do irish travellers marry young

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Hidden World Of Girls

For traveller women in ireland, life is changing.

The Kitchen Sisters

Second of a yearlong series

Helen Connors (right), who is part of a Traveller family, says she started school when she was 4 years old. But the community didn't take Traveller girls very seriously — and she says she was called a "knacker" and a "pikey." Nikki Silva hide caption

Helen Connors (right), who is part of a Traveller family, says she started school when she was 4 years old. But the community didn't take Traveller girls very seriously — and she says she was called a "knacker" and a "pikey."

Travellers, "the people of walking," are often referred to as the Gypsies of Ireland. Mistrusted for the most part, their traditions and lifestyle are not well understood within the larger culture. Historically, they were nomads who moved in caravans and lived in encampments on the side of the road. Their tradition as "tinkers" or tinsmiths, and as the breeders and traders of some of Ireland's best horses, goes back hundreds of years.

As times change in Ireland and the notions of private and public space change and contract, the culture no longer accepts the Travellers on public and private lands and has begun to create "halts" where they can settle.

Helen Connors, 21, lives in Hazel Hill, a new government experiment in Traveller housing on the lower slopes of Dublin Mountain, with her husband and two children.

"Travellers got their name because they're so fond of traveling around the world in a caravan," she says. "They'd have their wagons and their horses. You'd see them along the roadside. You could be in Dublin today; you could be in Cork tomorrow. That's how Travellers got their name. We call you 'settled people.' "

"Travelling girls don't really mix much with settled girls," says Shirley Martin, a 23-year-old mother of three. "The way of living, caravans, by the side of the road. A come and go thing. My family is a Travelling family."

Life In School Hard For Travellers

There are similarities between Traveller and Romany Gypsy culture, but Travellers do not define themselves as Romany, says Mary Burke, associate professor of Irish literature at the University of Connecticut.

For many generations, Travellers -- the nomadic, indigenous Irish minority -- provided services to an Ireland that was predominantly agricultural: seasonal farm labor, tinsmithing, horse-trading, hawking, music and entertainment.

The Irish government is experimenting with housing for Travellers — the Gypsies of Ireland — on the lower slopes of Dublin Mountain. The houses are called "halts." Today, the majority of Travellers either live in houses permanently or live in houses at certain times of the year. Gerry O'Leary hide caption

The Irish government is experimenting with housing for Travellers — the Gypsies of Ireland — on the lower slopes of Dublin Mountain. The houses are called "halts." Today, the majority of Travellers either live in houses permanently or live in houses at certain times of the year.

In the early days Travellers moved from place to place with horses and carts. British Romany introduced Travellers to wagons. The wagons were overtaken by caravans, and the caravans were overtaken by mobile homes. But today the majority of Travellers either live in houses permanently or live in houses at certain times of the year.

"But that doesn't mean that prejudice or identity disappear when they settle in houses," Burke says.

Connors started school when she was about 4 years old. She says the community didn't take educating Traveller girls very seriously.

"I didn't learn very much in school because I was bullied a lot," Connors says. "You were a 'knacker' or a 'pikey.' That's all you'd hear every day. You'd be in trouble nearly every day for fighting. If I said to the teacher, 'I can't do that; can I have some help?' she'd say, 'Here's paper; just go down to the back of the class and draw whatever you want.' I had one teacher that said to me, 'Well, a Traveller won't do nothing with their life. Why would you want to know how to read and write? You're going to go off and marry young and have loads of children.' So I was just put down to the end of the class and everyone else was up on top."

Because school in Ireland is set up for kids who live in a house year-round, Burke says, a cultural attitude developed toward Traveller kids who moved around a lot for not being capable of -- or interested in -- learning.

"And that carries over into today," Burke says.

Traveller Girls Marry Young

Traveller families are especially strict with girls, according to Martin.

"Some mothers and fathers is too strict where you wouldn't be allowed to go anywhere," she says. "This is why most Travelling girls get married young, because they want to get away from that. Travelling girls, most of them today would be 16, 17, 18, which will want marriage."

Tell Us Your Stories

This year, NPR and The Kitchen Sisters will bring you stories of girls and the women they become. You can follow them on Twitter by going to @kitchensisters. You can send suggestions to our listener comment line at (202) 408-9576.

We want to hear from you — Click Here For Instructions

The girls travel in a pack, promenading.

"They look very glamorous," Burke says. "Lot's of makeup and heels and long hair."

Terry McCarthy, 16, was recently married.

"When I was 13, I met my husband at a festival," she says. "And the minute I met him, I knew I was in love. I got engaged when I was 15. I had a big do for that. I had a big engagement party. Just went from there then. I got married last month. I had a lovely big huge white dress."

"Whatever you want on your wedding day you have to get," Connors says. "When I got married, I got to design my own wedding dress -- my dream dress. It had a 50-foot train. It was all diamonds and lace. Travellers, too, they have a mini-bride. That's a girl you just dress up to look just like yourself for the day. Your mini-bride has to look like you."

Theresa Hughes and daughter Jennifer have been sewing wedding dresses for Traveller girls for more than 10 years.

"The Travelling community, they come over to us to get their outfits made for going to weddings -- even the mothers and grannies want bling," Theresa says. "Thick pink satin, sequins, beads, glitter. They go all out."

Jennifer shows off a white miniskirt with beads on it.

"I just go all out; I go for extremes," she says. "I kind of used Elvis as an inspiration -- Elvis' white Lycra suit, the flared one that he wears to his last concert."

There is a lot of money involved in Traveller weddings, both in terms of substantial dowry payments and in terms of putting on a good show.

Traveller Women Gain Power

As women age in Traveller culture, they gain power. They often outlive the men. They can become matriarchs in the culture, particularly if they have a large family. And there's prestige attached to being the mother of many.

Shirley Martin, 23, a resident at Hazel Hill, says that Traveller families are especially strict with girls — and that's why they marry young. Nikki Silva hide caption

Shirley Martin, 23, a resident at Hazel Hill, says that Traveller families are especially strict with girls — and that's why they marry young.

"When I was a kid, the Travellers, they used to come around our houses making pots and pans and doing odd jobs," says Paul Connelly, the caretaker of the Hazel Hill halting site. "And in return for that, they may get milk and bread and potatoes. People will not tolerate Travellers living on the side of the roads now. It's dangerous for themselves. The country's trying to get them settled. Set up halting sites and trying to get them to live in them."

Traveller life has changed, Helen Connors says.

"My mother and father had 17 children -- nine boys and eight girls," she says. "Myself, I left school when I was 11, but then I started a trainer course where I learned how to read and write. Then I did a child care course, and I passed all my exams. Now I can read and write what I never learned in school. I learned it by myself. Travellers are speaking up for themselves and being heard."

Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva) in collaboration with Dublin producer, Nuala Macklin; mixed by Jim McKee

Web Resources

Irish Travellers in U.S. marry young girls off as young as 13 to older men (VIDEO)

There are an estimated 10,000 people in the united states who identify themselves with the community of irish tr....

There are an estimated 10,000 people in the United States who identify themselves with the community of Irish Travellers , descended from a group of families that crossed the Atlantic as early as the 1830s. Although the community has always been an insular and secretive one, US Travellers have recently allowed outsiders a peek inside their world through documentaries and reality television shows like 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding ,' reports TheJournal.ie. Paul Connolly, a filmmaker whose documentary “Travellers in America: A Secret Society" will air on TV3 in September, has revealed some of the customs of the secretive group.

