by Victoria Kostyniuk

The topic of Irish Travellers was something that I thought I had a fair understanding of. However, I was soon able to see that I had not gotten the full picture. I had seen various shows that were set a few decades ago, in which travellers were prominent characters. As well, I have seen the popular TV show, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. In these scenarios, the Travellers were depicted as being beneath society and somewhat wild in their behaviours. As well, I understood that Irish Travellers did not remain in one area for very long and relied heavily on support from their family and group members.

One thing that I learnt in this class that really surprised me was that Irish Travellers are considered to be an Indigenous ethnic minority group in Ireland, and in fact, is the only one in the country. Up until recently, there had been a push to assimilate Travellers to leave their lifestyle behind and take up that of other Irish citizens. Still today, there is this some discrimination of Travellers among Irish citizens such as had been decades ago. On a related topic, this same discrimination that Irish Travellers face reminds me somewhat of what Indigenous people in Canada face in present day society.

Historically, there is not a lot of concrete data due to the illiteracy that Travellers have faced up until more recently. It is believed that they split from society approximately 360 years ago. Lots of the Travellers originated in simply travelling to try to find work with their own resources. Others, however, might have been evicted from their homes or forced into that lifestyle because of personal problems they faced, such as addiction to alcohol.

Quite often when presented in media, the subject of Irish Travellers is viewed in a somewhat negative way. From what I have seen, there are frequents articles published relating to the eviction of Travellers. On the contrary, there are also several publications encouraging the promotion of equality for Travellers. Since there are both positive and negative representations of Irish Travellers, I think the assumption could be made that non-Traveller citizens of Ireland have mixed feelings on this topic. It is clear that there the topic of evictions are still very relevant today. It would be interesting to find out whether these evictions are mainly legal conditions being breached, or if there is more of a racism problem. Unfortunately, the discrimination that is shown towards this ethnic minority group in Ireland is not unlike that shown towards other ethnic minorities in different countries around the world.

Source:

Irish Travellers – History and Cultural Relations. https://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Irish-Travellers-History-and-Cultural-Relations.html. 2019.