The Late Late Show: Discussion about criminality in the Travelling community

Dave!

Hey folks,

there was a discussion on the Late Late Show last Friday that centred around the topic of criminality in the travelling community. It was spawned by a new book out by Eamon Dillon of the Sunday World, called The Outsiders, which basically analyzes same.

You can watch it here:
http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2194804.smil

It's 36 minutes long and worth a look! It's basically 2 anti-Travellers (I think it's fair to say) and 2 Travellers discussing the problems within the Travelling community and between Travellers and the Settled community.

Any thoughts on it?

The_Minister

I have yet to see a thread on travellers turn out well. Let this be the firrst.

cornbb

Hear hear. I've been watching this for one minute and I smell Paul Williams-esque trash. Before people start slagging the Travellers, consider that its doubtful there's a single one on boards.ie to defend them.

Dave!

The_Minister wrote:

I have yet to see a thread on travellers turn out well. Let this be the firrst.

If it starts heading in the wrong direction maybe it can be moved to Politics or Humanities where it might get more scutinous moderating.

cornbb wrote:

Hear hear. I've been watching this for one minute and I smell Paul Williams-esque trash. Before people start slagging the Travellers, consider that its doubtful there's a single one on boards.ie to defend them.

billythesquid might beg to differ!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

DaveMcG wrote:

Hey folks,

there was a discussion on the Late Late Show last Friday that centred around the topic of criminality in the travelling community. It was spawned by a new book out by Eamon Dillon of the Sunday World, called The Outsiders, which basically analyzes same.

You can watch it here:
http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2194804.smil

It's 36 minutes long and worth a look! It's basically 2 anti-Travellers (I think it's fair to say) and 2 Travellers discussing the problems within the Travelling community and between Travellers and the Settled community.

Any thoughts on it?

Ah, conformity. Just what the this country needs, more conformity. You can sat what you like about freedom, but it's NOTHING compared to conformity...

cornbb

DaveMcG wrote:

billythesquid might beg to differ!

My bad, thanks for correcting me

Karoma

Moved to Humanities from AH, without redirect. I'd like to see this get a decent, mature, and fair response. Something that I don't feel AH's audience will provide (From past experiences.)

Hobbes

I'm not touching this thread.. these always end bad.

Lafortezza

I saw some of this discussion.

"It's a small minority of the T.C. causing problems, etc, etc, lack of facilities, media bias, prejudice in the settled community..."

vs.

"Anecdotal evidence, I personally have never had a good experience with the T.C.s , their way of life intrudes on law-abiding normal people..."

This was about the sum total of the whole thing, with a plank thrown in the middle somewhere.

Carcharodon

I really enjoyed this discussion on the late late, its not often they have interesting topics with a good debate.
I think it proves that not all travellers comply to the stereotypical image we have of them.
I will be the first to say that i have many a bad run in with travellers over the years but also have had many a good relationship.
I do believe that there is a higher level of criminality in the traveller community, some of this is attributed to their way of life and culture and some is due to their treatment in Irish society.
Family feuds have serious consequences, one of the nicest and genuine travellers i know is serving a jail sentance for murder over a stupid family feud.
I find the young yobs alot more intimidating than any traveller, some travellers would take you to the cleaners if they could but its only if you let them.
That guy sitting third seat in was an awful knob

misty floyd

This was about the sum total of the whole thing, with a plank thrown in the middle somewhere.[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure if you meant that Pat was the plank but good one anyway

aidan24326

It's a topic that seems to crop up on the late late every once in a while. At this stage I don't think the criminality in the country can be pinned on travellers. There's not even that many of them anymore from what I can see. Have never had any bad experiences with them myself. They used to call in to my grandmother a fair bit when I was small, looking for some home baked bread or potatoes or whatever was going spare. I don't recall them being involved in any serious criminality, apart from stealing the odd gate and the usual rumpus anytime they had a wedding. I witnessed a battle between the McDonaghs and the Wards one time (warring traveller families in county Galway) and it was pretty brutal stuff, but was limited to their own groups.

One thing I would say against them though, is they do (alot of them anyway) bring trouble on themselves with the mess they leave behind everywhere they go. I saw the disgraceful mess (literally tons of junk and waste) they left on community soccer pitches in Blanchardstown, no excuse for that. Not saying they would all do that but certainly the ones who do give a bad name to all of them. Personally I'd have no major problem with having travellers in the area once they didn't pollute the place like that.

InFront

When I was small we lived in a place close to Nenagh and Roscrea in Co Tipperary. That was my personal greatest exposure to the travelling community. The boys in our school (it was an all-boys, largely Catholic, primary school) were unkempt, dirty, and had horrible eating habits. They became the joke of the classes they were in amongst the other boys. I remember thinking at the time, why on earth do parents, of any background, send their children to school in such a way when of course they will end up being alienated because of it. I dont know how much that has changed, this was my experience in the early to mid 1990s.