A clip of the TV3 show has a woman from the community explaining their traditions regarding marriage saying that it's fine for a 13-year-old girl to have sex with her "husband" as long as "she's started her cycles." Said Connolly: “We’d heard a lot about this but one of the biggest things was trying to cut through the line of fact and fiction.” "What we discovered is that the girls are matched with older men at the age of six or seven – but there’s nothing untoward here at this stage. It’s all to do with legacy – if you marry into another rich family then pride of place in the town will stay with you for years to come. "So at six or seven, families just say ‘they might make a good pair’. Then, at the ages of thirteen or fourteen they will have a marriage ceremony, but they won’t in fact be married. "The controversial aspect though is that these thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girls will be in a mock marriage with 22- or 23-year-old men."

Ireland's most unique raffle, WIN a new McHale Fusion 4 Plus Baler or €75,000 cash

WATCH: Dublin's St. Patrick's Day parade the biggest ever!

Belfast to host presitgious Oireachtas na Samhna festival in 2025

GIVEAWAY: Win VIP trip to the largest Celtic festival in the world, Milwaukee Irish Fest!

New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen's Irish roots

On This Day: Daniel O'Connell, "The Liberator," died, in Genoa, in 1847

What's your Irish County? County Kildare

Faces of the Titanic: John Horgan, lost at sea, remains a mystery man

The top 5 places to visit in County Kildare

Kevin Costner's Irish roots in County Kilkenny

Kilkenny, the Marble City, one of Ireland's most beautiful destinations

Rory McIlroy files for divorce from wife of seven years

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The big fat truth about Gypsy life

M y Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, the television series that ended last week and attracted nine million viewers, was designed to "throw an overdue light on a secretive, marginalised and little-understood segment of our society", according to the blurb from Channel 4. But the show largely avoided the myriad of problems, such as discrimination, poor health and poverty faced by Travellers, except for what felt like a tokenistic final episode, and instead focused on over-the-top wedding dresses and other excesses.

MBFGW was about Gypsies and Travellers, but there was criticism from both communities that C4 failed to properly distinguish between the two. There are around 300,000 Gypsy Roma and Irish Travellers in the UK – Roma Gypsies are originally from northern India, whereas Travellers are of Irish origin – and both groups are nomadic. Since 2002, Travellers have been recognised as an ethnic group and are protected under the Race Relations Act. Last week C4 was accused by the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain of fuelling "hatred and suspicion" of their way of life and have demanded a right of reply. 

Kathleen, who lives with her six children in a three-bedroom trailer, is fairly typical of an Irish Traveller woman, except that she is separated from her husband. Along with many other Gypsy and Traveller women in the UK, Kathleen was a victim of domestic violence. Although there is no conclusive evidence about the prevalence of this abuse, a study in Wrexham, cited in a paper by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2007, found that 61% of married English Gypsy women and 81% of Irish Travellers had experienced domestic abuse. And a significant number of those women who had reported the abuse appeared to have suffered more severe and sustained violence than those within mainstream communities.

"I left him and went back to my mammy but he kept finding me, taking me home and getting me pregnant," Kathleen says. She now feels safe because she has male family members living on the same site. "With my brother close by, he wouldn't dare come here."

It is rare for women to call the police for help. "You would be seen as a grass and disowned by the whole community," says Bernie O'Roarke, outreach and resettlement worker for domestic violence charity Solas Anois (Gaelic for Comfort Now), which is based in London. The situation probably isn't helped by the fact that there is only one, 10-room refuge dedicated to Traveller women in the UK, also in London. But domestic violence is just one of the issues tackled by O'Roarke during her visits. The welfare needs, particularly those of the women and girls, of this community are vast. The women are three times more likely to miscarry or have a still-born child compared to the rest of the population, mainly, it is thought, as a result of reluctance to undergo routine gynaecological care, and infections linked to poor sanitation and lack of clean water. The rate of suicides among Traveller women is significantly higher than in the general population, and life expectancy is low for women and men, with one third of Travellers dying before the age of 59. And as many Traveller girls are taken out of education prior to secondary school to prevent them mixing with boys from other cultures, illiteracy rates are high.

O'Roarke is a familiar face on the sites around London, offering women and their children help with health care, education and finance. The men leave the women alone to deal with these issues, so if the women do want to talk about violence and abuse, they can do so without fear of the men overhearing.

I visit some trailers with O'Roarke at a site in London and am struck by how the women seem to manage, usually with large families, to keep everything so clean and tidy. There are colourful displays of Royal Crown Derby crockery, handed down from mother to daughter on her wedding day. There is certainly no sign of wealth or excessive spending. Many tell me they struggle to feed their children, and have no savings or bank account.

Things seem set to get worse for Traveller women. Only 19 days after the general election last year, £50m that had been allocated to building new sites across London was scrapped from the budget. O'Roarke is expecting to be the only Traveller liaison worker in the capital before long – her funding comes from the Irish government.

"Most of the women can't read or write. Who is supposed to help them if they get rid of the bit of support they have now?" asks O'Roarke. "We will be seeing Traveller women and their children on the streets because of these cuts. If they get a letter saying they are in danger of eviction but they can't read it, what are they supposed to do?"

Conditions on the site are as grim as the homes are spotless. The trailers are not connected to water pipes, and the toilets, bathrooms and cooking facilities are in a small, unheated shed across the yard. "In the snow and rain, the little ones are always getting colds," says Brigid, who lives in the next trailer to Kathleen. "And there are so many pot holes that the council haven't filled, you can go flying in the dark."

But living on a site is about being part of the community. When Traveller girls are growing up, they are only allowed to go out with other family members, and once married, her husband rules the roost. "The men would never allow a woman out with her friends," says Kathleen. "That's why we want to live on a site, for company." Kathleen, after spending time in a refuge after finally managing to escape her husband, was initially allocated a house, as opposed to a plot on a site. Almost immediately her children became depressed. "It's like putting a horse in a box. He would buck to get out," says Kathleen. "We can't live in houses; we need freedom and fresh air. I was on anti-depressives. The children couldn't go out because the neighbours would complain about the noise."  

Since moving to their site two years ago, Kathleen and her children have been far happier. Until MBFGW was screened, that is. "Now every week I go to the school and the parents are talking about that programme. They won't let our kids mix with theirs because they say we stink and don't talk properly. Settled kids won't even play sports with ours in case they touch them."

Mary, Kathleen's 15-year-old daughter, is upset by the series too, and says that she has faced further prejudice since it hit the screens. "That programme didn't show the real way we go on. All my friends are asking if it's true what they show on telly, and I think they've gone different [towards me] since it was shown."

In one episode the viewer was informed that young Traveller men at weddings and other social occasions use something known as "grabbing" to force a reluctant girl to kiss them. One newspaper report called it a "secret courting ritual".

"Grabbing has never happened to me or any of my friends and the first time I ever saw it was on the telly," says Mary. "I wouldn't put up with it, and I don't know why they made out we all do it. It's just one nasty boy they showed."

Brigid adds: "Grabbing has never happened to my kids. I have honestly never heard of it. It's all make-believe."

Helen, a Traveller in her 20s on the same site, is also furious about the portrayal of women in MBFGW. "The way us women come across in the programme is a disgrace," she said. "It shows us as nothing but slaves to the men, only good for cooking and cleaning, and always being available to open our legs to them. We don't want that for our daughters."

Helen is also worried that Traveller women are being portrayed as rich and spoilt when, in fact, life is a struggle for the majority. "I don't know anyone so rich that they can afford to splash out on wedding dresses like that. Mine was secondhand. They'll now be saying we are all criminals, or sponging off the state." I ask a number of Traveller women how representative of the Traveller and Gypsy communities those featured in MBFGW are, and they all come back with a similar answer: the programme focused on a small number of individuals from five sites (out of an estimated 300-plus across the UK), and in any community, there are a minority who have access to large amounts of cash.

I ask O'Roarke what she thinks the future holds for Travellers. She is worried. "That TV programme has put our work back 100 years. And if these women lose the little support they have, they literally will be left to rot."

