Traveller Women Telling It Straight

during the lives of four generations of traveller women favor means to be a lot of love I will not carry that burden water no matter who you are you're respected finding out more about their take on tradition I needed to be father and lover as well support them bereaved or batteries to support them celebrating their community's unique contribution to Irish society and examining further their diverse visions for the future as grown up we were living in a trailer pathan has been dirt just what an important Tim today look I'm a traveler not a knocker the ones actually calling it like art ones are score facts in grains discrimination the Irish traveling community forms a rich tapestry of centuries-old traditions passed down from generation to generation never forget your old family that like now just could over to what we couldn't do it you want we're on the roads we'll stick to the roads a unique and cherished way of life it has lasted the test of time with women and family during an important and prominent rule why fast on water she is not 12 relationships air control only he's going to make sure I Travers in with the sad people from surly nomadic times to the increasingly settled community of today women continue to be the positive Center to daily life the caregiver and the matriarch were second cousins and my mother and he's fatter were related and we know each other like the families know each other for years I looked after the children which is an important role my husband was the person who supported the family and worked very hard and ward is one of the elders of the traveling community she is an honorable and a very religious woman who remembers fondly the carefree days on the road everybody was sheltered and had your shoes and I will never doubt rolls of food or editing the pies plain partials cats Ellen look eight explorers are staring at the fireside let me peek open fire very one of my mother you'll to be sisters put a big pot down and dinner either by Joan was it a committee and then I stopped going away from parents from different places everyone family I oughta made my husband want to go around him for over forty years together honey died I will have a mouse about a nine years bar better tormented I was with a vet read Tim titles of world travel ladies help while another did me for editing like so many Anne has lived through the changes and upheaval in traveling society her heart weighs heavy at the negativity shown towards the community and the channeled vision which exists in wider culture it take back a bit the good days we had when we were you and a look at the photographs the court you should never be changed I responded out of hand the business a lot of the world was cut off by taken away from the word apollyon were to want st. Joseph's Community Center in Ennis County Care offers respite for an it has proven a place of security and comfort for her and offered a new outlook for the future with predominantly traveler women attending the center it is a home from home a safe haven and means of social inclusion you the Royal strangers when I come in here biased and back there let's have a cup of tea and have our joke what I met friends out here and I enjoy to come out here it was very very happy time for me no buses no one to give out here when the articles mine for am life on the road in the busy process of raising a family although freeing and profoundly positive has meant that education was less of a priority in her younger days moving to Claire from Galway to be nearer family she is now attending class to learn how to read I don't bother I never learned how to breathe uh right when I was younger we got you up Jonah dip doughnut what I drew big his load should be able to do a little poem that you hear miss dope owns beer all grandeur and and the position was coming up it'll come around as Eric Randy you know how to do this familiar do this and when you're not him too unfortunately however facing cutbacks the center is closing down and an is left with an uncertain future in terms of progressing in her learning I will have miss central since don't know real arrival donor power sword oh no no no press when you can now engage by I have the last Emporia for your course design hundred sixty five when I work all over the halo unlike Han Siobhan has never known anything except life as a settled traveler living in Clondalkin Dublin her family situation is unique the traditions and values placed on her as a woman or something she places huge importance in maintaining into the future my dad's full traveler always first identity on the England Aachen where and one life force sent it is my fourth cousin so he's a full traveler like my foster mother she is not well very she's just a crunch woman trying to make sure I travelers in with the sad people like their country people like she was like it's alright like which one is part of a sciatic she is like your country graduated like she want to be able to travel I was trying to want to be with a country girl like we're like it's today like a lot of boys are marrying into punch cards no harm and it's just once the happy they should be left aware of everything like since they want like where like I'm 18 now so if I ask can I have a boyfriend I don't know if I bit more likely I probably would be because I'm trusted where if I wasn't sure still wouldn't be allowed so and yeah if I young still have a boyfriend I'm 18 years of age now think like if I wanted one now probably what it feels enough for my father I don't have to probably see who he is is he re for me and was Connie's background like and she couldn't offer me as well and no things like that like is he ready to settle down for marriage and all as well obviously