Thread: When I was about 5 we were staying with my grandmother in Wexford. I remember an important day when the sitting room was being used to greet a guest & the elaborate routine involved. My mother & widowed grandmother welcomed in an elderly woman & the three sat down.

The sitting room was rarely used & the best porcelain was employed. I was fascinated as I sat on the floor & watched. There was an elaborate asking after each other’s extensive family members & the lady occasionally used some Irish language at which my mother would reply.

But this was a meeting of matriarchs. My mother was there to translate Irish & I was there to learn an important custom. My grandma was entertaining the head of a Mincéirí (Traveller) family who had encamped on family land going back centuries.

What struck me was the elaborate & formal conversation. It reminds me today of a diplomatic engagement. I’ve never seen or experienced anything like it. Respect on all sides was palpable.

Whereas up to the Rising (1916) trade between the Mincéirí family & my great grandfather’s estate had been about metal repair, after that time horse & pony sales were made & in the 1970s it was Foxford blankets & striped sheets.

I was witnessing a centuries old tradition that had gone on in a corner of Wexford based on mutual respect & as was made very clear to me, continuity. My uncle later took me up to the wooden caravans & we looked at the horses & shook hands whilst he exchanged greetings.

Blankets & sheets were bought, plans discussed, thanks made & tradition went on. 45 years later one of those Foxford blankets is mine & for me it symbolises home. My uncle has continued to provide a seasonal halting place for the family.