She is concerned that problems affecting Traveller women and girls, such as lack of education, forced and early marriage, and abuse within the home, are not being taken seriously.

"These issues do not just affect certain Asian communities," says O'Roarke. "We have had Traveller women in the refuge who have been forced to marry someone who they have never met, and marrying cousins is not uncommon."

But some say that things are slowly improving. "I think it's changing an awful lot for the young ones," says Kathleen. "We don't want them to have no education and get married at 16, and have loads of kids and the same life as we did."

Would Kathleen ever marry again? It is out of the question, she tells me. These things are just not done. "You marry for life," she says. "If I was to have another man, my daughters would never be married because I would have brought shame on them."

O'Roarke would like to see changes that include: "Better support for the women to keep their daughters in education, and a serious commitment from the government to challenge the prejudice thrown at these people."

While people are being entertained by watching Katie Price-replica weddings on TV, and girls dressed in Beyoncé-style outfits dirty dancing, women such as Kathleen, Brigid and Helen are living in substandard conditions and facing daily prejudice while trying to give their children the best start in life. The reality is a far cry from the C4 depiction and is rarely aired. O'Roarke tells me that Traveller women are usually reluctant to allow outsiders into their homes, despite the impression given by MBFGW. "But we just want our side of the story put across," says Brigid, "so settled people know we are not like that."

• Roma, Gypsies and Travellers
• Television (Television & radio)
• Documentary
• The news on TV
• Television (Technology)

Most viewed

• PHOTOGRAPHY

Life With the Irish Travellers Reveals a Bygone World

One photographer spent four years gaining unprecedented access to this close-knit community.

When Birte Kaufmann first encountered Irish Travellers, she was on a trip with friends in the Irish countryside and saw a girl and her little brother running toward a roadside camp. The caravans and horses reminded Kaufmannn, who is German, of the Romany camps she had seen elsewhere in Europe, but the people looked intriguingly different.

Who were they, she wondered, and how could she delve deeper into their culture?

"People said, You'll never get an insight into that community—forget about it," Kaufmann recalls of sharing with Irish friends her burgeoning plans to photograph the close-knit Travellers.

An ethnic minority in Ireland , the Travellers have lived on the margins of mainstream Irish society for centuries. Efforts have been made to incorporate the nomadic group into mainstream culture by settling them into government housing and enforcing school attendance. But even living among "settled people," they face ongoing discrimination.

Kaufmann describes theirs as a parallel world, where deeply-rooted gender roles and an itinerant lifestyle have kept them apart from the broader Irish community even as their freedom to roam has become increasingly curtailed.

To gain access to the community, Kaufmann first attempted to engage through human rights groups that work with them—to no avail. So she decided to do it "the hard way," she says. She had heard about a “halting site”—walled areas on the outskirts of large towns that contain houses as well as spaces for caravan parking—and on her next trip to Ireland, she simply showed up.

She was met by barking dogs, one of which bit her. A young woman approached, speaking English with an accent so thick that Kaufmann had trouble comprehending. Undeterred, she decided to lay her cards on the table. "I was really honest. I told [her] I was coming from Germany , where we don't have our own traveling community, [that] I knew who they were and was interested in how [they live]," Kaufmann recalls.

The young woman "was totally surprised, but finally they invited me for a cup of tea. I was sitting in a caravan with her grandfather. I asked them if I could come back and stay with them." Kaufmann says they chortled, as if to say, Yeah, right.

When she next returned from Germany, it was with a camper van of her own, so that she could stay alongside the extended family clan that would become the focus of her project. "I knew it was a high risk," she says, “but I gave them some pictures I had taken in the caravan of the grandfather. And they said, 'Ok. Now you're here. We have the images. One cup of tea. Now go. We are busy.'"

You May Also Like

Barbie’s signature pink may be Earth’s oldest color. Here’s how it took over the world.

Meet the 5 iconic women being honored on new quarters in 2024

Does this ‘secret room’ contain Michelangelo’s lost artwork? See for yourself.

As a photographer, and especially as a woman, Kaufmann was something of a novelty given the strictly defined gender roles of the Traveller community—men tend to the horses and livestock, women to home and family. Girls marry young and only with the blessing of their parents. Men don’t typically speak to women in public.

She slowly gained their trust to the point that one of the family members—a young mother who took a particular shine to her and was perhaps even amused at her struggle to understand what they were saying—began teaching her Gammon, their unwritten language.

"She tried to teach me words to say if the guys are being rude," she says. "And then the father started telling me what I should say. [They] tried to make me feel more comfortable." Her knowledge of words selectively and seldom shared with outsiders demonstrated to other Travellers that one of their own had trusted her enough to share.

And in turn, understanding how they communicate with each other helped her get past the sense of feeling unwelcome and deepened her appreciation of their differences. "At first [the talk] sounds really rough," she says. "Then there was this point at which I realized it was their language. They don't really call anyone by name. It's 'the woman over there,' 'the man over there,' 'the child,'" she explains. "It's not personal, [but] at first it sounds very rude.”

Kaufmann made multiple visits to the family over the course of four years, eventually living with them. The men gradually accepted her and allowed her to photograph them hunting and trading horses at a fair. She was able to blend into the background and photograph them as an unobtrusive observer of their everyday lives—lives, she says, that are filled with a lot of idle time. As Ireland becomes less agrarian, the Travellers’ traditional work as horse traders, farm laborers, tinsmiths, and entertainers has become more scarce.

"The older generations can't read or write," Kaufmann says, "but they have their own intelligence. On the one hand life was so sad and boring because everything their lives were stemming from wasn't there anymore. On the other hand there was this freedom—they live their lives in their own way."

And then, she says, she found herself taking no photographs at all. "One of the boys who really didn't like to be photographed said, 'Do you know what's really strange with Birte now? She's here and she's not really photographing anymore.'"

And that's when she knew her project was done.

Birte Kaufmann's project on the Travellers is now available as a book . You may also see more of Birte Kaufmann's photographs on her website .

Related Topics

• PEOPLE AND CULTURE
• FAMILY LIFE
• PHOTOGRAPHERS

Just one pregnancy can add months to your biological age

Dementia has no cure. But there’s hope for better care.

IVF revolutionized fertility. Will these new methods do the same?

These Black transgender activists are fighting to ‘simply be’

What’s it like to be an immigrant in America? Here’s one family’s story.

• Environment
• Perpetual Planet

History & Culture

• History & Culture
• History Magazine
• Mind, Body, Wonder
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

• Countries and Their Cultures
• Irish Travellers

Irish Travellers - Kinship, Marriage, and Family

Kin Groups and Descent. The basic structural unit as well as the primary unit of production and consumption is the nuclear family. Descent is bilateral with individuals having equal rights and obligations toward both their maternal and paternal kin. The importance of cognatic kinship is reflected in the use of Eskimo kinship terminology; in flexibility and choice in residence patterns, with households alternately affiliating with either the husband's or the wife's kin (although a preference for husband's kin is evident), or with nonkin, or else living on their own; and the absence of corporate kin groups.

Marriage. Travellers marry at an earlier age than the general Irish population. In the past, most marriages were "matches" or arranged marriages negotiated by the couple's parents, typically between families who traveled in the same counties. Today, in urban areas, individual choice is much more common. But initially with the move to the city, the number of arranged marriages between close kin—first and second cousins—actually increased, as parents responded to the new experience of living in close proximity to Travellers from other parts of the country whom they barely knew.

Domestic Unit. Traveller families range in size from 1 to 19 persons. The median family size is 6, but 36 percent of Travellers live in families of 10 or more persons.

User Contributions:

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.

