Sabina speaks at the 20th anniversary of the Offaly Traveller Movement
Tullamore, Offaly, Monday 24th Oct, 2016
Dear friends,
It is my very great pleasure to be here with you all in Tullamore to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the vibrant Offaly Traveller Movement. May I thank Emma Gilchreest for the kind invitation to join you this morning, and all of you for your very warm welcome to this beautiful part of the country.
I am delighted to have the occasion to look back on the contribution and the advocacy
that the Offaly Traveller Movement has made to the welfare and the campaigns of the local Traveller population over the past 20 years. I am also happy to be able to acknowledge, today, the place of the Traveller community as a unique essential and cherished part of Irish society, a part of the Irish experience that has both shared and unique elements.
The HISTORY of the Offaly Traveller Movement
As most of you here know very well, The Offaly Traveller Movement, began as the "Tullamore Traveller Movement", which was established in 1996. It was formed as both a continuation and an extension of the work carried out over the previous decade by St Colmcilles Traveller Training Centre, which had been providing much needed educational courses to the local Traveller population. I know that many of you here this morning remember the wonderful Philomena Brown, who was the visiting teacher for local Travellers back then, and the first Director of St Colmcilles Training Centre.
The small group of Traveller and settled people who came together to form the Tullamore Traveller Movement conscious of the at other needs that remained to be addressed, decided to enlarge the range of support services offered to local Travellers.
Those years of the 1980s were a time of great change throughout Ireland. Society was changing, rural and farming activities were slowly receding, and Travellers were moving in significant numbers to urban areas. Accommodation thus became a huge challenge for the Traveller community as their traditional nomadic ways were being at the same time made difficult, leading them to seek suitable spaces in which to reside whilst seeking to maintain core elements of their long-established ways of life. Getting recognition for travellers as a distinct ethic group with a particular way of life was becoming a real struggle.
Those were years, then, when more and more Travellers started demanding public recognition for their basic rights to adequate housing and education, as well as having their distinctive cultural traditions recognised as part of these rights. The founders of the Tullamore Traveller Movement were amongst the first groups in Ireland to embrace and promote the idea that Travellers had such rights, indeed a fundamental right to the fulfilment of their basic needs.
It was a time, too, when more settled people were moved to stand in solidarity with Travellers, expressing their support for the struggles of the Travelling people. This required courage. It required even greater courage in smaller places like Tullamore than it did in Dublin.
I know that some of those founding members of the Tullamore Traveller Movement are here with us this morning, so may I avail of this opportunity to salute the wonderful work carried out by all those, Travellers and settled people, who have been involved in the Offaly Traveller Movement over the past two decades:
Your successive Directors: from the first, Fintan Farrell, who has gone on to lead the work of the European Anti-Poverty Network, to your enthusiastic and so talented current Director, Emma Gilchreest;
I also want to acknowledge the great dedication of people such as Biddy Kavanagh and Thomas McDonagh, who have given so much of their time and energy to the Offaly Traveller Movement. I am delighted that Biddy and Thomas are going to receive an Outstanding Contribution Award later today, in recognition of their work for the OTM over the last 20 years.
The VISION of the Offaly Traveller Movement
A key feature of the vision of the Offaly Traveller Movement has been to get recognition for the equal position of Travellers in Irish society as a matter of human rights and ethic statue and respect for a way of life, included in such human rights.. May I say how much I admire your work in vindicating the rights of Traveller people in spheres that are so essential to the dignity of any human life, such as:
- housing;
- education;
- physical and mental health;
- freedom from fear, insecurity and discrimination;
- as well as the flourishing of cultural diversity.
Such an understanding of the position of Travellers within the framework of human rights is, I believe, essential. It ties in the Irish State's obligation - and the obligation of the State's local representatives, such as County Councils - to know, respect, protect and promote those rights. The failure to acknowledge the specific features of travellers culture has lead to failure to make provision even when funding has been made available o local authorities.
Another feature which, I believe, lends such strength to the activities of the Offaly Traveller Movement is the fact that it is centred on the active participation of Travellers themselves. Travellers are directly and centrally involved in the decisions that affect them. Without this involvement, there can be no meaningful and positive change. Such an approach has been critical, I know, to the success of the Offaly Traveller Movement. It has fostered a sharp focus on the identification of those issues that are critical to the lives of Travellers as well as enabling the articulation of adequate solutions to those issues.
HOUSING & ACCOMMODATION as a lingering central issue for Travellers
Much progress has been achieved over the last twenty years. Campaigns for equality and non-discrimination, for recognition of the status of Travellers as an ethnic minority, and for access to essential services have born some important fruit. Today, overt segregation of Traveller children in the classroom has become much rarer. More Traveller children are attending second level schools and young Travellers are achieving high levels of educational attainment; increased numbers are progressing through third level education each year. David Joyce, who lived on a site in Tullamore and now works as a barrister is a great example of such achievement.
And yet, so much remains to be done. We are far from the fullest understanding of the history, heritage, culture and aspirations of Travellers as a people. We are far from the required fulfilment of the rights of Travellers in those fundamental spheres I have already mentioned, including health and above all accommodation.
Housing needs remain the priority issue for so many in the travelling community. Last November, shortly after the tragic loss of ten lives in the fire at Carrickmines, Co. Dublin, President Higgins and I visited Pavee Point on the occasion of their 30th Anniversary. There the President said how both of us had often felt, not just sad, but angry, at the treatment which some Traveller families we know had had to endure, including having to live in unsafe and even hazardous conditions.
Unfortunately, not enough has changed. There is still much to be done to meet the accommodation needs of travellers, here in Offaly and across the country.
I much appreciated hearing Niamh Murphy present her research on the subject entitled "Travelling through Homelessness. A Study of Traveller Homelessness in County Offaly 2016", This research throws light on the specific difficulties experience by Traveller families in relation to housing. It shows that, although they are not officially recognised as "homeless", many families live in unacceptable circumstances.
Because of the failure to build new halting sites, for example, many young couples with children have had to move in with their parents and live in overcrowded settings. Then too, because the narrow definition of homelessness refers to those people who "have no roof above their head", some families who are having to live in caravans on unofficial sites (that is, strictly speaking, with "a roof above their heads") are not considered as homeless by local authorities [County Councils]. The housing policies are very much a " one size fits all approach).
Importantly, this study takes a holistic approach to the notion of "homelessness" and to what it means to "feel at home" - to feel safe and to feel happy. For many settled people, feelings of home and security are often connected to notions of sedentary roots and enclosure, being settled. But for many members of the Traveller community, those feelings can provoke quite different experiences.
Many Travellers, for example, can feel entrapped and undermined if unable to take the road for at least some period of time every year. Many who would have, as children, grown up among their extended family - with their cousins, aunts and uncles around them - can feel helplessly isolated, even threatened as far as their mental health is concerned by their imposed form of living, if they are offered public housing it should not mean they are cut off from this network of relatives.
There is so much to be gained in questioning and redefining our notions of "home", especially in the current times, when so many across the world find themselves uprooted from their familiar surroundings, forced to seek refuge in faraway land. But are we not all, after all, but migrants on a journey of learning, strife, solidarity, friendship and love – transient travellers on this shared and fragile planet?
Conclusion
May I say, once again, what a great pleasure it is for me to share in your celebrations. I am truly delighted to have this occasion to witness and acknowledge some of the wonderful work carried out by the Offaly Traveller Movement.
I have no doubt that your activities will continue, in the decades ahead, to support the vibrant Traveller community of Co. Offaly, enabling it to better flourish and grow.