like they can't stop me from getting married like if I love somebody bought the end of the date or if give me a voice I've always made my mind up I always like still want to be Cinderella they like giving massive dress and everything I think every traveler great one sir big day before the end today I don't think it's I'm ready for marriage now like I'm when you've gone 18 years of age and I don't think I'm ready for you I'm probably not when I'm 90 and it's just when I'm ready I'm ready to get married in the day like no one forced me to get married my god will be call um protected over all these girls like you want to go after the sim and all that like obviously like a love defense call for herself because why was gonna call for herself when we allowed that like her sister so which area mom is which air or whatever growing up for Shivan was a tough experience in many ways with not only the typical traumas of teenage life to contend with but the added stereotyping which was prominent in her formative years the happiest day was when I finished me a second just killin deciders days when I went there because I just I thought first year was already in second year the second year was quite a bit stressful because going into torture for your geosearch have to get ready and I have to pass all the exams and would you interfere well when I got five owners and five passes then I am cause I'm a travelers where we went down and got our travelers reward in d c-- santa by the Lord Mayor of Dublin he handed me a medal and got pictures with Jimmy jr. Nana went on like if I really like wanted to leave at war jokes and all our travel grants their stay at home and cook and clean or whatever I could have ever wanted table I didn't want to leave what so today for it to be a home so I'm basically clean and after all reporters and sisters not where I wanted to go on India for education going to fifty to sixty eighty million to excuse our relations a bit tough like one story to do your call knockers and all up or sure let them get immediately to neighbor choice didn't even know the meaning is it so many command excited here like should be an a curse on well I'll be like I'm not knocking like you don't want to mean and is I would get offended works in the day like I'm a traveler not a knocker the ones actually calling it like earned one Center score frogs like it's just thinking oversee the boys like I don't know what it is like and it's like always call knackers and like we have it like a language as well as called the and fein and bureau and all that like train ourselves we are likely to be all like case Oobleck and hey view over all in black way talking enough where you're not a traveler where you don't think about the actually I'm a trying to make a showy I'm mocking it in our where I don't go and talk like that's the way today there are not Traverse boy you want the most want to be a charters are talking like it I think it's very stressful for young travelers not just travel grades as well if you sell people as well do going to scale if they mix with the travelers always talking to a set of girl as well you might get one or two like audio when there are more schemas the eyes are like screaming across each other one is smelling a Korean elbow actually talking to the friends below canals facing her 18th birthday shevawn is positive that you will be able to combine potential family life with a career in fashion encourage that Ireland's attitude towards the community is slowly changing all our young girls they're like my sister was the force stronger through I'll even sir God my family is right behind me and they're all very proud of me because like I'm going to college and put my head down I think there's more life to marriage like and yeah like where muta sisters dear said like one is getting married here she doesn't want to go on to college what they want to do in life if they want to go and get married and be happy or if they want to go to college and be happy it's up to them everyone is different well I think in if young girls are in school now were appointed leaving skills towards you and regretted not do 50 and 60 this isn't a lot more to life elderly you doooooo have a dream you'll follow it do you think you can go far and try your best no matter who you are you're respected when my husband died it was a nightmare your dreams is our challenge you the traveling community has maintained a rich heritage of music and storytelling although very little has ever been physically archived or written down music and folklore are at the heart of what many communities across Ireland are extremely proud this art and freedom of expression has been intrinsic to the Kenan sisters Mary Frances and Kathleen our third generation of traveller women who have been surrounded by song since they were little as an airy school leaver I left school of 14 Waterford I said I'm single for katalk Wallis and you know I'd always had an interest in music even when I was younger any song that I'd hear when it had that picked up straightaway they always had music on the radio and safer woman often journeys it always have it on there as well and I was singing along Mary Frances younger sister Kathleen is more timid about her talents facing her 21st year she is at a crossroads in terms of the next steps that she would like to take when I started singing with music I was on my own I started off and just saying musics a big part of our lives so my grandfather and my uncles aunts like sing on both sides if I'm think of something and it just gets my head I just end up singing a song it all goes away just noticing I clean around place like sing away I was singing at altar like that it was a half a song just for the sake of getting things don't like and just I passed