Nomadism and Equality: The Irish Traveller and Gypsy Women

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 01 September 2020
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Madalina Armie 7 &
• Verónica Membrive 7  

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

38 Accesses

Itinerants ; Knackers ; Tinkers ; Pikeys

Definitions

When writing the story of the Irish Traveller and Gypsy women is important to specify that in the Irish Republic, the Irish Travellers, New Age Travellers, Irish Romani Gypsies, and Roma from Central and Eastern Europe minorities present broad internal subdivisions. Each of these groups attain different cultural traits and behavioral patterns, although it is true that they have more things in common – and this is one of the reasons why they are frequently and erroneously confused – rather than characteristics which distinguish them. The overlapping of experiences of Roma and Traveller minorities, then, would make impossible at times to treat them as separate cases of study. The Travellers are Ireland’s native ethnic minority. The New Age Travellers, on the other hand, do not form a distinct ethnic group according to the Irish law, and the creation of this nomadic group has as a backdrop the free festivals, therefore their...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Armie M (2019) The Irish contemporary short story at the turn of the 21st century: tradition, society and modernity. Dissertation, University of Almería

Google Scholar  

Bohn Gmelch S, Gmelch G (2014) Irish Travellers: the unsettled life. Indiana University Press, Indiana

Book   Google Scholar  

Borrow G (2019) Romano Lavo-Lil: word book of the Romany; or, English gypsy language. Good Press, Glasgow

Braidotti R (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. Columbia University Press, New York

Central Statistics Office (2007) Census 2006 reports. https://www.cso.ie/en/census/census2006reports/ . Accessed 1 June 2020

Central Statistics Office (2012) Census 2011 Reports. https://www.cso.ie/en/census/census2011reports/ . Accessed 1 June 2020

Central Statistics Office (2014) Population and Migration Estimates. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2013/ . Accessed 1 June 2020

Central Statistics Office (2017) Census 2016 reports. https://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/presspages/2017/census2016summaryresults-part1/ . Accessed 1 June 2020

Crawford MH et al (2000) The origins of the Irish Travellers and the genetic structure of Ireland. Dig Annal Hum Biol 27(5):453–465. https://doi.org/10.1080/030144600419297

Article   Google Scholar  

de Beauvoir S (2011) The second sex (trans: Borde C and Malovany-Chevallier S). Vintage Books, London

Egan C (2020) “Who Are the Irish Travellers in the US?” In: IrishCentral.com. www.irishcentral.com/culture/who-are-irish-travellers-us . Accessed 11 Jul 2020

Equality and Human Rights Commission (2009) Inequality Experienced by Gypsy and Traveller Communities. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/research-report-12-inequalities-experienced-gypsy-and-traveller-communities . Accessed 10 May 2020

European Commission (2010) Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions The social and economic integration of the Roma in Europe /* COM/2010/0133 final */ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0133:FIN:EN:HTML . Accessed 30 May 2020

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2016) Second European Union minorities and discrimination Survey-Roma https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2016/second-european-union-minorities-and-discrimination-survey-roma-selected-findings . Accessed 15 May 2020

Griffin C (2008) Nomads under the Westway: Irish Travellers, gypsies and other traders in West London. University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield

Hayes M (2006) Indigenous otherness: some aspects of Irish Traveller social history. Éire-Ireland 41(3):133–161

Helleiner J (1997) Women of the itinerant class: gender and anti-Traveller racism in Ireland. Women’s Stud Int Forum 20(2):275–278

Helleiner J (2000) Irish Travellers: racism and the politics of culture. University of Toronto Press, Toronto

Hetherington K (2000) New age Travellers: vanloads of uproarious humanity. Cassell, London/New York

Holst Petersen K, Rutherford A (1986) A double colonization: colonial and post-colonial women’s writing. Dangaroo Press, Oxford

Irish Department of Justice and Equality (2017) National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021. http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/National%20Traveller%20and%20Roma%20Inclusion%20Strategy,%202017-2021.pdf/Files/National%20Traveller%20and%20Roma%20Inclusion%20Strategy,%202017-2021.pdf . Accessed 20 May 2020

Irish Statute Book (2000) Equal Status Act 2000. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/8/enacted/en/html . Accessed 3 June 2020

Irwin A (2006) Stall Anoishe! Minceris Whiden, Stop Here! Travellers Talinking: Analysing the reality for Travellers in Galway city. http://gtmtrav.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Stall-Anoishe-Analysing-the-reality-for-Travellers-in-Galway-City.pdf

Kendall S (1999) Sites of resistance: places on the margin – the traveller homeplace. In: Acton AA (ed) Gypsy politics and Traveller identity: a companion volume to Romani culture and gypsy identity. University of Hertfordshire Press, Hertfordshire, pp 70–90

Lentin R (1998) ‘Irishness’, the 1937 constitution, and citizenship: a gender and ethnicity view. Ir J Sociol 8:5–24

Mac Gréil M (2011) Pluralism and diversity in Ireland: prejudice and related issues in early 21st century Ireland. The Columba Press, Dublin

Marcus G (2019) Gypsy and Traveller girls: silence, agency and power. Palgrave Macmillan, Glasgow

Mayall D (1988) Gypsy-Travellers in nineteenth-century society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

McDonagh M (2000) Nomadism. In: Sheehan E (ed) Travellers: citizens of Ireland. The Parish of the Travelling People, Dublin, pp 33–46

Mckinley R (2011) Gypsy Girl: a life on the road. A journey to freedom. Hodder & Stoughton, London

Moane G (2002) Colonialism and the Celtic Tiger: legacies of history and the quest for vision. In: Kirby P et al (eds) Reinventing Ireland: culture, society, and the global economy. Pluto Press, London, pp 109–123

Murray C (2014) A minority within a minority? Social justice for Traveller and Roma children in ECEC. Dig ITB J 15(1):89–102. https://doi.org/10.21427/D75X6B

National Traveller Women’s Forum (2020) History. https://www.ntwf.net/about/history/ . Accessed 1 June 2020

Okley J (1983) The Traveller-gypsies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Richardson J, Ryder A (eds) (2012) Gypsies and Travellers: empowerment and inclusion in British society. The Policy Press, Bristol

Rieder M (2018) Irish Traveller language: an ethnographic and folk-linguistic exploration. Palgrave Macmillan, Limerick

Tovey H, Share P (2003) A sociology of Ireland. Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, Ireland

United Kingdom Legislation (2010) Equality act 2010. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents . Accessed 4 June 2020

Van Hout M, Staniewicz T (2012) Roma and Irish Traveller housing and health: a public health concern. J Crit Public Health 22(2):193–207

Watson D, Kenny O, McGinnity F (2017) A social portrait of Travellers in Ireland. The Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Modern Languages, University of Almería, Almería, Spain

Madalina Armie & Verónica Membrive

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Madalina Armie .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

European School of Sustainability, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Walter Leal Filho

Center for Neuroscience & Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Anabela Marisa Azul

Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo, Brazil

Luciana Brandli

HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Amanda Lange Salvia

International Centre for Thriving, University of Chester, Chester, UK

Section Editor information

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - Natural Resources and Environment, Johannesburg, South Africa

Julia Mambo

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Armie, M., Membrive, V. (2020). Nomadism and Equality: The Irish Traveller and Gypsy Women. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Lange Salvia, A., Wall, T. (eds) Gender Equality. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_131-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_131-1

Received : 04 June 2020

Accepted : 26 June 2020

Published : 01 September 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-70060-1

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-70060-1

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Earth and Environm. Science Reference Module Physical and Materials Science Reference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Statistical Spotlight: Young Travellers in Ireland

On 15 April, the Department of Children & Youth Affairs (DCYA) released a report on children and young persons who are members of the Traveller community in Ireland. The report is the fourth in the series of Statistical Spotlights, drawing together data from a variety of sources, including the Census, the Department of Education and Skills, the All Ireland Traveller Health Survey, Pobal, the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children Survey, and the OECD PISA survey. The study covers a wide range of topics, including health, housing, education and economic status.

