Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Entries Tagged as 'Travellers'

The Hieroglyphics of Vagabonds

February 12th, 2013 · Comments Off on The Hieroglyphics of Vagabonds

Last summer we marveled at the complexity of hobo pictographs, which we took to be a uniquely American phenomenon. But as this 1872 dictionary of slang from London makes clear, the tradition of wordless transient communication traces back to the Old World. In decidedly non-PC language, the author argues that this code was created by […]

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Parallel Lives

December 14th, 2012 · Comments Off on Parallel Lives

Ireland’s Travellers invite a fair amount of voyeurism on account of their reputation for physical toughness and petty crime. The conventional wisdom is that this social group has decided to remain distinct from mainstream Irish society, in order to preserve their unique cultural traditions. But German photographer Birte Kaufman, who has documented life in a […]

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The Toughest Traveller in Teesside

June 2nd, 2009 · 1 Comment

Two weeks ago, we posted about a pub kerfuffle in Ireland that appeared to stem from anti-Traveller prejudice (mixed in, perhaps, with some randy behavior by the Travellers themselves). We’ve since kept our eyes peeled for Traveller-related news, seeing as how we only scratched the surface of the community’s history and contemporary situation. The news, […]

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The Battle of Balbriggan

May 14th, 2009 · 7 Comments

During our time in Ireland, we never ceased to be mystified by the venom spewed toward Travellers, perhaps the Emerald Isle’s largest ethnic minority. For starters, we had a tough time differentiating Travellers from their countrymen, although our Irish comrades never seemed to fail at the task. Alas, many of those comrades were barkeeps, and […]

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