So we can't discuss Travelers?

CptSternn

Just curious as why this topic is VERBOTEN. I mean, every thread over the past few years has been heavily modded and then closed.

We had the thread where they threw the grenade into terraced housing, that was stopped.

Two threads now, TWO in a matter of months involving them running rampant through primary schools wearing masks waving machetes, in one case a mans fingers were chopped off, that was closed.

It's not like we are coming here and just randomly singling out a group of people for an inappropriate discussion. These people over the past year have been behaving like this in public. As a member of the public I think we should be able to talk about it.

If not, boards.ie is no better than the Gards who refuse to prosecute it.

If we just sit by, don't talk about it, don't do anything, and pretend it's not happening it will just continue. I think the incident yesterday is evidence of this.

Shapey Fiend

I think we need to be careful about talking about travellers in general. It's no different than talking about black people in general. I'm not particularly into the whole politically correct movement but you can't go attributing throwing hand grenades and running about with machetes to an entire group of society and using the collective term "these people". You probably didn't even mean it like that but that's the way these topics have kind of been going in the past. Any controversial topic on here gets edited or closed when there's a bit of conflict it's just the policy on Boards.ie. If you want a more open forum for discussion you'll just have to set up your own website.

There's no doubt this situation in the town has gotten seriously out of hand. I think instead of broad schemes to treat all travellers equally we need to have a system that does completely the opposite. If you look after your gaff and don't cause trouble then fair enough. If you're destroying houses, not sending your kids to school, or running about the school with a machete you should go to prison and the children should be put into care where they'd probably have a far better chance at becoming balanced adults than growing up in a chaotic environment.

Clareman

Any discussions on ongoing legal issues are closed due to the legal precedent given by the courts last year that anyone publishing anything that could impact on legal proceedings could be held in contempt of court, this is a side wide notice.

Also, singling out people by their ethnic background is against the policy of most places AFAIK, I wouldn't like it if people were to say that all Clare people are bad at football for example, a lot of us wouldn't be great at it but some are very good at it.

Finally, questioning mods decisions can be done using the standard practised, please follow those.

Balagan

For those interested, there is presently an ongoing comments section on the Irish Independent site at the end of an article about yesterday's incident, with delay to allow screening to keep it out of a legal minefield. It isn't for people who won't touch the Indo, but for those with no qualms about that, it might be worth a look. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/three-charged-in-connection-with-school-machete-incident-3056312.html

MyKeyG

Agree with the mods on this one. By stating that individuals who committed a certain offence are of a certain ethnic or community group is very like saying they committed the offence BECAUSE they belong to a particular ethnic or community group.

I was raised in a particular faith and it used to amaze me that whenever a member of our church was mentioned in the media it was stated 'Joe Bloggs, a member of the local X faith was arrested last night...' and I used to think what the hell has that got to do with anything?

People may argue statistics but I know a lot of travellers who don't chase each other through crowded class rooms. The people who committed this crime did so because they're scum pure and simple and not because of their affiliation to any group or community.

CptSternn

I agree fully. However in this case we do have a bit of a difference. We have a small community who live in town who constantly are the ones committing the offences. It's not like we have a vast drove of travelers living in Ennis and most of them are sound. The ones living in the area are related to, and have engaged in activities with the groups concerned in all of the above incidents. There are few living in Ennis who are not involved in this ongoing feud, the exceptions being those who came here from outside of the area and have settled.

I'm in no way saying all travelers are bad, but I am saying a good portion of those we have in our little town are, and this can easily be proven by looking through public court records.

Monty Burnz

MyKeyG wrote: »

Agree with the mods on this one. By stating that individuals who committed a certain offence are of a certain ethnic or community group is very like saying they committed the offence BECAUSE they belong to a particular ethnic or community group.

The elephant in the room is that certain groups of people do commit a disproportionate amount of crime, and no amount of dodging around the issue changes that fact.

CptSternn

I want to add I don't want them to be singled out, but I also don't think they deserve special treatment. For example they brought in an arbitrator to work with them last year at a cost to us the tax payer. How much did they spend again on this? The arbitrator was one of the men who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement, and he wasn't cheap.

And here we are again, another school and hundreds of small children terrorised, scarred for life, by these animals. Thats not fair, as calling them animals makes animals look bad.

I think they should be treated like anyone else who would engage in such behavior - lock them away for life. Does anyone here really think if you or I did something so abhorrent that we wouldn't be locked away for years?

Take off the kid gloves and stop pouring money down that hole.

MyKeyG

Monty Burnz wrote: »

The elephant in the room is that certain groups of people do commit a disproportionate amount of crime, and no amount of dodging around the issue changes that fact.

Yes and as I said the stats would probably prove you correct but if I could adapt an age old saying should the sins of the many be applied to the few?

I'll give you an example. The Irish are considered to have a drink problem. I don't drink and I take plenty offence when people say 'You're Irish and you don't drink?'. It all boils down to generalisation and it's not right. If you want to be sore at a particular group then be sore at the family not the community they belong to. There are plenty non travellers living in this town capable of doing what these individuals did yesterday. It wasn't a traveller killed a teacher in cold blood two years ago.

Clareman

And at that I shall lock this thread, I will not stand by while a group of people are all branded with the same brush, CptSternn count yourself lucky with a warning.

If anyone has a problem with the modding of boards, feel free to go through the proper channels.