Travellers - As in the Travelling Community Travellers
There is a rant that i have been wanting to do for a while now about the travelling community. These are now, just to be totally clear, knackers, pikies etc, give them whatever name you have. I do not know weather to like them, not like them or be totally indifferent to them. I do know one thing though, they are definately looked down upon by the vast majority of society? Why?
The thing is, no traveller has ever done anything to me personally. Well actually now, let me clarify one thing here, i do remember when i was in Dublin in college at Milltown i used to cycle past this a lovely piece of grass beside a river. i remember then that travellers moved in, i'd say around 7 familys, well around 7 caravans anyway, and they basically fecked up a lovely strech of grass and the Dodder river. Now that is one thing, but i remember i was cycling past this area one day and i was casually looking around and i heard this guy saying to me, "what are you looking at?". It was one of the travellers shouting abuse at me! Like what the hell is that about? I did nothing.
Now, other people have shouted abuse at me to, so why am i specifying this, well the reason is, that i think alot of traveller familys unfairly on the rest of society simply plonk down on lovely areas and ruin the god damn place then feck of and leave the place in a mess. Why is something now done about this.
Here is why i am extra sore about this. I want to build a house, now because i fear the law to a certain extent, as any rational person does, i am going to build the house within the limits of the law, i will jump through their hoops and eventually get my house built. If i just build the house the way i want and totally agains't the law of planning permission, then council will literally knock down my house!
But wait if i do the same as a traveller, and simply plonk my house down somewhere then all is A-OK. Why? No really why? There is a social science point of view that they are their own culture? Don't give me that crap, that is absolute rubbish. I have thought about that arguement that they have their own culture and that by forcing travellers to settle down is agains't their ways, but this makes no sense. My culture is that i like to sit on my ass and become a millionare... hmmm, where is all my money, oh wait, what i said is ridiculous!
Here is the reality, travellers exits. I think that all traveller that do not want to keep their surrounding tidy and have the place clean when they leave should be put on a boat and dumped in the middle of the Irish sea, where we deal with the rest of our troubles. And i mean we there in a European context.
Now, you might think "Donal is writing hate mail" or "Donal hates travellers". I am not. What i am saying is that, i want everyone in Ireland to be treated the same... the SAME!!!! If there is a law that sucks, let it suck for everyone... And i know someone is going to point out, "but Donal, the laws that i talk about actually protect the travellers in the way that they are able to leave their crap around their sites." I have of course thought of this, and my answer to this is that, this law is unfair. But again, think, just because a law exists, does not make is correct and fair.
What do you think? E-mail your answers to [email protected]