More Travellers Tales

AlekSmart · 04-07-2010 2:16pm #1

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/traveller-gangs-targeting-unsupervised-gaelic-clubs-in-nationwide-crime-spree-2245568.html

Kinda depressing little piece really,underlining the odd and unusallly common Irish practice of constantly doing each other down,something which appears to have a strong hold over Irish Traveller society.

The local GAA clubs throughout the country represent one of the few remaining vestiges of a functioning Irish society and even though I`m not an participant or a GAA member I fully admire and support the youing lads and lassies who do partake and attempt to keep some form of humanity afloat in an otherwise cold and barren landscape.

To read therefore that the targeting of such Civic Minded young people by another supposedly disenfranchised grouping is depressing in the extreme.

To then learn of the added tradgedy of the fear-factor is even worse...

While the identity of the Travellers believed to be responsible for the increase in crime seems to be common knowledge in Meath, no one is prepared to speak publicly.

The issue receives very little coverage in the local media as it does throughout Ireland where similar activity involving criminal, nomadic Travellers is taking place.

At the start of Monday's The Frontline, Pat Kenny announced that some people whom the programme had contacted to speak on the issue had withdrawn "for fear of reprisal to themselves of their property".

We are often given the views of Traveller Representative Groups such as Pavee Point and these viewpoints are highly desirable to be aware of,however the suppression of a differing viewpoint as appears to be occuring in Co Meath is surely something of importance to everybody ?

The onset of the Recession/Depression in Ireland has fairly rapidly stripped the veil of respectability and culture we had woven around ourselves and leaves us to face the somewhat unpalatable reality that as a culture we are of a far more savage bent than many of our fellow EU members...?

Modern Ireland,no place for old or honest people

Chuchoter · 04-07-2010 2:30pm

Because then we would be bigoted and tarring people with the same brush. Not to say there are not some really nice travellers, its ridiculous to say they don't have a massive problem with antisocial behavior and they can't write all that down to lack of education/other people being prejudiced. There is ridiculous amounts of money put into getting travellers through second level education, more than anyone else gets.

imme · 04-07-2010 2:54pm

the article is kind of all over the place.
As regards the ´nationwide´ headline, quick everyone PANIC.

Is the Sindo being irresponsible.:eek:

I have no doubt that GAA players have been robbed, but

Quite a strange piece here from the article-

¨Gardai say it now appeared that no public authority in Ireland was prepared to make the effort to tackle and deal with infringements in planning laws when it came to the Traveller community.

The Government appears to have no defined policy on criminality and welfare sponging among nomadic Travellers other than to donate more and more public money. Every three years, the State has to respond to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which in turns examines Ireland based on complaints by groups such as Pavee Point. ¨

´Gardai say´, oh quick let´s all PANIC.
Well, which Gardai are saying this. The article quotes a source for this, a source for that, all very sketchy, pretty typical of the Sindo.

alexmcred · 04-07-2010 3:15pm

There really needs to be a proper debate about this without accusations of bigotry being made when anything negative about travelers.

I have to deal with the council over travelers on a daily basis due to the area they live in being treated no better than a dump and horses everywhere and tied up where ever they see fit the council has no interest in dealing with them and the gardai don't want to waste the time or resources dealing with them.

murphaph · 05-07-2010 8:23pm

Fulton Crown wrote: »

Of course the Council have no interest in dealing with them;
!
Would you be rushing to deal with a shower of semi savage goons who have no respect for law and order and are heavily into violence and organised crime.

No pal you would not ! Especially if you lived in the same locality and had children.

These goons are very well aware of this and "play the system" to the full - leave their halting sites in a sea of garbage and filth and expect John Q Taxpayer to stump up the cleaning bill.

Let's be honest..their way of life and culture makes them no more than semi savage and broadly unfit for civilised human society.

Not saying it is their fault....not saying EVERY traveller is like this...but above is the harsh reality.

waits for the PC do gooder brigade to march in and accuse the above poster of being bigoted, racist etc. when in fact, he's just speaking the truth.

billy the squid · 05-07-2010 8:48pm

Rephrase that

I would base my opinion of the article on my opinion of its author, which is quite low.

pablomakaveli · 05-07-2010 11:02pm

The thing is whenever anyone tries to highlight the negative behaviour of travellers the likes of pavee point come out crying racism instead of trying to debate and discuss these matters properly.

Just look at the pavee point representative on Frontline last week. He kept using the word racism constantly without actually addressing the questions put to him.

