Gypsies and Travellers have endured unimaginable hardship and persecution for centuries, as Katharine Quarmby demonstrates in her meticulously researched book. During the sixteenth century the nomadic people arriving in Britain were often referred to as “Gypcians” (as the Roma were thought to come from Egypt rather than India) and, if not banished or executed, could find themselves enslaved. The Gypsies, together with Irish and Scottish Travellers, were considered vagabonds and a 1572 law deemed them “outrageous enemies to the common weal”. At the same time, many Irish Travellers became scapegoats because of their Catholic faith, as they were to be again, 400 years later, during the Troubles. The enclosure of land that started in the Tudor period and continued well