James Collins, 73, is one of Ireland’s last remaining Traveller tinsmiths, a traditional craft passed from generation to generation but lost today. “My father done it and his father before him done it. It run the generations and then it all just died out,” he explains. Today, only two are left — in large part due to the arrival of different materials: “the plastic came in and that’s when the plastic took over.” N°32W482R
‘It all just died out’: one of Ireland’s last Traveller tinsmiths mourns lost way of life