BlaasForRafa · 06-07-2010 8:23am

pablomakaveli wrote: »

The thing is whenever anyone tries to highlight the negative behaviour of travellers the likes of pavee point come out crying racism instead of trying to debate and discuss these matters properly.

Just look at the pavee point representative on Frontline last week. He kept using the word racism constantly without actually addressing the questions put to him.

I watched Frontline last week as well and the Pavee Point representative was very much of the "get your retaliation in first and attack" point of view. The first thing he did was to pull the rascism card instead of addressing the points put to him.

There is a problem with crime and aggression coming from the traveller community (usual proviso that not all travellers are involved in shenanigans) and this spills out and affects the settled community not least the problems in Mullingar, Tuam, Waterford, Tralee etc. In the Waterford case a number of travellers came before the courts but were left go because witnesses wouldn't come forward. A lot of people are not only afraid of the bigot/rascist card being pulled on them but are afraid of being slashed in the face or petrol bombed if they speak out against travellers.

Thus sections of the Traveller community can go on amassing wealth while getting paid by the social welfare and not paying taxes while the settled community fumes silently but can do little about it as even the authorities seem afraid to deal with the issues.

Fulton Crown · 06-07-2010 8:48am

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I

watched Frontline last week as well and the Pavee Point representative was very much of the "get your retaliation in first and attack" point of view. The first thing he did was to pull the rascism card instead of addressing the points put to him

.

Noticed this as well...the sort of approach the Shinners used to take a few years ago.

This is a technique that is part of media training...obviously the Pavees have availed of it

There is a problem with crime and aggression coming from the traveller community (usual proviso that not all travellers are involved in shenanigans) and this spills out and affects the settled community not least the problems in Mullingar, Tuam, Waterford, Tralee etc. In the Waterford case a number of travellers came before the courts but were left go because witnesses wouldn't come forward. A lot of people are not only afraid of the bigot/rascist card being pulled on them but are afraid of being slashed in the face or petrol bombed if they speak out against travellers.

As in my post this is the REALITY...this poster is spot on

Thus sections of the Traveller community can go on amassing wealth while getting paid by the social welfare and not paying taxes while the settled community fumes silently but can do little about it as even the authorities seem afraid to deal with the issues

What is needed here is a centralised force of elite gardai to tackle this problem before it reaches epidemic proportions.

The elderly living in rural areas live in fear of these people and are entitled to be protected...they have rights too !

They can.t be expected to fight the battle themselves after what happened when that brave farmer over in mayo popped one of them after coming under attack.

The long term way to deal with this is through education and traveller parents should be forced to see that their kids are properly educated..this is NOT happening presently.

gandalf · 06-07-2010 9:04am

How is this racism. Surely they are the same as the rest of us. The only difference is that they choose to live like nomads. The thing that gets my goat is why do they get special treatment, funded halting sites and apparent lax confrontation by the forces of law when some do break the law be it illegally occupying land or petty crimes.

The time has come to deal with travellers just like every other citizen of this country and not give them kid glove treatment. If they want halting sites let them purchase land for this purpose. If they are claiming social welfare but visibly living with additional income then they should be audited and the welfare removed from them along with being prosecuted for fraud. They are entitled to preserve their way of life however we the ordinary tax payers should not be asked to fund this.

pablomakaveli · 06-07-2010 9:38am

gandalf wrote: »

How is this racism. Surely they are the same as the rest of us. The only difference is that they choose to live like nomads. The thing that gets my goat is why do they get special treatment, funded halting sites and apparent lax confrontation by the forces of law when some do break the law be it illegally occupying land or petty crimes.

They think that they are a seperate race and want to be classed as a seperate ethnic minority. This would only make things worse as they try and use this to protect themselves from further criticism and use that minority status to milk the state for more.

gandalf · 06-07-2010 9:56am

pablomakaveli wrote: »

They think that they are a seperate race and want to be classed as a seperate ethnic minority. This would only make things worse as they try and use this to protect themselves from further criticism and use that minority status to milk the state for more.

Basically they want to benefit from being members of this society therefore they have to contribute to the society like every other law abiding member of society. If they don't then they should be excluded from having these benefits.

irishh_bob · 06-07-2010 9:57am

pablomakaveli wrote: »

They think that they are a seperate race and want to be classed as a seperate ethnic minority. This would only make things worse as they try and use this to protect themselves from further criticism and use that minority status to milk the state for more.

thier are other vested interests who would also stand to gain from them being awarded ethnic status , quangocrats , the legal fraternity and of course the bleeding heart poverty industry

aDeener · 06-07-2010 12:39pm

has anyone any figures for the level of crime and convictions in the travelling community?

judging by our locality's experiences (all the travellers have criminal convictions) i'd imagine it to be quite high and i would finally like to be able to rubbish the "small minority" argument :rolleyes:

pablomakaveli · 06-07-2010 1:33pm

aDeener wrote: »

has anyone any figures for the level of crime and convictions in the travelling community?

judging by our locality's experiences (all the travellers have criminal convictions) i'd imagine it to be quite high and i would finally like to be able to rubbish the "small minority" argument :rolleyes:

A lot of people seem to have bad experiences with them so there must be high rates of crime amongst the traveller community.

