Need a definition please.

Old Perry

As above ive been searching for an irish legal definition or terminology on what constitutes an ethnic minority or group and havin been able to find anything. if someone could point me to where this may be defined for the irish legal system id really appreciate it .

chops018

I'm sure people could give you what they think is a definition from their own understanding and research but there are many theses on the area I'm sure, so it would be hard to have a concrete definition for Ireland. From a quick google on the matter it gives what I think is a nice little definiton in general (not Ireland's):

"A group that has different national or cultural traditions from the main population."

I don't even think there has been a concrete definition for Ireland, certainly it has been argued that traveller's deserve minority rights, it has been discussed in numerous articles and papers before the oireachtas that it should be so. It came before the English Courts too in the Mandala case in 1983 where they challenged the Race Relations Act and the Court said:

“For a group to constitute an ethnic group in the sense of the Act of 1976, it must, in my opinion, regard itself, and be regarded by others, as a distinct community by virtue of certain characteristics. Some of these characteristics are essential; others are not essential but one or more of them will commonly be found and will help to distinguish the group from the surrounding community. The conditions which appear to me to be essential are these: (1) a long shared history, of which the group is conscious as distinguishing it from other groups, and the memory of which it keeps alive; (2) a cultural tradition of its own, including family and social customs and manners, often but not necessarily associated with religious observance.”

Old Perry

Ok thanks, so the state really must not have a definition of what an ethnic group is. yet they have various acts and instruments in place to prevent the discrimination of such groups?

It is in relation to travellers that i need this definition, but i suppose if there was a legal definition the state would inevitably be forced to except the travelling community as an ethnic group.

MagicSean

Old Perry wrote: »

Ok thanks, so the state really must not have a definition of what an ethnic group is. yet they have various acts and instruments in place to prevent the discrimination of such groups?

It is in relation to travellers that i need this definition, but i suppose if there was a legal definition the state would inevitably be forced to except the travelling community as an ethnic group.

Not really. The majority of travellers don't travel, which is a main part of being a traveller. Many of their traditions are illegal. And their religion is basically Catholicism. In fact todays travellers are nothing like the ethnic group they claim to belong to.

nuac

Interesting topic.

The Traveller support industry have been trying to have Mandels applied to travellers here, altho the case itself relates to a Sikh in an English city. afaik it has not been followed in our courts.

There has been an argument tha Mandela is binding in the UK and therefoer should be followed in R of I on the basis of parity of esteem under teh GFA.

Would find this hard to take. I have in my line of work met many traveller families. All 100% Irish.

The language thing is overrated - a number of words derived from e.g. Irish and changed by transposing syllables e.g "lackeen " from "cailín" = girl etc. Syntax and word order is English based.

Culture is changing rapdily for many reasons. Families smaller as women asserted themselves. less acesptance of misbehaviour from settled population.

Franklly I think this ethnic claim is an attempt to screw more money out of the hardpressed taxpayer.

James Jones

Old Perry, I thought you might fine this quote from the Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review Ireland interesting:

107.33. NOT ACCEPTED

44. As outlined at Ireland’s interactive dialogue in October 2011, there are a number of
issues around the proposal of recognition of Travellers as a separate ethnic minority which
need to be further considered and addressed and it is an area which is currently being given
serious consideration.

coylemj

Travellers are already protected by anti-discrmination legislation. The only concievable reason why they want to be considered an 'ethnic' minority is so that if anyone criticises them or their 'way of life' they can be branded a racist.

BornToKill

Old Perry wrote: »

Ok thanks, so the state really must not have a definition of what an ethnic group is. yet they have various acts and instruments in place to prevent the discrimination of such groups?

It is in relation to travellers that i need this definition, but i suppose if there was a legal definition the state would inevitably be forced to except the travelling community as an ethnic group.

I'm not aware of any acts and instruments here which prohibit discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. The Equality Act and Equal Status Act do prohibit discrimination on nine grounds namely; Gender, Civil Status, Family Status, Age, Race, Religion, Disability, Sexual Orientation, Membership of the Traveller community.

nuac

I repeat that imho travellers here are not a separate ethnic group, but even if they were, they would be protected by the reference to "race" in the above section

BornToKill

Well, Ireland has not recognised any ethnic minorities or national minorities for the purposes of international conventions. I'm interested, however, to hear that you consider race and ethnicity to be synonymous. I would have thought it possible that a person could be Irish (race) and yet be part of an ethnic minority. Do you not think so?

nuac

BTK

For all practical purposes and in considering Irish travellers I consider ethnicity and race to be the same.