the time we're singing a song wait yourself something I loved only dream of making a career singing there's something to look into like was like oh god someday you don't know say me married made up and we go off for me do God practice with the music and act like and I'll go to three times a week and the reorder did on clean and kopano as Kathleen's birthday approaches the sisters are also preparing for a celebration to mark her 21 years planning to both perform for family as a local function hall located outside Ennis Marian Davy and myself we usually like sing together say two of us like me and Mary say kind of I was tossing away a tiger chatters well Ryan a close little sister's night tell our team sheet has meetings it's no more more closer than like best friends like elder and sisters it was nice with me like everyone has their own everyone is just normal who they are like to just traveler none traveler but from every point of view no matter who you are you're respected and if you're a singer it's a talent you have all your donors trying to sing so it doesn't matter who you are a traveler none traveler my experience I know a lot of people Travers and on travels and today a appreciate music and I appreciate them because I know the respect I get from the muscle you're onstage and sing it to microphone I just wanna leave it and then you have to leave them is like leaving something behind you months behind a microphone was good music idea and just and just hope for the best that you want sounds wrong do you if you have a dream you'll follow it and it was a matter what way it go if you if you think you can go far you try your best family is an important theme across all sectors at the traveling tradition it is common for girls to marry young and for their partner to be selected for them my name is Anne Marie Stopes I live in the east side of Galway I'm a mother of three children and I work in car with Trevor movement really were dealing with traveller issues on a day-to-day basis and the problems that the traveller community encounter through ads to the wider community the said community we try to highlight the good things about the Trevor culture and about traveller people and that they're just the same as everybody else just that they have a particular way of living in a particular culture that we kind of adhere to traditions that have been handed down through generations generations and the family is very important to us and that you know our world warrant revolves around our family unlike Kathleen anne-marie married young and followed the traditional path which many women follow I just dreamed of staying at home and getting married meeting someone nice and getting married and having a family my husband was the person who supported the family and worked very hard and I I just look I looked after the children which is an important role and she supported my husband in every way that I quote and but I suppose I depended a lot on my husband and he take the lead role in decisions and so on and so forth but I suppose that's not that it's it the same for everyone in our culture it's just me as a person my personality was to let my husband kind of have you know the final say in different things but of course like we any decisions that were made there were made between us but I offered when he took their leading role and everything when my husband died it was a very very hard and difficult time there was a nightmare and I suppose your life was completely falls apart and the things that you hope for your life to to be or your dreams is all shattered and I suppose at that time I didn't know how I'd ever come out of this I I had to find strength and I suppose true family and friends and my my faith and a lot of good people in language helped me I suppose find the strength to carry on her husband was a wonderful man and a very good fetter and a very good provider it's all I was my Julie to kind of I felt it was my duty to him to provide for the children in the way that he did I didn't want my children to feel that all like we were really badly off or were really poor because there's no afetr in the house for to do anything for us I always felt like that was a responsibility that I had and I just I just wanted my my children to feel like that they had everything they needed I think 18 is just another age like we're I think 18 is kind of like righty now like it knows if your own boss but you're 18 you're an animal you should be treated like one when finished care I'm going to go on to the for education and not like every girl that's a chance in life depends what you play for how much once as well like a Marie Siobhan is hopeful of continuing her studies she is proud of her traveller roots yet struggles with some of the traditions I'm not gonna risk my life for a knock off your home clean and I'm quick on like like I could open tomorrow no clean up stairs and then that's it then it's dinnertime combs around 4 o'clock garden everything up like beyond help it's got it's not just me because I'm 18 and how everyone wish they start to look after them because I'm a traveler traveler girls out there give us at home and let you clean 24/7 and coconut know like we all had bill together like my mother does the cook and we help her obviously shouldn't do by herself because I wasn't off the helping cook and clean please point being alive you're just gonna be sitting I was 24/7 like wasting it and just cooking it clean and and all that we're out there they can do so much I like sitting around right under dull if you're 25 years of aging you're not married like you should be left to be like single and don't have to be married for 25 just goes to a trauma and Oliver no no trouble girls get right on 16 17 18 19 20 and Allah really