Roving Tinsmiths And Fine Musicians Poem by Francis Duggan

They loved their pinto horses they loved their guinness stout
Their women loved a drink too some see them as uncouth
Those who had airs and graces and suffered of conceit
But when it came to music, song and dance few with them could compete.

The farmers used to hate them under the dark of night
They put their horses in the fields and removed them before daylight
And when the farmers discovered their grass trampled and eaten the travellers already on the road
That led them to the next Town and another temporary abode

They made tin pots and cans, kettles and buckets they were Tinsmiths by trade
And plastic flowers and roses for to sell their women made
Their Romany horse drawn caravans and sidecars I used to love them one could not mistake
When moving off to the next Town they'd set off at daybreak.

I loved them for their culture their music, dance and song
To the by roads of Ireland they surely did belong
At night around their camp fire they drunk and sang till late
A wedding, birth or funeral a cause to celebrate.

In the early sixties the heavier traffic on the road for their horses too dangerous their ways of life did change
And to see them drive in motor vans to say the least seemed strange
To be roving Tinsmiths and fine musicians was their great claim to fame
But nothing lasts forever and nothing stays the same.