As a brown-skinned eight-year-old with a heavy accent that certainly wasn't of Tipperary origin, I find it odd to think about the reaction I received compared to the reaction of the travellers in my class. Perhaps it was because I was the only one 'of my kind' or because racism towards different skin colours is seemingly less acceptable, but I am happy to say I was never on the receiving end of any racist hostility to my face (and because I was just a puny asthmatic little child, I presume none behind my back either!). There was a sense that I was very different, but not in the way the travellers (who were never given that very PC name by the way) were different. There was more a bemused interest in where I had come from and more importantly what was I doing there!

If you compare that to the travellers, there was never any education about where and how that particular ethnic group had arisen, nothing about their culture, their music, language, way of life, etc.
I was very glad to be afforded these things, being (at that time) a non-national. It is a pity however, that the native Irish (travelling) children were not afforded the same.

I think that travellers sometimes alienate themselves from the mainstream idea of how it is correct to live one's life, but Irish society itself has a role to play in minimising that social exclusion. Primary Level is the best time to start doing this with travellers, and non-travellers, in my opinion.

aidan24326

InFront wrote:

I think that travellers sometimes alienate themselves from the mainstream idea of how it is correct to live one's life, but Irish society itself has a role to play in minimising that social exclusion. Primary Level is the best time to start doing this with travellers, and non-travellers, in my opinion.

That is true, they do alienate themselves to a large degree. It is a choice they have made really, to have that way of life. There are certainly ways they could help themselves to integrate a bit more, and be more accepted generally (if that's what they want of course). Educating their kids a bit better would be a start. Many travellers would be poorly educated, some of them having had very little schooling or in some cases maybe none at all. Lack of basic education ensures social exclusion as you can't properly integrate into 'normal' society without it even if you want to (and we must accept that some travellers probably don't really want to).

Though to suggest, as some do, that they are all just common criminals is ott. Any crime they are involved in is usually small-time petty stuff. We have plenty of violent dangerous thugs and hoodlums in this country to be dealing with without picking on the travellers. The scumbag types in the major towns and cities (especially Dublin and Limerick) are worse than any traveller if you ask me, and there's alot more of them too.

InFront

Yes I think youre right there, it's also a bit unfortunate the way travellers and dublin scumbags with nothing better to do but instigate trouble all come under the blacket term of 'knackers' as they are commonly known. They tend to be very different types of people, in my experience.

FX Meister

cornbb wrote:

Hear hear. I've been watching this for one minute and I smell Paul Williams-esque trash. Before people start slagging the Travellers, consider that its doubtful there's a single one on boards.ie to defend them.

You're right, there won't be any on here. When was the last time you saw a caravan with an internet connection. And sure the only time they have a computer is when they are trying to see it to you 'boss'.

Hobbes

There are quite a few travellers on boards, some have even acknowledged this publically.

I am not going to comment on the subject of the interview but rather the interview itself. Pat Kenny was clearly offering up more air time for the anti side of it and cutting off the traveller side before they could finish and stopping them from butting in while allowing the others to do it.

I was expecting a better debate, but it wasn't that much different then what we get on here.

lostexpectation

i guess it was interesting in the way in the way there were saying how travellers criminals were hooking up with dublin gangs, so was the book and debate about criminals or travellers.

Tha Gopher

lafortezza wrote:

I saw some of this discussion.

"It's a small minority of the T.C. causing problems, etc, etc, lack of facilities, media bias, prejudice in the settled community..."

vs.

"Anecdotal evidence, I personally have never had a good experience with the T.C.s , their way of life intrudes on law-abiding normal people..."

This was about the sum total of the whole thing, with a plank thrown in the middle somewhere.

Anecdotal? Funny, I seemed to hear the journalist say that 10% of the prison population are travellers. I saw another report claiming around 3%.

Even so, sort of throws out the old "sweeping generalisations" people in the debates a while back here were accused of making. Stop the press- many boards posters assumed from life experience they had a higher offending rate. And then a study finds it to be true? Good god.

It tends to be that those who stand up for them are those with the least experience of them. Ill admit, if I had zero real life experience with them, which I would assume from their posts most of the pro crowd had, Collins and his empassioned speech of "we`ve been around for 900 years, and we`re stronger than ever" would have got my vote.

Then I thought of innumerable incidents in my life and I thought, eh....no thanks.

delphie rex

no denying the presence of traveller criminals, but not all travellers are criminals though.

eyeing all travellers with suspicion because of some black sheep is a bit extreme.