Horse Traders

Gathered last week in Mrs. Robertson's Shady Lawn Tourist Camp outside of Nashville, Tenn. was one of the South's most talkative, most anachronistic minority groups--500 itinerant Irish horse traders, the Rileys and Costellos, the O'Haras, Carrolls and Sherlocks. During the winter they travel round from one mule market to another, running down the animals of other people and commenting enthusiastically on the good points of their own. During the summer they live in tourist camps and see the world. Once a year, on May 1. they get together just outside of Nashville for the festive Irish purpose of burying their dead.

Bridget and Katie Costello, Jimmy Carroll, Jimmy McNally, Petie and Bridget Riley had died in various Southern towns since May 1, 1937. Their bodies had been shipped to undertakers in the vicinity, to be kept against the next spring buryings. When the last April mule market closed, the Irishmen put their families into their cars, mostly new ones with trailers, and set out for Mrs. Robertson's. They maintain stoutly that they are not a clan, just a large group of countrymen with a common trade. No one knows how the meetings started, but they have been going on for 50 years. Last week, after appropriate ceremonies, the Irishmen deposited their six bodies in the Mt. Calvary cemetery, had a small drop to celebrate the occasion, broke up till May 1, 1939.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.