The analysis provides an important demographic mapping. Traveller children aged 0-4 represented about 1.31% of all children in Ireland in that age cohort in 2016. Galway County, followed by South Dublin, were the areas with the highest number of young travellers – in reference to individuals aged up to 24.

The study also improves our understanding of the issues facing traveller children and their families, so that policy and practice can be improved. The results show that young traveller mothers give birth to nearly twice as many children as all white Irish mothers, on average. Although progress has been made, infant mortality rates in travelling communities are still notably higher in comparison to the rest of the population. Striking discrepancies are also registered in regard to the educational level of mothers. 48.2% of traveller mothers whose youngest child is between 0-5 have no formal or primary education, which increases to 71% for mothers whose youngest child is between 18-24. Young marriage is also common, as almost 23% of Travellers aged 15-24 are married, compared to just 1.2% in the rest of the population. Lastly, traveller families are dis-proportionally affected by homelessness, as 11% of all families with dependent children accessing emergency accommodation were from the community – unsurprisingly, most of them were in Dublin.

On the other hand, Pobal data suggests that Traveller children have been availing of early years care and education. In 2017/2018, they made up 1.3% of all children attending ECEC services, which is in line with their share of the population. The total number of providers catering to these children has increased from 611 to 642 between 2016/2017 and 2017/2018, representing 16% of all services in both years. It is important to highlight this expansion, as an established body of evidence shows that disadvantaged children are likely to benefit significantly from good quality pre-school experiences.

Early Childhood Ireland’s work is underpinned by the Children’s Rights Approach, which believes that every child is born with fundamental human rights, which include the right to healthcare and education and the right to be treated equally. To enable members to include children from minority backgrounds, making sure that their culture and views are incorporated in the daily lives of settings, is integral to this, so as to make sure that traveller and other children are not left behind.

Share this post

More to explore.

‘New era for children’ – Childminding regulations essential step on path to fit-for-purpose Early Years and School Age Care system, Early Childhood Ireland

Consultation on the draft Childminding Regulations submission

Policy in Action 14 May 2024

Early Childhood Ireland

Funded by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan, 2018-2027 Company Registration No: 506235 Charity No CHY: 19987 Registered Charity No: 20078904

Quick Links

• Download Library
• Hainault House, Belgard Square South, Tallaght D24 RFV0
• [email protected]
• Advertise With Us
• Ezine Subscribe
• Terms And Conditions
• Hainault House, Belgard Square, South Tallaght D24 RFV0

New Digital Magazine now available

Privacy Overview

• Travel Updates
• Travel Stories

Irish traveller’s behind-the-scenes glimpse of life before marriage: TikTok

A member of the traveller community has given people an insight into her life, as she revealed what she can and cannot do before marriage.

Big sign you’re a tourist in this country

‘Eerie’ reality inside Chinese-made ghost city

‘Greece look-a-like’ beach in Aus goes viral

An Irish traveller has given people an insight into life in her community and life before marriage.

Caitlin, 18, is part of the UK-Irish traveller community, which traditionally has an itinerant way of life, frequently moving from town to town.

She lives in a caravan near Hertfordshire, regularly sharing her lifestyle on TikTok, showing her fashion, day-to-day life and home, The Sun reports.

Caitlin, who often shares clips with her sister, Lizzy, 20, said: “We never realised how interested non-travellers are in the travelling community.

“If you have any questions about us travellers, we’ll give you as much detail as we can.”

Lizzy said: “We’ll do it from our experience and what we know, because everyone’s different and how they grew up, how they were raised.”

She revealed that most women in her community don’t work or travel while unmarried and it’s down to the men to be breadwinners for the family.

“I feel like one out of 100 traveller women actually have a job and go to work, because they mostly leave it down to the husbands,” Caitlin said.

“We don’t really go to work. I know people that have been to work.”

But she confirmed she is studying, and is currently in college, although she acknowledged that’s often not the case in her community.

Caitlin, who confirmed both she and her sister have part-time jobs, said: “I finished primary school, secondary school, I’m in college right now, I completed all my GCSEs.

“Some will go to school, some won’t, but it’s more common for them to not go to school.

“I think it just depends on the family whether they want to send them to school. Most likely no because that’s not the line of work that traveller boys or girls go down.”

As she shared her life with her fans, she gave a tour of her caravan, showing off her closet stuffed with clothes, her sleeping area, sofas and TV.

Caitlin lives there with her family, as she’s not yet married.

She explained while most people do get married young, it’s not always the case.

She said: “Everyone assumes all travellers get married at 14 or 15. Some do get married at 14 or 15, maybe not 14, maybe 15. Some get married 18, 19, 20, you can get married at 25.

“But it’s more common to get married in your teenage years. And it all depends on when you meet them.

“Some get married two months after they know them, or five years after they know them. You can’t put a time to a person.”

When she finally does get married, Caitlin will be allowed to go on holiday, as she’s not allowed to currently – unless it’s with her family.

She said: “As Irish girls we’re not allowed to go on holiday until we’re married, or with our family. Obviously there’s different circumstances.

“If we were allowed, I’d be gone every year. You’re not allowed that until you’re married, or with your family. It’s a big no.”

Caitlin’s videos have racked up thousands of likes and comments, as people praised her home and her fashion.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission

An expat has revealed the four “obvious signs” that give away an American tourist in this country with one including how they walk.

It was dubbed as the “dream paradise for all mankind”, but instead — this mammoth resort-like billion-dollar city is a ghost town.

Tourists have discovered a beach Down Under that they have described as being a Greek islands “look-a-like”.

• Book Reviews
• Video Interviews
• LensCulture Discoveries
• Winners Galleries
• Festival Videos
• Free Guides
• Project Reviews
• Jury Members
• Exhibitions
• Stay Updated

Jamie Johnson

Irish travellers girl culture.

Education Being on the road means traveller children often grow up outside of educational systems. Which means they suffer educational and social exclusion if they do attend school. Many children never attend school, while others are illiterate because formal education is not a priority in the gypsy culture. Traveller girls are often taken out of education prior to secondary school to prevent them mixing with boys from other cultures.

Dating etiquette Although gypsy girls wear very promiscuous clothes at parties, communions, proms and weddings, their morals do not reflect this. Travelling communities believe in the principle of no sex before marriage and girls who break this code are considered dirty and risk being left on the shelf. Unmarried young men and women are not allowed to socialize alone together because of the emphasis on female chastity. 

Grabbing Until they are engaged, some teenage traveller girls are subjected to the 'grabbing' courtship ritual, where a boy grabs a girl they want to kiss. Strict rules stipulate girls aren't allowed to approach boys, so it's up to the males to tempt the girl away from her friends. Grabbing can look violent and it seems the girls simply accept it as something that is part of their culture.

Marriage and Weddings Couples marry young - girls at around 16 or 17, and boys between 18 and 19. They're not supposed to marry non-travellers but marriage to second cousins in families is common. Once married, the man rules the roost. As seen on Channel 4's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, weddings can be over the top and extravagant. The girls have large princess-style dresses, tiaras and extravagant wedding cakes. Weddings are seen as huge social events where travellers can get together. They're also perfect places for men to look for dates.

Search By Category

Unusual Wedding Customs: Irish Traveler Weddings

Wedding Dresses , Traditions , Wedding Customs , Wedding Photography , Savvy Scoop

See Previous and Next Wedding Articles

 Dresses   Jewelry   Photography   Real Weddings   Romantic   Food   DIY   Rings   Stationery   Make-up   Lingerie   Design 

Things To Start Doing Months Before Your Big Day

15 Ways to Spend Less on Your Wedding

Tips on How to Create the Perfect Custom Engagement Ring

Planning your wedding soon?

