Traveller girl outshines stereotype

_Brian

I spotted this on Twitter last night and today I thought I’d go back and post the link here.

Coming from more than a disadvantaged background this girl has done wonderfully and seems to have plans to shine further.

As she says herself she is on a minority but hopefully over time this type of story will be less and less unusual.

I’m more often negative about travellers due to my own experiences but this teaches me that tarring ALL of any group with one brush is never ever the right thing.

https://twitter.com/chelsmcdonagh/status/1019925682909077504?s=20

whisky_galore

If only enough of them abandoned their outdated lifestyle and fell in with the rest of us.

Fiery mutant

Fair play to her. Shows what happens when you approach society with a positive outlook.

Imagine if she was in a majority.

seamus

whisky_galore wrote: »

If only enough of them abandoned their outdated lifestyle and fell in with the rest of us.

It's not even about "falling in line".

Traveller culture can be maintained, and travellers can thrive, and do so in a way that doesn't bring them into conflict with the rest of society.

There are no barriers to getting an education, making an honest living and paying your taxes while living in a caravan where it's legal and reasonable to do so and in a way that respects the local environment and the local populations. And in a way that respects yourself and your community.

None, whatsoever.

Mrs OBumble

whisky_galore wrote: »

If only enough of them abandoned their outdated lifestyle and fell in with the rest of us.

You have no idea how many already have.

LollipopJimmy

seamus wrote: »

It's not even about "falling in line".

Traveller culture can be maintained, and travellers can thrive, and do so in a way that doesn't bring them into conflict with the rest of society.

There are no barriers to getting an education, making an honest living and paying your taxes while living in a caravan where it's legal and reasonable to do so and in a way that respects the local environment and the local populations. And in a way that respects yourself and your community.

None, whatsoever.

100% agree, and to add, traditional traveller culture should be maintained.

Anybody who grew up in the 80's or earlier will probably remember that if you needed a part for a car you went down to the travellers and get it from them. Scrap cars were brought to them and they broke them down to sell parts. Now it's just thievery, I work close to a halting site and even in the heatwave we couldn't leave the front door open because as soon as it's open the feckers run in and wreck the place.

Hector Bellend

I'm studying for my fourth degree. I dont see anyone sucking my sac.

Ri_Nollaig

Hector Bellend wrote: »

I'm studying for my fourth degree. I dont see anyone sucking my sac.

are you trying to collect them?

Noveight

Fair play to her.

On the mobile so I can’t do too much searching but it’d be interesting to see if her drive for education came from herself or a parent/relative.

whisky_galore

LollipopJimmy wrote: »

100% agree, and to add, traditional traveller culture should be maintained.

Anybody who grew up in the 80's or earlier will probably remember that if you needed a part for a car you went down to the travellers and get it from them. Scrap cars were brought to them and they broke them down to sell parts. Now it's just thievery, I work close to a halting site and even in the heatwave we couldn't leave the front door open because as soon as it's open the feckers run in and wreck the place.

Why should it?

Beating the heads off one another to settle differences?
Sulkies? (glorified animal abuse)
Caravan living?
Moving from place to place with kids only getting scraps of education?

Who wants any of that maintained?

I know other travellers with degrees, masters, a lecturer, another with a PhD. So yeah, fair play to her etc., but they're people and shining a special light on them as if it's an amazing achievement just perpetuates the victim-complex some want to keep.

Signore Fancy Pants

I'll be amazed when they start paying tax, not because one of them got an education.

Hector Bellend

Ri_Nollaig wrote: »

are you trying to collect them?

Thats the general idea of education

whisky_galore

seamus wrote: »

It's not even about "falling in line".

Traveller culture can be maintained, and travellers can thrive, and do so in a way that doesn't bring them into conflict with the rest of society.

There are no barriers to getting an education, making an honest living and paying your taxes while living in a caravan where it's legal and reasonable to do so and in a way that respects the local environment and the local populations. And in a way that respects yourself and your community.

None, whatsoever.

If that's the case, why aren't the rest of them arsed about bettering themselves?

_Brian

Hector Bellend wrote: »

I'm studying for my fourth degree. I dont see anyone sucking my sac.

The fact that your blowing your own trumpet means your sack doesn’t need attention

Signore Fancy Pants

_Brian wrote: »

The fact that your blowing your own trumpet means your sack doesn’t need attention

Beautiful.

That should be on a Hallmark card!

Billy86

Subscribing for absolutely no other reason but to view the saltiness of the usual crowd as they struggle to get the standard digs in wherever they can.

