"Travellers" in the modern world

"Council fails in duty to Travellers: court"

The Travellers, as we've said in class, are a historically-marginalized social group (whose ethnicity is disputed) who have lived as itinerants on the roads of Ireland, Scotland, and England at least since the 16th century (some have suggested that they are the descendents of people made homeless during the Tudor Invasions of that period). Even up to the 20th century, these people were marginalized, treated with great suspician by the "settled" population, often denied education or social services, and so on. As is commonly the case, this was because settled people saw the Travellers as a threat, potential thieves, dishonest, dirty, etc. At the same time, Travellers have been a very important source of retention for folklore: songs, stories, folk cures, folk crafts, etc. The short film clip we saw of the pipers playing at a house ceili was of a group of Scottish Travellers.

More recently, the Irish government has attempted to address the Travellers' way of life with a bit more understanding, and to set up social services that might permit them to continue that way of life insofar as it is possible. Sometimes they have been "settled" in housing estates (the film Into the West begins in such a Travellers' housing estate); sometimes they have been accommodated in "serviced halting sites"--essentially government-owned campgrounds, at which Travellers would have preferred status and could stay in their caravans, while also having access to medical services, mail, government offices, and so forth.

The link points toward an article on the legal case of two Traveller families who have been unaccommodated by Limerick's social services agencies; evidently the campgrounds were full or not otherwise available. Interesting example of very old "folklore" lifestyles trying to cope with the modern, post-Industrial world.