There were some travellers living a couple of miles from me in an illegal halting site for a couple of years. They caused a lot of trouble. The owners of a nearby house were harrassed and had to put the house up for sale. The Gardai had to go in with riot gear a couple of times as well.

Nijmegen · 06-07-2010 2:20pm

Where it comes to travellers, anyone saying they're anything but an interesting cultural minority gets tarred with the racism brush.

Go talk to anyone who has had travellers camp near their home.

Go talk to any Gardai who has had to deal with them.

Go talk to any council that has had to deal with them.

Etc etc etc.

There's an awfel lot of "hearsay" about them largely bringing negative actions to the areas they move into. If you have enough hearsay, it's sometimes true!

But to produce a report telling what % of the travelling community has a criminal record would have the PC brigade up in arms.

aDeener · 06-07-2010 10:56pm

Nijmegen wrote: »

Where it comes to travellers, anyone saying they're anything but an interesting cultural minority gets tarred with the racism brush.

Go talk to anyone who has had travellers camp near their home.

Go talk to any Gardai who has had to deal with them.

Go talk to any council that has had to deal with them.

Etc etc etc.

There's an awfel lot of "hearsay" about them largely bringing negative actions to the areas they move into. If you have enough hearsay, it's sometimes true!

But to produce a report telling what % of the travelling community has a criminal record would have the PC brigade up in arms.

fuck them if the facts show its not a small minority - which i am 100% confident that is what they would show

Amalgam · 06-07-2010 11:16pm

I think we're the only country in Europe to go for the whole 'Ethnic group' thing officially, I think the UK is mulling it over, but it will not be the same as Ireland, slightly different turn of phrase.

Channel 4 showed a film about the Traveller lifestyle recently and I was surprised by how early the parents started an 'us and them' mentality with their children, not letting them play with other 'settled' children, to keep the Traveller ideals strong in them.

The isolation and mistrust seems to come as much from within, as from the outside.

Wolfe Tone · 06-07-2010 11:29pm

I bet those who are quick to leap on the PC brigade when it comes to travelers would be very quick to back up if planning permission went in for a halting site across the road.

Lets face it, while there are some excellent,wonderful people who are travelers, on the whole these seem to be the exception.

Einhard · 06-07-2010 11:40pm

AlekSmart wrote: »

The local GAA clubs throughout the country represent one of the few remaining vestiges of a functioning Irish society and even though I`m not an participant or a GAA member I fully admire and support the youing lads and lassies who do partake and attempt to keep some form of humanity afloat in an otherwise cold and barren landscape.

Seriously, is rampant hyperbole a symptom of economic recession?? We're going through a rough patch, but it's not Rwanda in '93 although some people would make out that we're worse! People need to get a sense of perspective...

Oh, oh, I was going to add that this post wasn't directed towards the OP exactly, until I read on and saw the "we're of a far more savage bent" than our European cousins part. Seriously, what is it about a recession that brings out this type of gloomy, over the top pontificating? We're far from being more violent that the other European nations. People need to realise that, whereas the Celtic Tiger was never as great as it was made out to be, the bust isn't as cataclysmic as it's portrayed.

Pot Noodle = · 07-07-2010 1:32am

They have too many criminals in there minority that give them a bad name

Nijmegen · 07-07-2010 8:39am

It's a pity we're not moving towards open government like in the US or UK, where crime statistics are provided, and there are websites now tracking crime trends from this data. One could easily pinpoint where the travellers move their caravans and what happens in the area afterwards.

seamus · 07-07-2010 9:52am

The figures are out there alright. Travellers represent somewhere between 4% and 5% of the total prison population, and 0.5% of the general population.

So on the face of it, travellers are 8 to 10 times more likely to be involved in crime.

That's far too simplistic though, there are too many factors involved here to make a call on it. However, even when compared to working class communities, the rate of criminal activity is far higher.

There was a report published a few years ago by an NGO. I'm sure Google will show it. They were trying to put a pro-traveller slant on it, but ultimately showed the bare truth of it.