Fair play to her on doing so, and if she goes in to complete that masters she'll officially be better educated than many (probably most) of those same salty f*ckers on here.

seamus

whisky_galore wrote: »

If that's the case, why aren't the rest of them arsed about bettering themselves?

They have an extreme case of the Irish "anti-notions" mindset that vilifies anyone who would dare try to better themselves.

They shun education because that's someone getting notions about being better than other Travellers.

Like most extremely patriarchal cultures, fragile ego is one of the strong pillars and anything which threatens that - including someone being more intelligent than you - is to be regarded as an enemy.

jim salter

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

You have no idea how many already have.

Go on then, tell us how many exactly?

Fiery mutant

Billy86 wrote: »

Subscribing for absolutely no other reason but to view the saltiness of the usual crowd as they struggle to get the standard digs in wherever they can.

Fair play to her on doing so, and if she goes in to complete that masters she'll officially be better educated than many (probably most) of those same salty f*ckers on here.

I don’t think anyone’s being ‘salty’ to be honest. I’m happy for her, she’s done really well, no matter her background. She’s better educated that I am. I hope she has a tremendous future, as her determination and hard work so far deserves.

DavidLyons_

Billy86 wrote: »

Subscribing for absolutely no other reason but to view the saltiness of the usual crowd as they struggle to get the standard digs in wherever they can.

Fair play to her on doing so, and if she goes in to complete that masters she'll officially be better educated than many (probably most) of those same salty f*ckers on here.

Congratulations to her. Fantastic achievement and certainly an example that not all travellers are wrong-uns. Wonderful to see and I wish her every success for the future.

However she is very much in the minority amongst travellers and holding her up as a beacon as to what members of her community can achieve, should they so wish, might be a better tactic for the apologists and defenders of the "lifestyle" rather than using her as a stick to beat those of us who have only ever had predominantly negative experiences with travellers and their "culture".

whisky_galore

seamus wrote: »

They have an extreme case of the Irish "anti-notions" mindset that vilifies anyone who would dare try to better themselves.

They shun education because that's someone getting notions about being better than other Travellers.

Like most extremely patriarchal cultures, fragile ego is one of the strong pillars and anything which threatens that - including someone being more intelligent than you - is to be regarded as an enemy.

That kind of culture can't die out soon enough.

TheBoyFromAus

Hector Bellend wrote: »

Thats the general idea of education

Is it?

suicide_circus

seamus wrote: »

It's not even about "falling in line".

Traveller culture can be maintained, and travellers can thrive, and do so in a way that doesn't bring them into conflict with the rest of society.

There are no barriers to getting an education, making an honest living and paying your taxes while living in a caravan where it's legal and reasonable to do so and in a way that respects the local environment and the local populations. And in a way that respects yourself and your community.

None, whatsoever.

that's presuming that traveller culture starts and ends with living in a caravan. a lot of the stuff that gets bad publicity - aversion to education and paying taxes, fighting and feuding, grabbing and early marriages etc - that's all traveller culture.

TallGlass

There's some people on this site with some very sour fúcking grapes against someone clearly going against the odds in her community and becoming something.


Fair play to her and phek the rest of you be belittling her with 'oh sure I could do that'.

Ri_Nollaig

TheBoyFromAus wrote: »

Is it?

It is for the perpetual student

Church on Tuesday

Billy86 wrote: »

Subscribing for absolutely no other reason but to view the saltiness of the usual crowd as they struggle to get the standard digs in wherever they can.

Fair play to her on doing so, and if she goes in to complete that masters she'll officially be better educated than many (probably most) of those same salty f*ckers on here.

Well in fairness I'm sure the 'usual crowd' have their reasons for being salty towards Travellers. I would have my reasons for sure.

Fair play to her for bettering herself to try and obtain a better existence for herself, it can't have been an easy thing to do in and of itself, but she is certainly in the minority.

Mrs OBumble

jim salter wrote: »

Go on then, tell us how many exactly?

No one knows.

I can name a few who are educated to some extent (ef LC, or an IT course), who have jobs and pay tax. And ya know what? Most people who see them in the street wouldn't even think that that they're Travellers.

jim salter

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

No one knows.

I can name a few who are educated to some extent (ef LC, or an IT course), who have jobs and pay tax. And ya know what? Most people who see them in the street wouldn't even think that that they're Travellers.

So, you made a statement:

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

You have no idea how many already have.

about:

whisky_galore wrote: »

If only enough of them abandoned their outdated lifestyle and fell in with the rest of us.

So the tone of your response implied you knew how many travelers have abandoned their outdated lifestyle and started to live as contributing members of society.

You can name 'a few' who have (some) education and pay tax....out of approx 30,000? Why? To what end?