old boyfriend you should be allowed one and should be trusted likes golf in your handbook most travelers believe and obviously bringing a little brother or sister here with you make sure you don't go to no gold because there's no one coming a boyfriend there and then you know and I want to get married home where if you want to move on to the next boyfriend he's gone place an early with him and in order your fly so obviously you must be a clean DC no one I want to marry so many candies you know we're not never had a boyfriend before flashes way walks another passion fanatic she born is hopeful look receiving a course and design and feels as a traveler background will help her creatively please which is the girlfriend live in Hollywood and Beverly Hills because like fashion styling over there is very very big and famous so that's why it always like today I live over there and hopefully get married and move over there and live in Beverly Hills and be a fashion stylist over here especially going to weddings on the luminous colors like shock and green and yellow like it's my favorite color yellow visible yeah I think that does help me a lot but just look at all the dresses they have when I come to be a fashion stylist I know what to dress my people like and yeah like even a home run like my sisters they're going off places like the ask me to help them out what and what to wear not what to wear it's like it's uncle to voice and opinions and hard you gotta let them grow up making a showroom sounds cool yeah everyone has their own opinions and their own style my style is just know most colors and brokers not really into the dark quarters and all because I think a lot that could actually make you look better than they actually are why is they get married now I'd like him it's in the right address but not too big and some love you have to walk in where I wouldn't make a show meself obviously like I don't think I'm going to get married we'll hopefully yeah well I can't wish that awareness and who's open access for me and I get to know him inaudible obviously I'm not going to get married now I couldn't want to go on 18 I'm sitting on yoga one City fashion dear for a while and then get a job out on see what's like next year and then I get married in two years time I get married people have preconceived ideas about your culture I was growing up we were living in a trailer for I never had a right Estate zone has been dirt you you religion and faith have a huge role to play in the lives of traveller women particularly in the early years with life on the road at times being a tough and intense existence it was faith and belief in spiritual power that kept women strong and focused many women relied solely on their strength and dedication to God to guide them through all the women out of or pass the word to another sick my father was no a supermodel a crusher none of them took their own trouble I don't know fella whatever so for life before she died facing a turning point in her life and relies heavily on her spiritual guides which helped her in her new journeys well I got another we're eligible religion is very good if you have religion of sorry to have bothered that to have been a survivor is a actually future many ways took I are playful developer well a lot of talent a lot of people write a prayer moving to Clare to be close to family has been a huge boost to her and she remembers fondly her time traveling the local roads I wrote down to Ellis percept void my family live early and at the time I was already very much Hospital I kept a look at my daughter further weighing on her mind is the pending closure of st. Joseph's which will shut its doors in a few days a place which Anne has become fond of at present she is uncertain what the future holds it's hopeful that she can continue in education did Christmas a very hard to learn how to root but I felt a bit but the taste of the program open September of ice he would have available well vanilla and I very good as my loss so his memorable appeal in September I'd love the local pollution were cannibals I cannot tackle I will be around for the future but I hope would be better better than that is that several people never change the brutal tent we have a tribe or a method way i'ma travel ever like to say that we don't meddle looking to the future the celebrations began for Kathleen's 21st birthday and the girls prepared to take to the stage music is what keeps the sisters dreaming at a lot of Quadra western singers that I his favorites say Billy Joe Spears still of her sing god rest her and Dolly Parton so there was a mixture of everyone like Denver flat and you could just go on took me much she's been loved supergirl you recently married Mary Frances enjoys performing with family and looks back fondly on her recent wedding day when were second cousins and my mother and he's fatter would be related and we know each other like two families know each other for years and you know what the result is you're just meant to me got engaged to February 14th without marriage on April the 18th them so those lovely it was really a happy atmosphere we're a year planning it and you're kind of getting things together my sister Catherine Marino her she was my maid of honor and sister Hanina and my cousin Catherina and he sister Rosanna they were my bridesman just for all together like it was nice and simple I'm Anika brother he was dead the mini groom along he had to be in there somewhere everyone just couldn't have smiling I couldn't sub-sites my love my jaw was just absolutely ja luck from put none and smiles all day oh no it was great and just looking back and forward tilted and my uncle he was at my wedding my uncle brother and you just miss looking at things like then you just miss people