Date of Publication: 2008-08-01

Fionnuala Carson Williams works as an Outreach Officer with the Linen Hall Library in Belfast and has undertaken research into the folklore and symbolic traditions of the Irish Traveller community

Freyne Corbett studied History, Politics and Social Studies for the undergraduate programme at the University of Limerick. He is currently researching an M.A. in History at the same University.

David Cunningham is a graduate of HPSS (History, Politics and Social Studies), the University of Limerick, Ireland.

Professor Ian Hancock is Professor of Romany Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and is a renowned voice in the international Romany movement. He helped petition the United Nations in 1978 for membership of the International Romani Union and in UNICEF in 1987. He is an expert on the Romani Holocaust and served as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council under President Clinton. On several occasions, he addressed the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Roma issues and collaborated with members of Congress on human rights projects. He is the recipient of the Norwegian Rafto Human Rights Prize and the Peace Award of the Bahá'í Church for his efforts to assist the Romani people. He has published a large number of articles and books on the Roma, including We Are the Romani People: Ame Sam e Rromane Džene (The University of Hertfordshire Press 2002), The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Persecution and Slavery (Karoma: Ann Arbor, 1987), A Handbook of Vlax Romani (Slavica: Columbus, 1995) and Migrant and Nomad: European Visual Culture and the Representation of “Otherness” (with Mícheál Ó hAodha) – Essen: Verlag die Blaue Eule (2007).

Dr. Mícheál Ó hAodha works as a Lecturer (part-time) and as a Librarian at the University of Limerick. He lectures on a number of History, Politics and Social Studies courses incorporating Traveller, Roma and Migration Studies. He has published more than two dozen books including Irish Travellers: Representations and Realities - (2006); On the Margins of Memory: Recovering the Migrant Voice - (2007) and American “Outsider”: Stories from the Irish Traveller Diaspora (2008). His research interests include the history and representation of migration, Irish nationalism in a postcolonial context and Irish subaltern and diaspora identities.

Alex Smith is a London-based Romany Gypsy who has spent his life working on the British fairground. He was born in Yorkshire, England in 1910, the son of a horse-dealer who sold horses to the Tsar of Russia and the Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich. He speaks Russian and remembers traveling in Russia before the Revolution and the First World War. He spent some years in the Merchant Navy and inherited his father’s membership of the Showmen’s Guild when he returned from sea. He worked on the travelling fairs for many years throughout southern and central England.

T.J. Vernon

T.J. Vernon is an Irish-American Traveller of mixed Irish and Scottish descent. He has worked as a Tradesmen, Auto Mechanic, School Teacher and Advertising Executive. He lives in the Midwest with his wife and children in a proud Gammon/Cant speaking household.