John Connors: The Travellers

Junkyard Tom · 29-09-2016 01:14AM

Travellers are kinda like Ireland's version of Native Americans. Modern western life just isn't compatible with nomadism.

Arsemageddon · 29-09-2016 01:17AM

toptom wrote: »

I didn't get any compensation when the chainsaw, lawnmower, saws and tools vanished from the shed.

So because some stuff was robbed from your shed there shouldn't be any programmes about travellers on RTE?

I think most people would agree there is a bit of a difference between petty theft and the systematic sexual exploitation of a child in a state run institution.

feargale · 29-09-2016 01:20AM

toptom wrote: »

But it is. its glorifying them. We all had it hard in the past, Why single out them to try bring pity on

I don't know how hard you had it, but let me tell you some things I witnessed as a kid in the fifties:
1. A traveller woman going into labour in a field at the side of the road.
2. A traveller kid aged six or seven playing with other traveller kids in a dump, without a trousers, his genitals exposed to the world.
3. Two travellers came to my rural parish to do a few weeks' work for a farmer. They caused no trouble during the time of the work. The day the work was done they did some drinking and walked up the street shouting angrily, I would think because they were shortchanged in their pay. Two guards arrested them and while they were being walked to the garda station one of them queried the arrest on two or three occasions, and on each such occasion was beaten severely with a baton. Later that evening I heard very distressed crying coming from the garda station. I was about a quarter of a mile away from the station at the time.

I have no wish to condone criminality by travellers. But boards.ie typically sets out the case in black and white. If you look at the Australian aborigines you will see a very similar pattern, a people virtually destroyed by abuses such as families broken up, children forcefully taken from their families etc. resulting today in communities plagued by alcoholism and criminality. You see a bit of that in Ireland's settled community too. I bet that every drug dealer in Dublin had a grandfather coming out of a factory on Friday with a pay packet. Machines and neoliberal economics rendered them no longer useful. And those who invented the machines weren't quite as inventive socially. I've heard a big employer say - leave them redundant, more trouble than they're worth, and give them some money to keep them out of trouble. Nothing about self esteem there.

BlaasForRafa · 29-09-2016 01:25AM

Arsemageddon wrote: »

Yes indeed Tom, how dare any one ever mention that it was state policy to forcibly remove traveller children frm their families and put them in reformatories and industrial schools for no good reason..

No good reason? Perhaps they were taken for reasons of poor health or neglect or doesn't that fit with your world view.

I assume you'll probably blame settled people for the high child mortality rate among traveller children and the higher rates of still births among traveller women http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=19721

ChunkyLover54 · 29-09-2016 01:56AM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Travellers are kinda like Ireland's version of Native Americans.

No, that's not really an accurate comparison.

Arsemageddon · 29-09-2016 01:57AM

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

No good reason? Perhaps they were taken for reasons of poor health or neglect or doesn't that fit with your world view.

Actually, they were taken into care because the 1963 Commission on Itinerancy recommended that the best way to deal with travellers was to force them to assimilate. Part of that policy was to take traveller children from their families and place them into state run homes.

I assume you'll probably blame settled people for the high child mortality rate among traveller children and the higher rates of still births among traveller women http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=19721

Why would you assume that?

darkpagandeath · 29-09-2016 01:57AM

ChunkyLover54 wrote: »

No, that's not really an accurate comparison.

Aye the whole pox blankest and all that.

darkpagandeath · 29-09-2016 01:58AM

Arsemageddon wrote: »

Actually, they were taken into care because the 1963 Commission on Itinerancy recommended that the best way to deal with travellers was to force them to assimilate. Part of that policy was to take traveller children from their families and place them into state run homes.

Why would you assume that?

Fair point, But why do the act the same in every country ?

Junkyard Tom · 29-09-2016 02:02AM

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

No good reason? Perhaps they were taken for reasons of poor health or neglect or doesn't that fit with your world view.

It was 'worldview' that probably contributed to them being incarcerated. The savages needed civilising and nothing like kidnapping, beating, and abuse, of the less civilised proves the superior values of the civilised.

Arsemageddon · 29-09-2016 02:06AM

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Fair point, But why do the act the same in every country ?

I dunno, I'm not the official spokesman.

This thread was about a pretty straight forward topic - whether any boardsies had watched a programme on RTE about travellers. Turns out next to no one here has, but yet they felt the need to post in the thread anyway.

