How do you perceive the Travellers?

As with any distinct social group in Ireland, most are grand but a few bad eggs ruin it for everyone else. I worked on a community development initiative for 2 years with Traveller kids and never met a funnier, more honest group of kids in my life. They were respectful, engaged and enthusiastic. Any bad behaviour they ever displayed was a direct result of their frustration at being treated as pariahs by their peers in school.

Traditionally, Travellers worked as merchants, as tinkers (tin-workers and repair men) and as horse traders. These occupations are still held by many in the community today, and elements of these occupations result in some of the behaviours which we settled folk often disapprove of, e.g., horse and trap racing, hoarding of any kind of electronical device which may come in useful (what we perceive as littering), and door to door sales of carpets, tarmac, tools and anything else they may have come by, both legitimately and on the black market.

Other elements of their culture which are regarded with distaste by settled folk are things such as their tradition of solving disputes through fighting. Families often have a designated fighter who will be pitted against a fighter from another family in order to resolve a dispute over anything from turf wars to the results of a horse race. Major events such as Holy Communions, wedings and high school proms are lavish and completely over the top, similar to these events in Hindu culture. Sparing no expense shows the importance of children to Travellers and the extent of the celebrations mirrors the status of the family. Weddings can go on for a week, and I can testify that the ones I have attended did not have a single fight, unlike the weddings of some of my settled, 'respectable' neighbours.

To be sure, some Travellers live in squalid conditions. Sometimes this is because they are waiting to be placed in accommodation or on a halting site. Legislation was passed a number of years ago that guaranteed that the state must protect Traveller's unique way of life. Part of this means providing sufficient halting site bays for Travellers who wish to continue their nomadic way of life. It is against European law to force Travellers into permanent housing (which is akin to putting American Indians on reservations, but those reservations are the size of a small house). No county council in the country has yet provided the amount of halting site bays it is required to under the National Development plan, and instead tries to push families into council housing. This is one of the reasons why some Travellers create such a mess where they camp - it is to p1ss off the neighbours who will then complain to the local council/politicians who will then be motivated to actually do what they are required to do by law anyway - provide suitable accommodation.

Some Travellers are involved in crime, some are nasty characters and some are scroungers, but then those types exist in all walks of society. Of the 12 families I regularly worked with, three had family members who were on the dole, which is about proportionate to the general population. All the others worked and paid taxes, but were aware that most of the settled folk in the community perceived them as layabouts and potential criminals. One of them had a criminal record - for fighting when he was 18. He had not been in trouble since.

Normally, I'd be saying something like "they're a minority - you cant hate an them because of the way they live" or "because its a different culture" - but in this case I am. They set up camp in a place that seems appropriate to them (often in the middle of an estate) and don't leave until the government give them money. They actually do have a habit of stealing - things seem to go missing from an area when a halter site sets up nearby. Traveler weddings nearly always end in violence. They want government money, yet refuse to work.

I realize that I may well be talking about an extreme minority of travelers - and I hope I am - but that minority ruins their image. I'm not joking, the first traveler I ever met was hiding from the guards after robbing a pair of jeans from a Dunnes Stores. That's not a good first impression. I'm sure they can be really good people if you get talking to them. But socially - I'm not a fan

I live here in Ireland. I have neighbours who are settled Travellers. They are the most respectful, honest and hardworking people you could meet. There are around 5 Traveller families living around me. Their homes are like show houses. Kept very clean, tidy and well presented. They also have good family morals. Having said that, some of the Traveller communities, those who live at the side of the road, don't keep their surrounding area very well. They sometimes (and not everywhere), leave it unhygenic, dirty and very messy. It is not nice to see, especially for visitors to our country who are passing through a lovely town, and stumble across a 'halting' site (as their called), that is not kept well. IT is just awful for the Irish image, for any countries image for that. Travellers do go around from house to house selling things quite frequently, and it can be annoying, but most of them can't get jobs, so in my view they have to make a living somehow to support their families, and as long as their not doing no harm, then how bad can it be. Their is a Traveller I personally know who is manager of a leading company, and she is the loveliest person you could meet. She is one of a very small amount who can actually get a job, all because she is a Traveller. They are, and it is sad, classed as a lower human being. Its just not right. If you happen to see a Traveller, in a shop, you are gaurenteed to see a security personelle, following them around. All because they're a Traveller, and the stereo type they have been given. In all communities, there are people who don't respect their homes, their surrounding area's, their law, its not just Travellers. Some are lovely, some are not. ITs the same everywhere. It just happens that these people live in caravan's at the side of a road!!!!

Some travellers give others a bad name-but we have to remember they are people and not just a number-to say your KIND are not welcome here I would find offensive! On the other hand there is a time and a place for everything lol Windsor not being the place!

Originally Travellers were greatly looked forward to, they were skilled craftspeople and would travel from town to town selling their wares, then Ireland became industrialized and their jobs went, but they didn't. If your job is gone, get a new one.

But they don't, they sit on their asses complaining, littering, stealing, having too many children...

They are labelled an ethnic minority and so recieve benefits for doing fukc all. I have no time for them.

Note, I a well aware that they are capable of reform, my ex-neighbours were lovely, cultured, educated, working, contributing people, but the rest of them...

Travellers are nice people. They are harassed and uneducated and bullied. If you heard the Joe Finnegan show, you would know.

Its awful when people say that travellers are oh so dirty, when you don't know them. You have a much better lifestyle than them and some of them are really nice and nicer than maybe you or me.

Don't stereotype.

Don't criticize them until you walk a mile in their shoes. Then you'll know what its like.

well.....

they kinda make a mess of the place...

like this really nice scenic place, with park and sea view beside this little town and they just lined up their caravans and hung outtheir dirty washing and take up space and leave rubbish lying about.

theyre odd as can be... maybe im generalising abit here, but id find little travelling kids just sitting by themselves staring at passerbys for ages.. and they dont usually seem to get on with locals that much. i dont know why.

oh and some landed up near my friends house once and he caught them in his garden stealing stuff off his washing line and out of his garden. and ive heard stories of them taking stuff off others too. so we find them really annoying and we dont trust em... i know this is soo stereotyping and i know theyre are nice travellers and decent ones, but they just have a bad reputation here in ireland.

I am sorry but I don't know about them. When I camp we stay at Corp of Engineers, they are clean and have flush toilets.

Settled travellers, or 'buffers' as they call themselves, are pretty ok, still wouldn't trust em, or the travelling ones, sorry, but knackers.

they park their caravans on the side of the M50, entrances to schools, outside my local swimming pool, anywhere they can think of and leave their rubbish everywhere, cause fights, stab people, steal anything that's not nailed down, let their kids run wild, the list is endless!