Irish Travellers: representations and realities

Abstract

The question has been a major source of debate in Irish society for decades, centuries even, and appears no closer to being answered today. For as long as Travellers have roamed the roads of Ireland, they have been subjected to, at best, a sort of mythic, romanticised patronisation, and at worst, vilification and outright hostility - but always as the other of Irish ethnic identity. Micheal O hAodha closely examines how images of Travellers have been created and distorted over the centuries, from the nineteenth-century gipsilorists to late-twentieth-century anthropological studies. In particular, O hAodha focuses on the 1952 Tinker Questionnaire, conducted by the Irish Folklore Commission, which remains the most comprehensive account to date of settled Irish people's attitudes to Travellers. The author concludes by reflecting on today's complex mixture of equality-driven calls for rights and respect with the largely media-driven stereotype that persists. Where, in all this, does the ever day reality of the Traveller community fit?