I found the actual programme a bit disjointed, the first part was about their oral tradition, folklore, language, etc. The second part about the Commission on Itinerancy and institutional abuse was just skimmed over. I think this should have been dealt with in more detail (it probably warranted a programme on its own)

mickdw · 29-09-2016 02:10AM

Jesus that Connor chap is an obnoxious clown.
His character on love hate was a pipe bomb maker and murderer but it says alot that the character was far more likeable that the man himself who from all of his media outings appears to be completely blind to any wrong doing on the side of travellers and seems to believe that the state owes them all a living.

darkpagandeath · 29-09-2016 02:11AM

Arsemageddon wrote: »

I dunno, I'm not the official spokesman.

This thread was about a pretty straight forward topic - whether any boardsies had watched a programme on RTE about travellers. Turns out next to no one here has, but yet they felt the need to post in the thread anyway.

You blamed them being taken into care here, They act the same in the UK, The EU and Aus. it cant be just the taken into care in Ireland. The abuse is shocking I agree. Every country they claim welfare and live beyond those means basic stuff needs to be answered why. If they are born in the UK they are a separate race afforded what everyone else is yet act the same as they do in Ireland.

Donald Trump · 29-09-2016 02:25AM

The Honey Monster wrote: »

John Connors: Time Traveller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TakfNbFuNA

Donald Trump · 29-09-2016 02:33AM

Did the programme cover some of their major contributions to culture and heritage, especially music?

I mean, who among us has not enjoyed:
"The hoor among the nettles roaring"
"The mangled badger"
"The cow that ate me mother's shawl"
"Mammy's horse is after dying"

29-09-2016 06:28AM

toptom wrote: »

I didn't get any compensation when the chainsaw, lawnmower, saws and tools vanished from the shed.

Not sure I get the point you make.

Are you against the concept of redress for victims of institutional abuse because of the wrong done to you?

Or again the idea that travellers should be entitled to it as you blame them for the theft from you?

Or do you think the State should compensate victims of all crimes, including theft of gardening tools?

nullzero · 29-09-2016 07:19AM

feargale wrote: »

I don't know how hard you had it, but let me tell you some things I witnessed as a kid in the fifties:
1. A traveller woman going into labour in a field at the side of the road.
2. A traveller kid aged six or seven playing with other traveller kids in a dump, without a trousers, his genitals exposed to the world.
3. Two travellers came to my rural parish to work for a farmer. They caused no trouble during the time of the work. The day the work was done they did some drinking and walked up the street shouting angrily, I would think because they were shortchanged in their pay. Two guards arrested them and while they were being walked to the garda station one of them queried the arrest on two or three occasions, and on each such occasion was beaten severely with a baton. Later that evening I heard very distressed crying coming from the garda station.

I have no wish to condone criminality by travellers. But boards.ie typically sets out the case in black and white. If you look at the Australian aborigines you will see a very similar pattern, a people virtually destroyed by abuses such as families broken up, children forcefully taken from their families etc. resulting today in communities plagued by alcoholism and criminality. You see a bit of that in Ireland's settled community too. I bet that every drug dealer in Dublin had a grandfather coming out of a factory on Friday with a pay packet. Machines and neoliberal economics rendered them no longer useful. And those who invented the machines weren't quite as inventive socially. I've heard a big employer say - leave them redundant, more trouble than they're worth, and give them some money to keep them out of trouble. Nothing about self esteem there.

The relevance of anecdotes from the 1950's in relation to the behaviour of modern travellers is questionable.
As a society at that point in out history we brutalised vast swathes of our people be they travellers or not, usually due to being instructed to do so by the church.

As for the travellers being stuck in a vicious circle of discrimination leading to criminality there is some validity to that argument but it also has to be understood that a lot of travellers do not view assimilation into society as desirable. Living outside the law has become extremely profitable and where travellers were once dishevelled and impoverished they are now well dressed carrying large amounts of cash and driving brand new expensive cars. How they afford their lifestyle is a whole other discussion or at least post that I'm not going to get into now.

29-09-2016 07:32AM

nullzero wrote: »

As for the travellers being stuck in a vicious circle of discrimination leading to criminality there is some validity to that argument but it also has to be understood that a lot of travellers do not view assimilation into society as desirable...

And that's perfectly understandable.