Stick with us and you'll stay on the right path. Head to our homepage if you're ever stuck and in need of some seriously beautiful inspo.

Copyright © 2001-2024 OneWed Inc. All Rights Reserved.

You can find plenty of inspiration online, but how do you get your hands on it? OneWed is changing the way you plan.

Browse Thousands Of Photos

Gorgeous inspiration for every aspect of your wedding

Find & Book Local Vendors

See the venues, photographers, florists and more, near you

Save & Share What You Love

Browse thousands of photos and track with Ideabooks

Please log in or sign up to take this action.

The long road towards acceptance for Irish Travellers

The Irish Traveller community is fighting for official recognition of its ethnic identity and for a way of life.

Avila Park, Dublin, Ireland –   In a wooden shed in his back garden, James Collins sits on a low stool hammering out the final touches on a billy can. At 68, he is one of only two remaining traveller tinsmiths in Ireland.

Above the clutter of well-worn tools and scrap sheet metal hang a dozen or so other cans. Nowadays, he says, there’s precious little demand for his trade, and he largely continues it as a hobby, occasionally selling some of his work at vintage craft fairs.

Since the introduction of plastic homeware in the 1960s and 1970s, tinsmithing – traditionally dominated by the historically nomadic community known as Travellers – has effectively died out. Even the block tin, James originally used, is no longer available.

“It’s more difficult to work with,” he says, holding up a gleaming aluminium can. “You can’t make what you want to make out of it because you have to use solder and that won’t take solder.”

READ MORE: Ballinasloe Horse Fair – An ancient Irish tradition

James was raised on the road in the Irish midlands, a traditional upbringing unknown to most Travellers today. “I was bred, born and reared on the road,” he says, “but the young lads today wasn’t. They all grew up in houses and went to school and all this craic. I never got any education, never went to school in my life.”

Until his late 20s, when he settled in Avila Park, a housing estate for Travellers on the outskirts of Dublin, the Irish capital, James plied his trade for farmers, smithing and repairing buckets. “It never goes out of your mind; you’re always thinking, thinking the whole time about the road,” he says.

In comparison, younger generations have little interest in traditional crafts or the travelling lifestyle – James’ children and grandchildren don’t know how to harness a horse, for example. And anti-trespass legislation introduced in the early 2000s, which was used to disperse encampments by the side of roads or on council-owned land, made a nomadic existence increasingly difficult.

Yet, even as the distinct traditions of Irish Travellers seem to fade into the past, the battle for official recognition of their identity continues.

The search for recognition

Unlike the United Nations and the United Kingdom, Ireland does not recognise Travellers as a separate ethnicity from the non-Traveller community. For decades, human rights organisations and Traveller advocacy groups have been seeking this recognition, but to little avail.

However, on January 26, a parliamentary committee established to investigate the issue stated unequivocally that “Travellers are, de facto, a separate ethnic group”.

“This is not a gift to be bestowed upon them, but a fact the state ought to formally acknowledge,” it further said.

The committee report urged the Taoiseach, Ireland’s prime minister, or the minister for justice to give a statement to the Dail, the Irish parliament, acknowledging this at the earliest opportunity.

This development was welcomed by members of the Travelling community, although some remain cautious in their optimism. It would not be the first time an Irish government has reneged on such commitments – a 2014 parliamentary report made the same recommendation, which was never acted upon.

A history of deprivation and discrimination

An examination of the almost 30,000 Travellers in the Republic of Ireland shows a staggering level of deprivation completely at odds with the non-Traveller community. Another 4,000 to 5,000 Travellers live in Northern Ireland, in a similar situation.

Around half of Travellers have no secondary education and only 1 percent have attended university, according to Pavee Point, a group fighting for the rights of Travellers.

WATCH: Irish travellers facing discrimination

Some 84 percent of Travellers are unemployed, while suicide rates are almost seven times higher than among settled people. A 2010 study found that life expectancy was 15 years lower among men and 11 years lower among women when compared with their settled counterparts.

Discrimination against Travellers remains endemic at social and institutional levels. Being denied entry to businesses is a common occurrence and many try to hide their background when applying for jobs, fearing that potential employers will not hire them.

“Symbolically it would have a profound impact on our collective sense of identity, self-esteem and confidence as a people,” says Martin Collins, the co-director of Pavee Point, on the recognition of Traveller ethnicity.

“Some travellers have internalised [racism] and end up believing that they are of no value, they are of no worth … So that’s the impact. That’s the outcome of both racism and your identity being denied.”

A culture denied

It was a 1963 government report, the Commission on Itinerancy, that has set the tone for the state’s attitude towards Travellers ever since, says Sinn Fein Senator Padraig MacLochlainn, the first person from a Traveller background to be elected to the Irish parliament.

The Committee on Itinerancy ‘s terms of reference defined Travellers as a “problem”, whose social ills were “inherent in their way of life,” and outlined the goal of “promot[ing] their absorption into the general community”.

No Travellers were on the committee, nor were they consulted for its report.

“Our people and our state denied their history and decided that they were criminals and they needed to be immersed in with the rest of us,” says MacLochlainn.

This refusal to acknowledge the community’s rich cultural history – notably their own language, Cant, and significant contributions to Irish traditional music – persists today.

Traveller culture is frequently portrayed in the media as separate and distinct, MacLochlainn says, but almost always in negative terms, in exploitation TV shows   such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and exposes on Traveller criminality.

“You clearly accept them as a distinct group – why are you making these programmes if you don’t? If they’re a distinct group, could you do it now in positive terms?

“When it comes to negative characterisations, the media, the establishment … in Ireland are more than happy for them to be characterised in negative terms,” the senator says.

Behind James’ shed in Avila Park, traditional and modern Traveller accommodation sit side by side. A wooden barreltop caravan, washed green with blue and red embellishments, sits between two mobile home units, where his younger relatives stay.

Only one has both electricity and running water, which were installed by the family. Power is provided from the house by a yellow cable, wound loosely around plastic drainpipes and holes in its pebbledash exterior.

An early morning fire in a nearby prefabricated unit just a few weeks before offered a bleak reminder of the danger these makeshift electrical fixtures pose. A neighbour raised the alarm and the young couple inside escaped before their home was reduced to a charred husk.

Children burned to death

This near disaster has reminded some people of a fire in the south Dublin suburb of Carrickmines more than a year ago, which continues to cast a shadow over relations between the Traveller and the settled communities.

In the early hours of October 10, 2015, a fire ripped through a halting site killing 10 people, including five children, from two families – the Lynch and Gilbert family and the Connors. The youngest victim was five months old. It was one of the deadliest fires in the history of the Republic of Ireland.

Social workers had raised concerns about the site’s substandard prefabricated units to authorities in the months before the fire, but no action was taken. The blaze and its aftermath would, for many, become an example of the pervasive discrimination Travellers face in Ireland today.

Three days after the fire, some locals blockaded land marked for temporary accommodation for the surviving members of the Connors family, preventing construction vehicles from entering. Though the obstruction was condemned by then Environment Minister Alan Kelly and several Traveller groups, the protesters were successful.

OPINION: Catholic Ireland’s saints and sinners

On October 21, one day before the last victims were buried, the county council announced that the Connors family would instead be resettled on a reclaimed dump on council land in a nearby suburb. At the time of writing, the family remain in that location.

Alongside many expressions of grief on social media after the fire were comments highlighting the discrimination towards travellers in Irish society.

On one popular news site, a comment simply wishing that the victims rest in peace received hundreds of thumbs down votes from other readers. “Hundreds of Irish people gave a thumbs down to an expression of sympathy for children who were burned to death,” says MacLochlainn. “That’s terrifying; that’s absolutely terrifying.”