The fact of the matter is that a large majority of travelers are involved in criminality (which is borne out by the disproportionate statistics from the prison service statistics) and when 'a few' contribute by 'paying tax' we should all give them a pat on the head and say 'well done'? I think not. I say well done to the individual, like I would any other individual that succeeds but to try ingratiate the whole 'ethnic minority' due the achievement of less then 0.001% is either naive or agenda driven...(that is of course, in my opinion)

Yer Da sells Avon

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

Well in fairness I'm sure the 'usual crowd' have their reasons for being salty towards Travellers.

A desire to punch downwards usually. If it wasn't Travellers, they'd be angry with some other marginalised group. It's particularly depressing that they feel the need to use a 'good news story' as an excuse to have a go.

freshpopcorn

Back in the mid 2000's traveller women started picking up jobs locally in supermarkets/cleaners/hair and beauty.(In my area) one even started up her own business.. However programs such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and things started to slow a bit in my experience.
Another issue is people like John Connors who continue to play the victim card.
They need more role models like this woman and not like John Connors!

Calhoun

Well done to her, particularly hard to do in a culture that is very mysogynistic.

Hopefully she goes on and does some good things with it.

Church on Tuesday

Hapax Legomenon wrote: »

A desire to punch downwards usually. If it wasn't Travellers, they'd be angry with some other marginalised group. It's particularly depressing that they feel the need to use a 'good news story' as an excuse to have a go.

Is it not the case that Travellers effectivley marginalise themselves? I mean, they basically refuse to integrate themselves into the wider community and are quite hostile to said community at times. Any help the state or the wider community provides most (not all) throw it back at their faces.

Sure there is a certain stigma attached to members of the Travelling community that actually want a better life for themselves, but it's not as if Travellers are refugees rotting in direct provision centers.

mvl

jim salter wrote: »

So, you made a statement:

about:


So the tone of your response implied you knew how many travelers have abandoned their outdated lifestyle and started to live as contributing members of society.

You can name 'a few' who have (some) education and pay tax....out of approx 30,000? Why? To what end?

The fact of the matter is that a large majority of travelers are involved in criminality (which is borne out by the disproportionate statistics from the prison service statistics) and when 'a few' contribute by 'paying tax' we should all give them a pat on the head and say 'well done'? I think not. I say well done to the individual, like I would any other individual that succeeds but to try ingratiate the whole 'ethnic minority' due the achievement of less then 0.001% is either naive or agenda driven...(that is of course, in my opinion)

c'mon guys, CSO has the numbers for 2016 (as I posted these in other thread last week)
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8itseah/

- 167 Irish Travellers held a third level qualification in 2016, albeit up from 89 in 2011.
- There were 10,653 Travellers in the labour force in 2016 and of these 8,541 were unemployed, giving an unemployment rate of 80.2 per cent. 2,112 persons were at work in 2016.

Situation looks very bad on paper: so they may need more time to improve with current strategy, or the government needs to change strategy.
But the government needs to continue investing in positive action (positive action is a range of measures which can be lawfully taken to encourage and train people from under-represented groups to help them overcome disadvantages in competing with other applicants.)


- Glad to observe the comments quality on this thread, by comparison to other thread where similar subject was brought up.

colm_mcm

mvl wrote: »

- There were 10,653 Travellers in the labour force in 2016 and of these 8,541 were unemployed, giving an unemployment rate of 80.2 per cent. 2,112 persons were at work in 2016.

There are approx 30,000 travellers in Ireland though. If there are 10653 in the labour force, how can 8541 be unemployed? Sorry, I’m not up to speed on the terminology - does that mean 10653 are of working age and able to work?

Wheeliebin30

Disadvantaged?

Sick of hearing this.

Everyone has the same opportunities in this country with regard education.

SEPT 23 1989

Unemployment rate of 82%

BarryD2

seamus wrote: »

There are no barriers to getting an education, making an honest living and paying your taxes while living in a caravan where it's legal and reasonable to do so and in a way that respects the local environment and the local populations.

True, but how many live like this in practice?

I'm sympathetic in principle to travellers but many of them do themselves no favours whatsoever.

How to differentiate the genuine among them is the problem.

Sleeper12

seamus wrote:

There are no barriers to getting an education, making an honest living and paying your taxes while living in a caravan where it's legal and reasonable to do so and in a way that respects the local environment and the local populations. And in a way that respects yourself and your community.

But there are many barriers to getting an education for travellers. The biggest obstacle can be the child's family themselves. Father and fathers father didn't go to school. Had no need for it so there's no encouragement for the child to go to school. Now you can blame who you want & the parents are the obvious target here but it's definitely not the child's fault. Therefore there ARE barriers to getting an education. The barrier may be the parents in some cases but barriers there are.

