Blood of the travellers

slowburner

I'm surprised that nobody has brought this up.
The second part, hopefully, will be more conclusive than the first. You can watch it here

looksee

I saw it and I thought it was very interesting, I will be interested to see what the conclusions are in the second part. They really should have done a selection of settled people though to see what difference there is between 'settled Irish' and what is 'traveller Irish'. It might prove that they are tracing Irish rather than traveller.

slowburner

Good point.

looksee

Just seen the second part of this program and the conclusion is that the traveller population has been a separate group in Ireland for between one and two thousand years. They are related to settled Irish, ie they are not Romany/Gypsy.

Edit - reference my previous comment about settled Irish dna, apparently it is sufficiently well recorded already.

Insect Overlord

Fascinating piece of documentary. I'm regretting not seeing the first segment, but I guess I can find it on the RTÉ Player. I'd love to hear/read more from the various oral family histories.

Monfoolio

I just watched the second part of Blood of the travellers and im not really sure what I learned from watching it in its entireity for 2 hours!!!

Basically we didnt really learn anything that we didnt know before. They are still not sure where travellers came from!!

SafeSurfer

Does anyone know what the theme music to the Blood of the Travelers is?

looksee

Monfoolio wrote: »

I just watched the second part of Blood of the travellers and im not really sure what I learned from watching it in its entireity for 2 hours!!!

Basically we didnt really learn anything that we didnt know before. They are still not sure where travellers came from!!

It seemed to me that they clearly de-bunked the notion that the travellers were created by the famine or Cromwell! There is still information to be extracted but they seemed fairly confident that the travellers go back to C500 or so.

slowburner

I found the documentary fascinating but inconclusive. Travellers became a genetically distinct group within the Irish population between 1 and 2 thousand years ago - that's a conclusion of massive significance.
It's just a pity that historians weren't included. A historical description of what was going on within that (wide) time frame would have made the programme complete.
Maybe there will be a second documentary which will look at the events which caused the genetic divergence of the travellers.

seoirserob

Great documentary, not often do we see a positive association on our tv screens when it comes to travellers. It definitely raises some issues about our settled governing attitude to the 'Traveller Question'. Interesting term arose in the first part, a experts proposed 'Final Solution' to the problem, some time back. Where do we all, as a nation, stand now. Travelling no longer legal (well travelling is, you just can't ever stop). People wonder why they are angry or many of them seem have no respect for us or our way, while we legislate to remove their culture, divide and conquer their spirit. I'm sure this show will give a new dimension to the discussions, hopefully a bit of pride back to those more-than-deserve the acknowledgement and maybe a future for two different cultures in tandem.

skylock

I found the documentary fascinating,The traveller were once and still are a proud people,I am aware they have their problems and that some people with in their grouping Have caused trouble and rob but they are a very small minority.The DNA results show that they are the real Irish people,who for one reason or another kept an nomadic life style for a thousand years or so.Some of them are decended from High Kings and other old Gaelic Family's,its time to look at them in a different light.they are the ancestor s of the present day irish.Francis Barret is a Gent and has done his people proud.

skylock

I found the documentary fascinating,The traveller were once and still are a proud people,I am aware they have their problems and that some people with in their grouping Have caused trouble and rob but they are a very small minority.The DNA results show that they are the real Irish people,who for one reason or another kept an nomadic life style for a thousand years or so.Some of them are descended from High Kings and other old Gaelic Family's,its time to look at them in a different light.they are the ancestor s of the present day irish.Francis Barret is a Gent and has done his people proud.

slowburner

skylock wrote: »

The DNA results show that they are the real Irish people,who for one reason or another kept an nomadic life style for a thousand years or so.

I am not so sure that this is a correct interpretation of the researchers' findings. Or that there is such a thing as "the real Irish".
My understanding of it is, that travellers and the vast majority of the Irish population have a common ancestry but the travelling community developed a distinctive genotype some one or two thousand years ago.

slowburner

skylock wrote: »

Francis Barret is a Gent and has done his people proud.

I agree that Francis Barret is a great ambassador for his community.

slowburner

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Fascinating piece of documentary. I'm regretting not seeing the first segment, but I guess I can find it on the RTÉ Player. I'd love to hear/read more from the various oral family histories.

Link is in the OP

the-jojo-axiom

Just watched the second part, and the geneticists finally pinned their flags to the mast. There was too much faffing about by them in the first part, a lot of generalising about population movement in prehistory that didn't really answer the brief they were given.