In response to the tragedy, local authorities across the country conducted fire safety audits at Traveller accommodation sites. “All we got was a few fire alarms, a few fire blankets and some carbon monoxide alarms,” says Collins, of Pavee Point.

“That’s like re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic. That’s totally inadequate. These sites need to be completely redeveloped [and] refurbished, because the sites are just inherently dangerous. Getting a few fire alarms and a few hoses will not rectify the situation.”

For Collins, the long overdue recognition of Traveller ethnicity is an important milestone, but as the Carrickmines example shows, a commitment to materially improving the lives of Travellers is also necessary if they are to be truly equal in their own country.

  Skip navigation

• Births, Deaths & Marriages
• Crime and Justice
• Social Conditions
• Information Society
• Housing and Households
• Labour Market
• Agriculture
• Building and Construction
• Digital Economy
• Enterprise Statistics
• International Enterprises
• People in Business
• Retail and Services
• Small and Medium Enterprises
• Technology and Innovation
• Tourism and Travel
• International Accounts
• National Accounts
• Government Accounts
• External Trade
• Key Economic Indicators
• IMF Summary Data Page
• Agri-Environment
• Ecosystem Accounts
• Environment Accounts
• Water and Waste Water
• General Statistical Publications A-Z of Releases and Publications
• Show Survey

Census 2022 Profile 5 - Diversity, Migration, Ethnicity, Irish Travellers & Religion

• Irish Travellers

Census 2022 Results

This publication is part of a  series of results  from Census 2022. More thematic publications will be published throughout 2023 as outlined in the Census 2022  Publication Schedule .

The number of Irish Travellers living in the State and counted in Census 2022 was 32,949, an increase of 6% from 30,987 in the 2016 census. Irish Travellers make up less than 1% of the population so, for comparison purposes, it can be helpful to use rates per 1,000 of the population. This shows that in Census 2022, six out of 1,000 people in the State were Irish Travellers. The proportion of Irish Travellers in the population varied from county to county.

In Galway City, 21 out of every 1,000 people were Irish Travellers, in Longford, the rate was 20 per 1,000 of the population and in Offaly, it was 14 per 1,000.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown had the lowest number of Irish Travellers per 1,000 of the population with just under two Irish Travellers for every 1,000 people.

In Kildare and Dublin City, there were just under four Irish Travellers for every 1,000 people.

The Irish Traveller population increased in most counties, the largest rise being recorded in Offaly, up 30% to 1,174.

The Traveller population also increased by more than 200 in Cork (up 11% to 2,376), Fingal (up 17% to 1,545) and Tipperary (up 17% to 1,434).

There were drops in the number of Irish Travellers in some counties; the largest were recorded in Longford (down 13% to 913) and South Dublin (down 12% to 1,943).

Note: The analysis of Irish travellers is based on the usually resident population. The corresponding de facto figures in 2022 and 2016 were 33,033 and 31,075, respectively.

The figure for Irish Travellers has a pyramid shape as opposed to the hourglass shape of the figure for the total population. This reflects higher fertility rates and lower average life expectancy among the Irish Traveller population than in the overall population.

Children under the age of 15 made up 36% of Irish Travellers compared with 20% of the total population. At a national level, 15% of the total population was aged 65 years and over while for Irish Travellers, the equivalent figure was just 5%.

Marital Status of Irish Travellers

Overall, 45% of Irish Travellers aged 15 years and over were single, up from 40% in 2016. The proportion of married Travellers dropped from 49% in 2016 to 44% in 2022.

Irish Traveller men were more likely to be either single (47%) or married (46%) than Irish Traveller women (42% single and 42% married).

Around 10% of Irish Traveller women were separated or divorced compared with 5% of Irish Traveller men.

Irish Traveller women were also more likely to be widowed (5%) than Irish Traveller men (2%).

Over 85% of Irish Travellers aged 15 to 24 years were single while 13% were married.

The proportion that were married increased to 49% for 25 to 34 year olds.

Among Irish Travellers aged 55 to 64 years, 14% were separated or divorced compared with 8% of Travellers aged 65 and over.

Overall, 25% of Irish Travellers aged 65 and over were widowed; the figure for Traveller women aged 65 and over was 35% and 15% for Traveller men.

Long-Lasting Conditions and Difficulties

There were 8,577 Irish Travellers who reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent, accounting for 26% of the Traveller population. In comparison, 22% of the total population living in the State reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent.

Breaking this down further, 15% of Irish Travellers (4,952 people) reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent or a lot compared with 8% of all people living in Ireland.

Another 11% of Irish Travellers (3,625 people) reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to some extent or a little while the comparable figure for the total population was 14%.

The overall proportion of Irish Travellers experiencing a long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent was slightly higher for men (27%) than women (25%). Looking at the total population, women (22%) were more likely to experience a long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent than men (21%).

Of all children under the age of 15 living in the State, 4% reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent compared with 7% of Traveller children.

The proportion of 15 to 29 year old Irish Travellers experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent (13%) was more than twice that of all people in the same age cohort (6%).

Between the ages of 30 and 59, the proportion of the population experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent was over three times higher for Irish Travellers (21%) than the total population (6%).

Among the older age cohorts, the differences were less pronounced, and Irish Travellers over the age of 80 were slightly less likely to experience a long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent than would be expected in the overall population.

General Health

The question on general health shows that 22,050 Irish Travellers reported their general health as being good or very good (67%) while a further 3,899 Irish Travellers reported fair health status (12%).

There were 1,350 Irish Travellers reporting their health as bad or very bad, 4% of the Traveller population. This is twice as high as the proportion of the total population who reported their health as bad or very bad (2%).

The level of non-response in this question was quite high for Irish Travellers, at 17%, compared with 7% for the total population.

In the overall population, the proportion of people with good or very good health decreased slowly with age, up until the age of 70 when the decrease rate started to accelerate.

In the Irish Traveller population, the proportion of people with good or very good health decreased steadily with age up until the age of 70 at which point, the rate of decrease slowed down.

There were 5,427 Irish Travellers who were daily smokers in Census 2022, or 16% of the Traveller population compared with 9% of the total population.

Just under half of Irish Travellers had never smoked compared with 60% of the total population.

Some 9% of Travellers had given up smoking, compared with 19% for the total population.

Looking at smoking by age shows that one in three Irish Travellers between the ages of 25 and 54 were daily smokers.

Irish Traveller Households

There were 29,900 Irish Travellers living in private households in Census 2022. The majority were living in permanent housing, while 2,286 people were living in temporary housing units such as caravans and mobile homes.

The proportion of Irish Travellers living in private households who were living in caravans, mobile homes or other temporary accommodation was 8% in 2022, down from 12% in 2016.

In Fingal, 18% of Travellers were living in temporary accommodation, the highest proportion in the country in Census 2022.

In Dublin City, Kilkenny and Tipperary, 14% of Irish Travellers were living in temporary housing.

Household Size

There were 9,448 private households containing Irish Travellers. These households had an average size of 4 persons per household compared to an average size of 2.7 for the total population.

Irish Traveller households were largest in Leitrim, Roscommon and Kildare with an average size of 4.6 persons, followed by Clare with 4.5 persons per household.

The counties where the average size of Irish Traveller households was smallest were Dublin City with 3.5 persons per household and Louth, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Donegal (all with 3.6 persons per household).

• Infographic
• Key Findings
• Citizenship
• Immigration
• Ethnic Group/Background
• Background Notes
• Contact Details
• Press Statement
• Publication Briefing
• Audio Files
• Census 2022 Profile 5 County Press Statements
• Census of Population 2022

Interactive Visualisation App

Explore census data from county level to neighbourhood (Small Area) level

Central Statistics Office Skehard Road, Cork T12 X00E, Ireland

• © 2023
• Freedom of Information
• Accessibility
• Data Protection & Transparency
• Privacy Statement

You can count on a rewarding career with the CSO.