like that being around sad but it turned out a brilliant there it is music that helped Mary Frances connect to people and always had a positive influence on her life she feels less judged and more welcomed for her talents you know you just need that person that one person to give it a boost and to help you get out there and you will with what you really want but if you respect people people respect you missing the music if you respect music and you respect sound it's just natural let's go to Nashville please gosh but it's it's definitely a dream of mine and it's always it always has been and especially when you watch TV you see all these country stars and we just want to you know I want to be like them I want to do with your do I want to be on stage every night of the week please god it is a dream that I want to do I get in front of a microphone I don't want the something and I just you know it's just somewhere you go and you it you don't think of anything we don't think of nothing at all you just think of this is what you want to do growing up Mary Francis sister Kathleen used music as a form of expression and escapism and loves nothing better than performing for family and friends I am a Nizam something I got a family I was close to us so also you never actually a parrot really they come visit and not only and cause of away denied our Tama that all the family comes together say when I was growing up we were living in a trailer for a while and then on the side road which we were told to keep moving on like and so you never had a right place to stay the town has been dirt but they didn't house here like a rant like that you know it's you know he just just pardon it's important yes it was heard like grown-ups a traveler bird and I left school at nearly age where you're home looking after the children and know basic things like you were clean and cook and then about the time we sit down we learn the music and just miss away for a few hours once around stage I love being there it's just he's like getting out there I can always sing and people enjoyable then you touched her heart strength is a common thread amongst traveler women for anne-marie it was the determination to carry on that led her to new opportunities after my husband died it was dead for about four years I had come to the gold traveller movement and I started the program so I still was I suppose they in deep mourning at that time it was kind of compulsory for everybody to at reading and writing and literacy memory all that and at the end of the course you will get a VTech certificate depending on what level you were at I although I hadn't done any exams at school well I hadn't done my junior cert and I had a good standard of reading right and so I went I did level five I I think that's the equivalent of their live in church and I I finished that and I did well in there at the exams I couldn't see the role that I was going to play in my life at that time because I was a widow and I was still grieving and I suppose all this briefing I felt I needed to be father and mother as well and I wanted to support them throughout their batteries to support them anne-marie made the decision to start a journey into education in order to help support her family and now after some initial years of study plans to attend University in the winter term I met good people at the right time and also I had a good family and they were very proud of me foremost in my mind was you know being able to provide a good life for my children and the only way I knew how was to go to university educate myself and then try and get the job I was excited to get the place and to be certain this new chapter in my life bashed I was also a base apprehend and thinking oh god like how will these people react to me like it's nice to him to break the stereotypes that people have out there about travelers and that like we're all very different I suppose were enabled and that's very hard like to go in and you can't be you can't be an individual because people have preconceived ideas about about your culture and which most of them are totally wrong it was a bit daunting Bush I got through I was determined and I stir grass where a driver with nothing I can do but I will not change at Birth watered generations walked upon shadows on her ass you education remains a struggle and battleground in the traveling tradition as the years go by and Marie is active in encouraging younger women not to give up on their studies she understands the hardships that face the traveling community and knows that a lot of willpower and strength is needed on the side of traveler women to ultimately be successful I suppose it's it's important to have a good standard of education it's important you know that that children can read and write well and you know that they're not dependent on anyone for information members of the traveler community come in and they take on jobs government controls and so on and so forth they can really impact on the way this that travelers are viewed the moment we have Trevor barristers and solicitors we have traveler doctors and we even have traveler guards but a lot of those people are afraid to reveal their identity because of being you know kind of treated differently by by people that their workers for those who want to stay on at school and I suppose once University and so on it helps to break the stereotypical view of Traverse and I suppose it also is one of the ways to highlight the issues with regards to discrimination that there is set of people who can have towards travellers there's an awful lot of negative views around travellers and people aren't really willing to give travers a chance automatically they feel like that they would be fired from their job and like that would be