Surprised RTE didn't get a Prehistorian on to explain the shifts of culture evident in archaeology during the Iron Age and the start of the early medieval that probably spurred the divergence.... namely the rise of territoriality and land ownership in the Iron Age as well as the increasing importance of pastoral agriculture at the dawn of the early medieval c400-500. Could have actually offered a few answers, rather than leaving it hanging, but that's RTE for you.

looksee

I got the impression that theywere saying that the results would have to be investigated in much more detail before they could come up with any further information. It would be a bit pointless giving 'answers' if they don't have any yet. The whole point was that they were investigating blood lines, rather than other historical research.

Research costs money. RTE got their programme out of it, now presumably it will have to wait until someone sponsors more investigation.

the-jojo-axiom

looksee wrote: »

I got the impression that theywere saying that the results would have to be investigated in much more detail before they could come up with any further information. It would be a bit pointless giving 'answers' if they don't have any yet. The whole point was that they were investigating blood lines, rather than other historical research.

Research costs money. RTE got their programme out of it, now presumably it will have to wait until someone sponsors more investigation.

Who said anything about historical research? All they needed to do was have a Prehistorian on to give an informed opinion on the possible reasons for such a significant cultural change. It wouldn't have taken any amount of research or funding, as there's plenty already done on the period in question. Hell, anyone with a degree in Irish archaeology or anthropology could give plenty sound bites on it for free.
The pollen diagrams for the Iron Age show a disruption in agriculture probably due to environmental factors; the forcing of the nomadic populations to move on from areas being divided between groups in terms of territories, etc. etc. Loads of theories could have been put out there and driven interest in the question within the archaeology and anthropology profession.

Lack of joined-up thinking by producers is the problem, clearly. Ah well, was a good enough couple of programs despite its shallow dipping-of-toes into the more interesting aspects of genetics and cultural change.

slowburner

the-jojo-axiom wrote: »

Who said anything about historical research? All they needed to do was have a Prehistorian on to give an informed opinion on the possible reasons for such a significant cultural change. It wouldn't have taken any amount of research or funding, as there's plenty already done on the period in question. Hell, anyone with a degree in Irish archaeology or anthropology could give plenty sound bites on it for free.
The pollen diagrams for the Iron Age show a disruption in agriculture probably due to environmental factors; the forcing of the nomadic populations to move on from areas being divided between groups in terms of territories, etc. etc. Loads of theories could have been put out there and driven interest in the question within the archaeology and anthropology profession.

Lack of joined-up thinking by producers is the problem, clearly. Ah well, was a good enough couple of programs despite its shallow dipping-of-toes into the more interesting aspects of genetics and cultural change.

Why go back as far as the Iron Age? Wasn't it concluded that the 'divergence' occurred much later?
Interesting though.

Cat Melodeon

I also enjoyed the program. It made a refreshing change from the sensationalist sorts of portrayals of Travellers we usually see. It's not often that producers bother to go in to real Travellers' homes or show them relaxed in normal social settings. The folks that Francis Barrett met in the course of the show are much more like the Travellers I know, normal decent Travellers, than anything I've seen on tv before. It's very rare I say this but well done RTE. It nearly made up for the crime that is Tubridy et al's paychecks.

slowburner

Not so sure that RTE should get the credit for the production, maybe for commissioning and airing. It was an independent production - 'Scratch Productions' - to the best of my memory.

Cat Melodeon

slowburner wrote: »

Not so sure that RTE should get the credit for the production, maybe for commissioning and airing. It was an independent production - 'Scratch Productions' - to the best of my memory.

True! Credit where it's due, Scratch Films have made some pretty decent documentaries before, too. Well done them.
http://www.scratchfilms.com/about-2/

the-jojo-axiom

slowburner wrote: »

Why go back as far as the Iron Age? Wasn't it concluded that the 'divergence' occurred much later?
Interesting though.

No, they said 1000-2000 y.a., or basically "we've a very rough idea", so the Iron Age would have to be in there too.

skylock

I agree its a pity they had no one of that calibre on it would have been more intresting

Mn81

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Does anyone know what the theme music to the Blood of the Travelers is?

I'm curious to know this myself, did you find out?

fontanalis

slowburner wrote: »

I found the documentary fascinating but inconclusive. Travellers became a genetically distinct group within the Irish population between 1 and 2 thousand years ago - that's a conclusion of massive significance.
It's just a pity that historians weren't included. A historical description of what was going on within that (wide) time frame would have made the programme complete.
Maybe there will be a second documentary which will look at the events which caused the genetic divergence of the travellers.

I didn't see the show but I read that one of the dna samples was M222 which is associated with the Ui Niall/Connachta dynasty and is carried by approx 25% of Irish males.
From what I read about the show and of others interpretations they aren't all that different from irish people and any differences are due to marrying within their own "community".