Insta-expert

My site meter went nuts today based upon the "Irish Travellers" post down below. This suggests that the news media is not furnishing the public with information it would like to know, such as "wht the heck is an Irish Traveller." The same Google search that led to the Lex Communis post turned up this one at The Raven, which is far more direct about the ethnic traditions of the Travellers than I was:

The Irish Travellers are basically gypsies, grifters who work cities like the old-time carnies who were wont to fleece the yokels and scram before daybreak. Driving a distinctive sort of carry-all van, they'll offer to pave your driveway and you'll be thrilled with their workmanship—until the first good rain. The link above to Traveller's Rest notes that not all Travellers are thieves and to those who are hard-working honest people, no offense is intended here.
Mishakawa Indiana authorities (where the event occurred) said, "she did have a history of retail store fraud," which is in keeping with the Traveller lifestyle; the beating she gives her daughter is administered after a failed attempt to scam the department store outside which the event occured. In their extremely insular culture, Traveller women are generally married off within a clan at very early ages, often as young as 11 or 12. One wonders what kind of pathology Toogood may have acquired as a result of her abnormal upbringing, and what future awaits her young daughter.