These photographs of Irish Travellers, sometimes called gypsies, that's I have acquired recently, were taken in March 1958. The presence of a policeman in some of them and the date on the captions on the verso being the same on all of them, suggests that these were taken by someone in in official capacity at the Ministry of Commerce land at Tillysburn in Belfast. But if anyone was ever under the impression that the nomadic lifestyle was somehow romantic or 'free' these photographs ought to put them right. The grinding poverty is evident in all these images. I find them both sad and captivating at the same time.
