A mile of second-hand goods in Borris

We leave them alone and they leave us alone, a Traveller in the Carlow town, speaking of the locals, told Sean MacConnell

We leave them alone and they leave us alone, a Traveller in the Carlow town, speaking of the locals, told Sean MacConnell

There are a number of places you must go if you want to fully understand all of Ireland's people and cultures. Croke Park is one of these, as is The Reek, Galway Races and Dublin Horse Show on Nations Cup Day. Another should be added to the list, August Fair Day in Borris, Co Carlow.

On August 15th, on foot of a charter from Queen Elizabeth I, a fair is held there. Traditionally, it was a sheep fair and was one of the biggest in the country, a place where Carlow, Wexford and Wicklow sheepmen sold three old ewes and replaced them with new stock for the coming year.

Yesterday there was not a sheep in sight, but there were piebald horses and ragged donkeys on sale at an event which is as important now to the Irish Travelling community as the Horse Fair in Ballinasloe. Travellers from all parts of Ireland and Britain, and some from as far away as the US and Germany, were there, and the town's mile-long street was lined on both sides with stalls offering an astonishing array of goods.

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On offer was everything from motorbikes to kites, wedding and communion dresses to china, wrenches and pickaxes to tool boxes, televisions and video games to toys of every description, clothing, footwear, antiques, fishing rods, rope, twine, wire, and most of it second-hand.

Behind the makeshift stalls local people watched rather warily from behind shuttered businesses, although this year, Maggie McDonagh from Galway noted, there was one pub open in the town.

"They don't want us here, but we have a right to be here. Our people have been coming here for hundreds of years before there were all these shops," she said.

"It's a meeting place for us travellers. Deals are made here, and our young people can relax. Matches are made here, and trouble resolved. We leave them alone and they leave us alone," she added.

Not so, say local people. One man said the traders always left the town in a terrible mess after the fair, and sometimes there had been violence between the families. "We had very bad trouble some years ago and, while no locals were hurt, we do not want to have drunken violence on the streets, even if it happens within the Travelling community," he said.

An attempt some years ago to regularise the situation and take horses off the streets and provide portable toilets and skips, worked up to a point. This year limited facilties were provided by Carlow County Council.

It also helped gardaí control the traffic, which is not allowed into the town for the duration of the event, much to the annoyance of some locals. However, the many hundreds of traders and Travellers who were in the town did not seem to mind.

The only open pub in town seemed to be self-regulated. Locals and farmers had literally taken it over to watch the Cork-Wexford hurling game, and the only hard words being spoken were against the referee.

However, this writer saw one serious assault on a garda just after noon. Gardaí had just seized a box full of pirated DVDs and were bringing them to a squad car. As the garda was putting them in the boot, a child, not more than six, flung himself at him, tried to pull the box off him and, on failing to do so, proceeded to kick the shins off the limb of the law. In an instant, he made his escape under a van and was away.