’He died after that in hospital.  He slept out one night and the frost went through his body.  There was another of them stole two of old Quin’s geese at Ballylee one night, and sold them to him again next day.  After he had them bought, Mrs. Quin came down and when she looked at them she knew them to be her own geese.  “Give me back the money,” she said.  “I’d be a fool if I did,” said he, and he went away.’

Another neighbour says:  ’They often made their camp in the boreen near my house; but one of them never came into the house, and I never saw one of them at Mass.  One very hard morning I passed by them as I was bringing in pigs to the fair of Gort.  There they were, sleeping under an ass-cart, quite happy and satisfied.  They fight at night and make friends again in the daytime; and they sell their wives to one another; I’ve seen that myself.’

And an old man says:  ’I think the tinkers are not the same as the rest of us; I think they originated in themselves.  They are very mirthful, and they have no control; but sometimes there will be a tyrant among them that is a good fighter, and they will obey him.

’They have no religion; and it might be true they don’t believe in the devil—­but what of that?  Aren’t there many on your side and our own that think there is no resurrection, but that we go straight to heaven at the minute of death?

’They never go into any house; and there’s a great many of them wouldn’t go in a house if they were asked.  My father went one time from Ballylee to Limerick; and there was a tinker at that time the Government wanted to get information from; something about Bonaparte it was.  And they offered him a good lodging with a feather-bed in it to sleep on; and he said if he slept one night on a feather-bed, he’d never be any good after; that it was more wholesome to sleep outside on a bed of rushes.  They didn’t get any information out of him after; though they offered him good reward, he wouldn’t give it to them.

’They have no marriage at all; but their women might be ten times better than the rural women for all that, and true to their men.  The women are very smart at cooking.  You’ll see them make a fire by the roadside with a bundle of straw and a bit of wood, and they’ll put the pot down.  What goes into the pot?  Well, how would I know? but the men are very handy, and when they put their hand in the pot, believe me it doesn’t go in empty.

’They used to be prone to coining at one time; but the law of transportation stopped that.  And there’s few of the police would like to grabble with them.  I saw four of the police trying to take one the other day, and he bet them all; and it was a countryman got a hold of him in the end.’

And a woman whose house they have often made their camp near, says:  ’They are bad, and we don’t like them to be coming near us.  There was a little lad of them came running to the door one night, and he called to us to come; for there was a man killing his mother.  But we drove him away and didn’t go; for we knew her to be a bad woman.’  And another woman says:  ’If they have a religion, it’s a wandering one; wandering like themselves.’