Given that the Traveller thread has been locked,even though mods conceeded it contained sustainable debate,perhaps it is worth continuing with a subsidiary issue raised here by MadSl
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85128697&postcount=337
I was intrigued by the opinion expressed here...
I lived in Smithfield, quite a few travellers used to show up there once a month for the horsefair. Never had a problem with them, but witnessed the frankly disgraceful and hostile attitudes of local businesses to them.
It is not specifically Traveller related,but nonetheless I would suggest that Local Business people may well have had perfectly valid justification for those hostile attitudes...
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/three-hurt-in-shootout-at-smithfield-horse-fair-26715372.html
Even just looking at the slashook being carried in the picture atop this article makes me feel uneasy ....
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1217/359386-teenager-jailed-over-smithfield-horse-fair-shots/
Whilst it is sublimely easy to target Business Folk for exhibiting "disgraceful hostility",are those same business people and their customers expected to accept Slashooks,Webley Pistols and Home Made Shotguns as acceptable in and about their premises...?
With the airwaves being full of accounts (some quite hair-raising) of savagery and madness during the recent good-weather,is it worth askin if extreme behaviour now has to be accepted simply to prove a level of refinement and understanding