The Gypsy, Roma and Traveller populations of Wales.
The story of the Travellers, Gypsies, and, most recently, the Roma in Wales is one that goes back to Roman times. In around 350AD the Empire had built a new capital in the east and its most western outpost (Wales) was no longer in the mind’s eye of the emperors and their governors. The Gaels from Ireland were both raiding and trading with the western territories of Roman Britain - journeying across the Irish sea in boats powered by sails and oars, these were the ancestors of today's Irish Travellers.
In the 1100s "Egyptians" - Gypsies - came to the fabled city of Byzantium. Said to be skilled in sorcery and magic, these travellers were mistakenly identified with the Biblical accounts of pharoah's people. Over the following centuries they journeyed across Europe before making their way to Wales in the 1570s. Later migrations of "Egyptians" arrived in the 1700s, founding the Welsh Gypsy tribes and bringing with them musical and storytelling traditions which became interwoven throughout Welsh culture.
Irish Travellers
The origins of the earliest community amongst the Romani and Traveller people, the Irish Travellers, are found amongst the groups known as “The Walking People”, na lucht siúil. This group existed outside of the formal structure of early Medieval Irish society. The ‘Walking People’ offered specialist skills and goods to the settled Irish communities - metalwork, herbal remedies and ‘cunning’ (folk medicine), basket-making and horse-trading for example – but were not part of the complex web of relationships which bound the high kings, lesser kings and chieftains. By the sixteenth century, the basis for modern ethnic Mincéirí had emerged, with their own distinct culture and an economy reliant upon trade with the sedentary populations in specialist, niche markets. The Mincéirí, also known as Pavée, were also distinct in religious terms, following a particular form of Catholicism devoted to the Virgin Mary as “Queen of Heaven” and “Queen ofthe Gypsies”.
The population was also shaped by intermarriage with both the Romani communities as the so-called “Black Irish” – descendants of the Spanish Moriscos (former Muslims who had been commanded to convert to Christianity or be exiled) who washed onto the shores of Ireland following the wreckage of the Armada in 1566.
The Cromwellian occupation of Ireland in the 1600s saw a migration of the Irish Mincéirí to Wales and during the 18th and 19th centuries, as Wales’ industry and economy expanded, there continued to be movement between Ireland and Wales.
Migration was often met with hostility – from the middle of the nineteenth century, ship’s captains were fined if they landed Irish passengers in Welsh ports, and there are reports of villages in the Valleys barricading the roads against Irish Travellers.
Recent estimates suggest 1000 – 1500 people of Irish Traveller heritage living in Wales today.
Romani
The first migration of the modern Roma population to Wales was the so-called “invasion of the Coppersmith Gypsies” who arrived in Wales in 1906 from Liverpool.
The Coppersmith Gypsies came from Romania and, until the 1860s, they were enslaved in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (now part of Romania)
“Gypsies shall be born only slaves; anyone born of a slave mother shall also become a slave …” stated the code of Wallachia at the beginning of the 19th century, and the Roma were owned by the Prince, by monasteries and by private individuals. In the mid 1800s, abolition brought centuries of slavery to an end and many of the Roma migrated across Europe.
When they arrived in Wales they were often not welcomed but were kept under strict police supervision, seen by the authorities as a “nuisance”, and were escorted back into England, before being deported from Hull. Many went from there to Canada and the United States or returned to mainland Europe.
Few Roma travelled to Wales between the first and second world wars, but a trickle of individuals arrived in the wake of the second world war and the Romani Holocaust; the porrajmos - the Devouring. Those who spoke of the terrible experiences of genocide were often not believed, or sometimes dismissed as seeking compensation. However even at the time some scholars recognised the truth of the accounts; that, alongside the Jews, the Gypsy population was destined for extermination on the grounds of their race.
Modern migration of Roma into Wales has largely been from Czech and Slovak lands, with smaller numbers coming from Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia. Some were fleeing war in the Balkans throughout the 1990s, others were migrating away from fear and oppression in their original homes.
Today, many of the modern Welsh Gypsy population have moved into houses, but others continue to travel throughout the United Kingdom.
The current caravan-dwelling population of Wales includes Irish Travellers and, in south Wales, descendants of marriages between English and Welsh Gypsies
English Gypsies are often described as Romanichals in Romani Studies literature, whilst Welsh Gypsies are identified by scholars as Kalé, and are related to Romani communities in Europe, such as the Finnish Kaale and the Spanish Caló.
The map below shows just a few places which are significant in the history of the Welsh Romany population.
More information will be added over time.
