Child beater puts spotlight on America's Irish travellers
The tearful testimonial Madelyne Gorman Toogood gave in front of glaring TV cameras after she was caught on surveillance cameras beating her daughter was starkly uncharacteristic of the reclusive, media-shy Irish Travellers culture to which she belongs, experts say.
Toogood, who was caught beating her four-year-old daughter, Martha, in an Indiana department store car park, said she is a member of the clannish, nomadic culture of Irish descendants, most of whom came to the United States as refugees during the potato famine in the 1840s.