It's not just travellers that have the same barriers. Many settled children with deprived backgrounds suffer in the same way

I wouldn't have spent a second in school if I wasn't encouraged & at times forced to go.

mikeecho

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Unemployment rate of 82%

by choice

r93kaey5p2izun

Fair play to this girl. I hope she continues her success. I know several Traveller girls who have gone on to university but not all of them would acknowledge that they are Travellers. I think there's probably many like them.

I grew up with Traveller next door neighbours on both sides and many other Traveller families on my road. They were some of the nicer people in the area. All the girls my age finished school then and went on to work, mostly in childcare. Unfortunately I see a backwards trend among them lately. Nearly all the girls in their teens now have left school early and are doing nothing.

Peatys

Hector Bellend wrote: »

Thats the general idea of education

To collect degrees??

Stick at what you're good at I suppose!!

Iwouldinmesack

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

Disadvantaged?

Sick of hearing this.

Everyone has the same opportunities in this country with regard education.

Really? Deaf people dont. Cant even get an education in our own language. Instead educated in a spoken language that we cant hear, yet are expected to understand? That not count as a disadvantage to you ?

freshpopcorn

I know sometimes people say we all have the same access to education etc.
However if you grow up in a house and education is constantly talked down.
You receive no support/help.
Uniforms/books/etc can be other issues.
A lot of things build up and it's understandable how some people can get lost.
I have heard of kids under the age of twelve being involved in burglaries. It must be very hard for these kids to pull away from activities when they are actively bring encouraged at home.

DavidLyons_

Iwouldinmesack wrote: »

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

Disadvantaged?

Sick of hearing this.

Everyone has the same opportunities in this country with regard education.

Really? Deaf people dont. Cant even get an education in our own language. Instead educated in a spoken language that we cant hear, yet are expected to understand? That not count as a disadvantage to you ?

Yes that's really deliberately misinterpreting the point. Wheeliebin30's very valid point is that settled or traveller, everyone has the same opportunities. Deaf settled people and deaf travellers have the same opportunities.

Sleeper12

DavidLyons_ wrote:

Yes that's really deliberately misinterpreting the point. Wheeliebin30's very valid point is that settled or traveller, everyone has the same opportunities. Deaf settled people and deaf travellers have the same opportunities.

That's simply not true. Not all children have the same opportunity for education in Ireland. As I pointed out before a child whose parents don't care if he goes to school or not or maybe kept home to mind the babies does not have the same opportunity as a child with supportive, encouraging parents.

Please explain how both sets of children have the same opportunity?

Iwouldinmesack

DavidLyons_ wrote: »

Yes that's really deliberately misinterpreting the point. Wheeliebin30's very valid point is that settled or traveller, everyone has the same opportunities. Deaf settled people and deaf travellers have the same opportunities.

Eh not really, we have limited opportunities. You dont know the first thing about the Deaf community irregardless of being a settled person or a traveller if you think that we have the same opportunities as hearing people in this country.

Sleeper12

SEPT 23 1989 wrote:

Unemployment rate of 82%

That 18% must feel pretty ****ty getting labeled with the rest by a large portion of the population

mikemac2

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Another issue is people like John Connors who continue to play the victim card.

Connors is quite open that he dropped out of school due to peer pressure and most of his age group had already left. It's not unusual, easily understood

then blames the State for everything!

DavidLyons_

Sleeper12 wrote: »

DavidLyons_ wrote:

Yes that's really deliberately misinterpreting the point. Wheeliebin30's very valid point is that settled or traveller, everyone has the same opportunities. Deaf settled people and deaf travellers have the same opportunities.

That's simply not true. Not all children have the same opportunity for education in Ireland. As I pointed out before a child whose parents don't care if he goes to school or not or maybe kept home to mind the babies does not have the same opportunity as a child with supportive, encouraging parents.

Please explain how both sets of children have the same opportunity?

What a terrible analogy. The "opportunities" exist for both.

I do agree however that there is a disparity in opportunity between fee paying schools and the rest. But your chances to succeed are still there. You just may find it a little more difficult to achieve the same goals.

The opportunities remain present however.

Sleeper12

DavidLyons_ wrote:

What a terrible analogy. The "opportunities" exist for both.

There are not equal opportunities for all children as far as education is concerned.

There might be equal opportunities for all parents as far as education is concerned but they are totally different things.

Children have no control over their education so they don't have equal opportunities. Blame their parents if you want but you can't claim all children have the same opportunity.

Children with good parents have much better opportunity in education than children with bad parents. Again there is definitely not equal opportunity for kids in education