It's almost 100 years since the USA dropped the policy of assimilating Native Americans.

largepants · 29-09-2016 07:53AM

The footage of the County Council Official really opened my eyes when he spoke of educating the traveller children to get rid of itinerants for good. I'm paraphrasing there but it's along those lines.

What a despicable thing to say.

GerryDerpy · 29-09-2016 08:22AM

Meh, having worked in retail for numerous years I have no real grá for travellers. The majority of shoplifters were members of their community, says a lot.

The_Captain · 29-09-2016 08:34AM

Everyone in Ireland just has a very specific type of racism where we accept Africans, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Muslims, people from all backgrounds, nations and cultures, but we're racist against the white Irish travelling community who never do anything wrong ever.

whisky_galore · 29-09-2016 08:38AM

feargale wrote: »

I don't know how hard you had it, but let me tell you some things I witnessed as a kid in the fifties:

The 50's were a right barrel of laughs for everyone below a certain strata of society.

We're in the 21st century now and there should be no excuse to continue to wallow in an outdated sub-culture. The days of mending pots and pans are gone, what's left...selling cheap knock offs of questionable origin up and down the country/tarmac 'work'/gathering scrap metal? If you want your kids to get any sort of reasonable education and have any chance of progressing you should stay bloody put.

iriship · 29-09-2016 08:44AM

laugh wrote: »

Anybody watching this?

Doesn't seem to be much balance in this analysis of the travelling community.

Yes, we would need more programmes like this, to get a Balance view of a suppressed people. Well done RTE

iriship · 29-09-2016 08:58AM

toptom wrote: »

But it is. its glorifying them. We all had it hard in the past, Why single out them to try bring pity on

I was home birth in 1960's in poverty Ireland. We had it hard. But it was much harder for travellers. I'm 56 most of my family (older than me) is still alive. I known that is the opposite for travellers.

bucketybuck · 29-09-2016 09:13AM

largepants wrote: »

The footage of the County Council Official really opened my eyes when he spoke of educating the traveller children to get rid of itinerants for good. I'm paraphrasing there but it's along those lines.

What a despicable thing to say.

Educating people to stop them becoming itinerants? How awful.

Willfarman · 29-09-2016 09:13AM

iriship wrote: »

Yes, we would need more programmes like this, to get a Balance view of a suppressed people. Well done RTE

It had potential to be a very good programme but it was actually ust a soapbox for a very aggressive intimidating chap to beat the discrimination drum again and Joe public is never going to buy that in this day and age.

However a programme about the life and times of the travellers in the first half of the last century would have marvellous. The countryside was alive with people with and little subsistence to keep them.

Characters and stories abound with our older generation about the tinkers. The tramps. The poor cottagers.

29-09-2016 09:23AM

bucketybuck wrote: »

Educating people to stop them becoming itinerants? How awful.

I would have thought the proposition in other countries that we should "educate people to stop them becoming Native Americans" or "educate people to stop them becoming Indigenous Australian" would be thought of as backwards and abhorrent.

Of course education of itself is welcome. But to suggest that it be done to purge them of their identity?

Benbecul97 · 29-09-2016 09:36AM

The_Captain wrote: »

Everyone in Ireland just has a very specific type of racism where we accept Africans, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Muslims, people from all backgrounds, nations and cultures, but we're racist against the white Irish travelling community who never do anything wrong ever.

There's a sweeping statement!! Are you having a laugh?? :O

Mena Mitty · 29-09-2016 09:52AM

I enjoyed the programme but I would have much preferred to listen to the older generation travellers doing the talking and telling their stories. It was lovely to listen to them talk about the old times.

Wibbs · 29-09-2016 10:08AM

foggy_lad wrote: »

+1

Considering they rarely drink and most don't smoke and their lifestyle would work out cheaper than many settled families they could well afford to save up for a car and insurance etc while on the dole or working wherever they can get some work.

Hahahahahaha… oh wait…. you're being serious? Or working for Pavee Point, or naive?

For a start they smoke more than the Irish baseline and while their reported drinking rates are lower, particular among women, they're hardly teetotallers, so that's a load of my hirsute bottom. New cars and insurance and tax on the dole? That's just the cars BTW. I'd bloody love to know how.

JeffK88 · 29-09-2016 10:16AM

The media obsession continues. Im just waiting for the group Traveller lives matter to be set up.

John Connors: The Travellers

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