it's a worry for a lot of people discouraged by discrimination in the most part it is for many women now the main aim in encouraging the growth of education in the travelling community at large and Murray more than anyone knows that the future can lead in many unknown directions and education will help in weathering the storms I shouldn't have the hide Who I am and if I've got the qualifications and if I know the job the road the job that I want to do if I feel that I'm able to fulfill that role and that I'm responsible in my job I don't think that there should be an issue around me being a traveller but I'm still very much aware that for some people that I that I may have to work well in the future that it will be an issue for them you it is to the future that traveler women now look with limited resources available to the community it will take an even stronger effort and fight to bring about change at the closing day of st. Joseph's Center and is hopeful about the future and the lasting traditions of the traveling community beyond the phone I used to come over here just for have you never done a you had nice people to talk to had nice prints here Faye Copeland ladies there was very very good even to your one than the older ones there's only one or a toy I am the oldest and target people here think a lot of people it will be a sad miss seriously moving for the lights to older women will miss stores and general cuisine over that school and right and then they'll mister was they were coming on a lot as well and it said not as close down general he was here it was parent of in his travelers as the original sense or just he nature's and kids and their mothers and fathers and before them as part of everyone's life have to say the experience has been absolutely amazing I've sort of met some of the most fabulous people women desh have always put their families first and will always continue to put their families first book have given themselves a little bit of time to come out of the house and come into education and do something for themselves once people have walked in the door here and see what's happening I think attitudes and views changed and it's about an openness about an understanding and about a willingness to to see a change the lucky owner here when a lady in the back corner he'll pay for an hour - apparently with some hype for their two days a week I come to take the opportunity to get out and about to meet my own kind of people my own age and talk aside from education it is the fight against discrimination which will be the main objective of the movement and women at large rosalie met Donna knows better than most about discrimination from both within and outside her community and esteemed expert in gender issues and the traveler cause she is divided on the success which the movement will face and has had to battle a number of different hurdles both personally and socially I am terrified of Rosetta member I will open them I experience physical violence and sexual violence from seven women so I carried out with me as a mascot and there has been at least seven eight generations where people just feel walked upon Channahon harassed when her valued I raised out of the landscape in school cover not mentioned anywhere if you look at last five generations who have done their live insert and you ask them was there a traveler in your town another would find it very hard that they all may be able to hope their primary school level up to noon or so women really really isolated in terms of how we have engaged with certain people all that stuff in the bus being oppressed and remember our oppressed for three or four generations last man offenses that in public manifestations of anti-social behavior and it's usually women's group and pull them away from that so that they look there's a different way of managing so I think is very simplistic it's your own fault just yet open their stuff I could say that I was sets and women's about poor women I would say it was the same of women's history is shown for any women particular ethnic minority women you have to work three times harder in education and one third of that struggle is wearing your own son and the rest is method racism which we're a Trevor there's nothing I can do about it I will not share yes Burton ordered and that I would like to do what you say he's still a tracker I just hope that like people would accept me for who I am and not be looking at the label or ingrained discrimination thing that they have in their mind he for the only here like wake up I realized we're just human beings is because like our name is travelers not a citizen may like where this we different like different people some people didn't sure let's don't put them down as like dorton Allah because he live in a trailer acceptance and tolerance of the words that echo most in these woman's thoughts in a modern Ireland these women are hopeful that the future will open its arms to the rich traveling traditions before they are lost to history and whispers of the past we bought the school like there will be a lot of kids that prepare like you're a traveler they wouldn't understand but they didn't didn't furnish with just different ways just to where we had our cultures and they had theirs but hurtin that we're all the same do you think there is a place for our culture we are who we are and the things that we've done traditionally for 400 years that's still important to a lot of people things are changing and I think there's a lot of things that the traveller community will always hold on to have a travel moment and that's what it ought to be paved away you

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Length: 43min 59sec (2639 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2013