Learn about our variety of roles and the benefits of working with the CSO.

‘A vast majority of people have no idea who Travellers actually are’

A new initiative aims to preserve and promote the travelling community’s heritage.

At the launch of the Mincéiri Archives at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks, Dublin, were Sebastian Aird, Lily Celic and Danielle Lee (all 12), from Shellybanks Educate Together National School, Sandymount, Dublin. Photograph: Justin Farrelly

A compilation of stories collected from Traveller elders has been published as part of an initiative to preserve and promote the heritage of the Travelling community.

The Mincéirí Archives is an audiovisual project focusing on the lived experiences of the Mincéirí, also known as Irish Travellers, through a compilation of oral histories and narratives.

Because Traveller history is not a compulsory part of the school curriculum in Ireland, the Mincéirí Archives aim to provide an education tool for primary schools, ensuring that future generations of Irish children have opportunity to grow up with a greater understanding and respect for the community.

The project was developed by the National Museum of Ireland in partnership with representatives of Ireland’s Travelling community, a group of historians and advertising agency TBWA Dublin.

Moving back to Ireland would mean working till 10pm, no home of my own and bad coffee

Slovakia’s PM in life-threatening condition after being shot in ‘politically motivated’ assassination attempt

Man whose late wife administered lethal dose of medication to their baby says mental health system is broken

Woman’s 30-year ‘vendetta’ against brother over farm is ‘worst example of weaponisation’ of courts

The collection currently consists of 10 videos, with more planned, to highlight the contributions of the Traveller community to Irish art, music and sport, as well as its language and traditions.

If it’s good enough for our children to learn about the settled way of life, it should be good enough for settled people to learn the Travellers’ way of life —   Chrissie Donoghue Ward, Traveller

Only 10 per cent of the Traveller population is over the age of 65, and according to the last census there were only five over the age of 85, according to Oein DeBhairduin, Traveller cultural collections officer at the National Museum of Ireland and a member of the Traveller community.

“At the moment, there’s no direct initiative to incorporate our history among the history of the island,” he says., “We have a shared history, so if we’re not part of the history that’s being taught, we’re being taught an erroneous thing.

[  Songlines review: Traveller singer Thomas McCarthy explores a painful history through song  ]

“We’re being taught a remodelling of the history ... and a vast majority of people have no idea who Travellers actually are. They know about issues and trauma and isolation, mental health, accommodation – but what do people know about our culture?”

DeBhairduin says extra effort must be made to teach people about Traveller history and culture, and that the Mincéirí Archives will give teachers and parents tools to teach children.

Traveller elder Paddy Quilligan, from Newcastle West, Co Limerick, at the launch of the Mincéiri Archives at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks Dublin. Photograph: Justin Farrelly

Another factor DeBhairduin was conscious of during the process was that when Travellers are looked up online, “you’d probably find all the negativity, you don’t actually see us”.

“When we were looking at the Mincéirí Archive, it’s just a start, and I thought, what a wonderful way to start it, to ensure our elder voices were the first thing that were on it, and I think that’ll really anchor it and give people that exposure, that richness, and also the younger community members [the chance] to reconnect,” DeBhairduin says.

Chrissie Donoghue Ward, one of the elders who took part in the video series, says often passed history she learned from her mother down to her own children, and that this tradition is very important to her.

“It should be spread in schools and high places, even for the Government – [the Mincéirí Archives] should even be in there for training them,” she says.

“Travellers aren’t even taught their own culture in the schools, and they’re reading settled-people books, and they’re reading about settled people, but the Travellers are not even reading about themselves; now the settled people are not reading about Traveller children in school either.

[  Traveller culture is set to join the school curriculum. What could lessons look like?  ]

“So if it’s good enough for our children to learn about the settled way of life, it should be good enough for settled people to learn the Travellers’ way of life,” Donoghue Ward says.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that members of the Travelling community are probably the most disadvantaged minority in our country today, if we look at things as simple as life expectancy and access to education,” says Niall Callan, of Shellybanks Educate Together National School in Dublin’s Sandymount, who has been involved in the project.

Childrenat Shellybanks learn about the history of ethnic discrimination against the Travelling community, he says. “But the really important consideration here, and it’s something that teachers really need to think about and look at, is that the children are learning about the Traveller experience as a negative one, it’s all through the lens of discrimination and I suppose the deprivations that members of that community have faced,” Callan says.

It means that if teachers want to teach about Traveller culture, they have somewhere to go, they have really good, thought-provoking resources —   Niall Callan, Shellybanks Educate Together National School, on the Mincéirí Archives

“Often when you’re learning about equality and discrimination, whichever minority group you’re talking about, there does tend to be the focus on the negative, it’s on the struggle, the difficulties that group has faced rather than a celebration of their uniqueness and culture.

“I think that’s something that the Mincéirí Archives is trying to do ...,Traveller culture is not all about discrimination, the Travelling people have a rich and unique cultural perspective to offer us, and here it is children, now you get to listen to it, to experience it,” he says.

At the launch of the Mincéiri Archives at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks Dublin were Lynn Scarff (director, National Musuem of Ireland) and Martin Ward (creator, Mincéiri Archives). Photograph: Justin Farrelly

Callan adds that, to date, he has not come across any history textbooks which reference Travellers.

“The problem is, if it’s not in the history book, it’s up to you to go and find that resource, and where are those resources about the Travelling community? You’ll get a few on the National Museum’s website, and obviously the Traveller organisations like Pavee Point that you can go to, but there’s not a lot out there,” he says.

“So that’s why a resource like this, the Mincéirí Archives, is brilliant, because there it is, and it means that if teachers want to teach about Traveller culture, they have somewhere to go, they have really good, thought-provoking resources.”

Dr Hannagh McGinley, the third Traveller to be awarded a PhD in the history of the State, and who works as an education officer at the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment on adding Traveller history and culture to school curriculums, also welcomes the archives.

[  ‘I became a role model’: Mother completes the third-level journey only 1.4% of her community makes  ]

“I think it’s a really good idea, I suppose one of my greatest regrets as a Traveller myself was not capturing some of the stories from my own grandmother and grandparents, and they’re gone, and so it’s too late,” Dr McGinley says.

“Even stuff like their use of the language was amazing ... at the time, as a child, I didn’t even know it was a language, I just thought we were speaking gibberish, so I wish I had known to capture all of those things.

“I think it’s such – once it’s gone, it’s gone, and given the oral nature and the oral tradition of the community, I think capturing those stories is really, really important.”

• Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
• Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
• Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis

Ellen O’Donoghue

Ellen O'Donoghue is an Irish Times journalist

IN THIS SECTION

‘ireland has given me lots of opportunity ... it’s a very accommodating society’, ‘did you see anyone you knew’: an irish emigrant peers into the new york-dublin portal, nature doesn’t care that your carefully nurtured seedlings want to be outside – it’s still prepared to be brutal, forget rules and make your own: four women’s tips for ageless dressing, how to be self-disciplined: ‘choose what you want most over what you want now’, i visited singapore to see why it is ranked as the top education system in the world. here’s what i learned, wolfe tones lead singer sues rté for defamation over comments made by joe duffy on liveline, green party councillor attacked while hanging posters in dublin, latest stories, solar farms in space could help solve global energy crisis following tech breakthrough, irish scientists predict, ibm to create 800 jobs in dublin, cork and waterford over three years, heavy summer rainfall putting pressure on irish beaches and increasing temporary closures, epa warns, ireland could get 5,000 us visas if new bill passes through us congress, the dry review: this irish sitcom sparkles once you get past the alcoholism cliches.

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Information
• Cookie Settings
• Community Standards