tinsmith. I have a treasured photograph of him as an old man, mending a pot, his great fists and his battered face bearing testimony to a lifetime of fighting
My great-grandfather, Bartley Gorman – who took the mantle King of the Tinkers after beating Jack Ward – was a genuine travelling tinsmith. I have a treasured photograph of him as an old man, mending a pot, his great fists and his battered face bearing testimony to a lifetime of fighting
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