Darsad · 07-07-2010 10:37am

The travelling community are misunderstood and not valued enough by the settled community. They are just ordinary folk looking to survive the same as the rest of us , actually they are quite ingenious and we could learn a lot from them. They are an indigenous people and perhaps we should be more understanding and ameniable to their ways. Bord Failte should be using them in tourist adds similar to the incas in Peru or aborigines in Australia. A halting site could be set up at every major tourist attraction and travellers allowed to work there as tour guides or something .

jmayo · 07-07-2010 10:40am

You cannot base Traveller criminal activity on just prison figures alone as can be seen from the aftermath of the Mullingar riots.

It is also noticable that Gardaí often don't intervene unless pushed to do so.

I have seen Travellers move into area of Dublin industrial estate creating havoc.
Gardaí were called, they turn up alright but just drive past and then leave.

The whole Nally/Ward incident highlighted how travellers can escape the rigours of the law that normal "settled community" would not.
Ward had numerous outstanding warrants and yet they were never served on him ?

Ever notice the huge fires bleching black smoke that are evident from some traveller halting sites ?
If that type of smoke was to eminate from a farmer's land or someones premises they would face prosecution from the local authorities, yet nothing ever appears to happen to the travellers.

They appear to given huge leeway that people in the "settled community" are not afforded.
If they want to be treated with respect then they need to start showing some respect to others.

And as is always said there are travellers that are honest hardworking decent
people, but sadly they too often appear in the minority.

jmayo · 07-07-2010 10:42am

Darsad wrote: »

The travelling community are misunderstood and not valued enough by the settled community. They are just ordinary folk looking to survive the same as the rest of us , actually they are quite ingenious and we could learn a lot from them. They are an indigenous people and perhaps we should be more understanding and ameniable to their ways. Bord Failte should be using them in tourist adds similar to the incas in Peru or aborigines in Australia. A halting site could be set up at every major tourist attraction and travellers allowed to work there as tour guides or something .

Good idea, we should as a trial setup a halting site beside your place and you can help train them as tour guides.

BTW did you contribute any ideas to the Your Country Your Call initiative ?

BlaasForRafa · 07-07-2010 11:02am

Darsad wrote: »

The travelling community are misunderstood and not valued enough by the settled community. They are just ordinary folk looking to survive the same as the rest of us , actually they are quite ingenious and we could learn a lot from them. They are an indigenous people and perhaps we should be more understanding and ameniable to their ways. Bord Failte should be using them in tourist adds similar to the incas in Peru or aborigines in Australia. A halting site could be set up at every major tourist attraction and travellers allowed to work there as tour guides or something .

Hahaha is that sarcasm?

If not then its still funny, entrusting naive tourists to travellers is mad, they'd be fleeced in no time...and sold a set of "new" gates and carpets for good measure.

Nodin · 07-07-2010 11:15am

I hate it when people have a lynch mob and don't invite me.....

goose2005 · 07-07-2010 12:29pm

Darsad wrote: »

The travelling community are misunderstood and not valued enough by the settled community. They are just ordinary folk looking to survive the same as the rest of us , actually they are quite ingenious and we could learn a lot from them. They are an indigenous people and perhaps we should be more understanding and ameniable to their ways. Bord Failte should be using them in tourist adds similar to the incas in Peru or aborigines in Australia. A halting site could be set up at every major tourist attraction and travellers allowed to work there as tour guides or something .

"indigenous" means that their ancestors were in Ireland before the ancestors of the mainstream population arrived.But the mainstream population have been in Ireland for millennia, while travellers as a distinct group only formed in the 18th-19th centuries.

Darsad · 07-07-2010 4:10pm

goose2005 wrote: »

"indigenous" means that their ancestors were in Ireland before the ancestors of the mainstream population arrived.But the mainstream population have been in Ireland for millennia, while travellers as a distinct group only formed in the 18th-19th centuries.

Thank You Boss !

irishh_bob · 07-07-2010 5:26pm

Darsad wrote: »

The travelling community are misunderstood and not valued enough by the settled community. They are just ordinary folk looking to survive the same as the rest of us , actually they are quite ingenious and we could learn a lot from them. They are an indigenous people and perhaps we should be more understanding and ameniable to their ways. Bord Failte should be using them in tourist adds similar to the incas in Peru or aborigines in Australia. A halting site could be set up at every major tourist attraction and travellers allowed to work there as tour guides or something .

can just see it now , can i interest you in a fine set of spanners yank ( while the tinkers kids strips the alloys of hired out SUV )

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