Travellers put glitter and friendly zing into shopping

A 3-D portrait of Pope John Paul II glowed in the morning sunlight. The late pope beamed incongruously from a row of images dominated by muscular, oiled champs of world wrestling.

The Borris Fair yesterday offered shopping with a difference. The south Carlow village’s long main street was transformed into a rambling caravanserai by Traveller traders and thousands of visitors. The annual event is one of the most important events in the social calendar of Irish Travellers – from home and abroad.

At a stall decorated by no fewer than six Tricolours, Noreen Morrissey from Bansha was selling copies of the latest CD by “Farmer Dan”. She claimed the singer Barry Doyle was “loved by farmers” for songs such as I Got My Education Out Behind the Barn and Granny’s Off Her Rocker.

A trader specialising in clocks displayed wall-mounted “quartz timepieces” decorated with a choice of glazed photographs: Padre Pio, Bobby Sands MP and – a sure sign that the terrible twins have hit the big time – Jedward.

Many stalls groaned beneath heaps of glistening china – branded as “Chanel”, “Harrods” or “Versace” – and “pot-belly” shaped mugs decorated with images of horse-drawn caravans.

John Connors (25) and his wife Marlone (21) who “live in a halting site in Tallaght” had travelled down for the weekend and were “sleeping in the caravan”. He was selling “second-hand tools” and deplored the fact he couldn’t go for a drink – “discrimination against Travellers”.

Only one of the village’s pubs – Kavanagh’s – opened for business.

Fiona Cogley (39), a local woman, who had been shopping for “an unusual old flower pot” was delighted with her purchase of a Wedgwood “ladies’ bedpan”.

A stallholder with mounds of bric-a-brac offered to sell 30-year-old “Fine Gael election posters – three for a tenner” – featuring a fading image of a youthful Garret FitzGerald and the caption: “Put the right man back!”

The unofficial patriarch of the Borris Fair, and one of Ireland’s best-known Travellers, Miley Doran of Graiguecullen, Carlow,   died last year, aged 85. But his daughters, Mary, Kitty, Maggie, Ann, Biddy and son Dan had returned to Borris “in the caravan” for a couple of nights. They had brought “20 of Miley’s grandchildren and five great-grandchildren”. Maggie said the family missed last year’s fair because of their bereavement but were delighted to be back to “carry on the tradition”.

Visiting the fair, local TD and Green Party deputy leader Mary White explained how the Government was considering declaring Travellers to be a separate ethnic group.

And on yesterday’s evidence, Travellers are indeed different.

The Borris Fair demonstrated that they are friendlier, more courteous, wittier and in much better mood than many of the grumpy “settled” community. They might well be described as more Irish than the Irish themselves.