The Travellers of Ireland

by Donald Kenrick

There are only a few Romany families in the Irish Republic but there is a large population of indigenous Travellers. No-one knows exactly how far back the origin of the Travellers goes. They form a separate social group and are distinguished by mainstream Irish society even when the Travellers are settled in houses. About a third live in caravan camps run by local councils while the others nomadize or are on unofficial sites. Their main occupation is recycling waste material. There is considerable discrimination against the Travellers, for example in entry to hotels and bars. Several hundred Irish Travellers emigrated to mainland Britain from 1880 onwards.

In 1960 the Irish Government established a Commission on Itinerancy whose report was published three years later. This report was the basis for a later assimilation program. Around this time a civil rights movement emerged amongst the Travellers. In 1963 a school for Travellers, St. Christopher's School, was built by Johnny MacDonald and was opened on an unofficial site at the Ring Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin.

On January 6 1964 it was burnt down by Dublin Corporation employees and later re-built on Cherry Orchard, Dallyford. In 1964 the Itinerant Action Group was set up to fight for better living conditions and access to education. In 1981 Travellers took a test case to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. They claimed that their constitutional right to educate their children was denied by their being moved constantly without caravan sites being available. Families sought the ruling that they could not be evicted unless an alternative site was provided. The Court ruled favorably. So, in that same year, a new report was requested and the Travelling People Review Body was set up by the Minister of Health. It consisted of 24 members, including representatives of the National Council for Travelling People (a network of settlement committees) and three Travellers. Its remit was to review current policies and services for the Travelling people in order to improve the then current situation. The group reported in 1983. The thrust of this report, as that of 1963, was the need to provide official stopping places for the Travellers' caravans and to help with education and employment.

The Task Force on the Travelling People was set up in 1993 and published yet another report two years later. In March 1996 a National Strategy for Traveller Accommodation was announced to provide 3,100 units of accommodation. This would consist of 1,200 permanent caravan pitches, 1,000 transit pitches and 900 houses. A Traveller Accommodation Unit has been established at the Department of the Environment to oversee the strategy. It is intended to initiate legislation which will require local authorities to draw up five-year plans for Traveller accommodation.

Some writers would trace the Irish Travellers back in history to 200 AD or even as early as 600 BC when metalworkers travelled the country with their families. These families were joined by travelling musicians and later by Druid priests displaced from their villages after Christianity defeated Druidism, forming the core of the Traveller population. Others may have joined them when tenants were dispossessed of their lands in 1585 after the introduction of rents to be paid in money by tenant farmers and again in 1652 when lands were confiscated under the Act of Settlement. By 1834 the travelling community was clearly distinguished from other poor who wandered the land in the report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in that year.

Nomadism of Irish Travellers to England probably started soon after the English first landed in the country in 1172 and this may be connected with the first appearance of 'tinker' as a trade or surname in England three years later. In 1214 a law was passed for the expulsion of Irish beggars from England and in 1413 all Irish (with a few exceptions) were to be expelled. Emigration on a large scale to England and Scotland came much later, in the nineteenth century. There are currently several hundred Irish Traveller families living in caravans in Great Britain, including children who were born there. In spite of some intermarriage with the English Romanichal Gypsies they form a separate ethnic group, partly because of their strong Catholicism. It is estimated that there are also 10,000 people of Irish Traveller descent in the United States, whose ancestors left Ireland even before the 19th century famine.

The main organizations are the Irish Travellers Movement and Pavee Point (previously known as the Dublin Traveller Education and Development Group). There is also a national organizer appointed by the Catholic church whose main role is educational. In Ireland itself they number some 25,000. The Travellers used to speak Irish with a special vocabulary known as cant, Gammon or Shelta, but by this century the vast majority spoke English, again with a special vocabulary. There is a strong musical tradition among the Travellers.

Suggested Reading

Gmelch, George. The Irish Tinkers: The Urbanization of an Itinerant People. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings. 1977.

McCann May et al. (eds.). Irish Travellers, Culture and Ethnicity. (Papers from a conference in 1991). Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies. 1994.

Gmelch, G. and S.B. "Ireland's Travelling People: A Comprehensive Bibliography". In Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society (3rd series) vol. 3 1978. pp. 159-169.

Macalister, R.A.S. The Secret Languages of Ireland. UK, Cambridge: University Press. 1937.

Posted 1 March 1998.

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