For a number of reasons

1. While I havent my Greek dictionary to hand I read enough of it in my time to recall that "ethnikos" meant a tribe or band of people.

Anthropologists have sought to extend the word ethnic in recent times to extend to concepts of common culture etc, but that it is only a recent development.

2. I have been dealing professionally with travellers for about 40 years. I have met most of those who frequent the west of Ireland, and many of those who visit the west from other parts of Ireland. and the UK, Some of these families I have known for three generations. Their names are all Irish names, and I never heard any of them say they were other than Irish, or belonged to any ethnic group etc other than the Irish race.

First I heard of the ethnic claim was from some of their support groups in recent years. Whatever cultural indicators are claimed to support these ethnic claim such as shelta, nomadism, oppression of theri women folk are weakening rapidly in present day conditions.

Many travellers are decent people, but some are being misled by their suppport groups.

BornToKill

nuac wrote: »

BTK

For all practical purposes and in considering Irish travellers I consider ethnicity and race to be the same.

For a number of reasons

1. While I havent my Greek dictionary to hand I read enough of it in my time to recall that "ethnikos" meant a tribe or band of people.

Anthropologists have sought to extend the word ethnic in recent times to extend to concepts of common culture etc, but that it is only a recent development.

2. I have been dealing professionally with travellers for about 40 years. I have met most of those who frequent the west of Ireland, and many of those who visit the west from other parts of Ireland. and the UK, Some of these families I have known for three generations. Their names are all Irish names, and I never heard any of them say they were other than Irish, or belonged to any ethnic group etc other than the Irish race.

First I heard of the ethnic claim was from some of their support groups in recent years. Whatever cultural indicators are claimed to support these ethnic claim such as shelta, nomadism, oppression of theri women folk are weakening rapidly in present day conditions.

Many travellers are decent people, but some are being misled by their suppport groups.

While I personally would not disagree much with your assessment, the Mandla v. Dowell Lee decision which was referred to earlier in the thread does in fact appear draw a distinction between race and ethnicity. the House of Lords stated:

"For a group to constitute an 'ethnic group' for the purposes of the 1976 Act it had to regard itself, and be regarded by others, as a distinct community by virtue of certain characteristics, two of which were essential. First it had to have a long shared history, of which the group was conscious as distinguishing it from other groups, and the memory of which it kept alive, and second it had to have a cultural tradition of its own, including family and social customs and manners, often but not necessarily associated with religious observance. In addition, the following characteristics could also be relevant, namely (a) either a common geographical origin or descent from a small number of common ancestors, (b) a common language, which did not necessarily have to be peculiar to the group, (c) a common literature peculiar to the group, (d) a common religion different from that of neighbouring groups or from the general community surrounding it, and (e) the characteristic of being a minority or being an oppressed or a dominant group within a larger community."

So the language element - in the Traveller context Shelta, Gammon or Cant - is optional rather than essential to determining if the group constitutes an ethnic group. It also appears that whether their surnames are typically Irish or not isn't relevant to a determination of ethnicity.

I do agree with you that the claim is being driven as opposed to arising organically as a groundswell. However, the principle of self-determination coming from both the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance makes it irrelevant whether or not individual Travellers want to be members of an ethnic group.

nuac

BTK

I recall studying the Mandela decision at the time plus many articles on the topic at the time. Was then and still am convinced that Irish travellers are not a separate ethnic group, and should not be deemed such.

I don't think Mandela would be followed by the Supreme Court here in the context of Irish travellers

Tax payer is already heavily supporting travellers, and opening up a separate heading for all the usual supports would not be well received.

As I've mentioned already I have been dealing with travellers for 40+ years, and know many travellers families even longer than that. The criminality of some of them is losing them the sympathy of the settled community.

Traveller support groups should work on some of the problems that are arising between the more aggressive travelllers and the settled community rahter than promoting bogus ethnicity claims.