Irish Traveller culture to be promoted through school curriculum: Posted on BBC website!

I was being generous. The far right got less than 5% of the vote in the last general election.

But I'm sure a well researched commentator such as yours knew that and were referring to the fact that the far right couldn't even amass 1% of the vote.

There's a notable difference between a small group of oddballs and a much larger group (the Irish left) including elected representatives who are free to indulge their partisan beliefs however they see fit, oftentimes in a manner which circumvents reality altogether.

Or it’s just autocorrect and nothing to read into so cynically.

Yeah, their supporters and those who champion them tend to struggle.

Just because the an occasional traveller wrote the odd poem, or was in the odd band, doesn't count in my book as a rich culture among travellers.

And who appointed you the country's art critic? If that's what you mean by culture.

Why don't you share with us how you rank or rate cultures? I mean UK culture is probably more widely known worldwide than Irish, does that make us culturally inferior to them? Are we culturally superior to, say, Slovakian settled people?

Scratch the tiniest bit below the surface and you'll see these comments are nothing more than a further attempt to spread hatred towards Travellers.

More deflection. I wasn't comparing any nations culture against any others. Each to their own.

But you seem to grasp the term culture ok by what you're saying, so come on, let's have some examples.

Or can't you list any famous examples?

As I said before, the use of the word 'culture' when used wrt travellers is very similar when used wrt the orange order (i.e. wrongly).

I just need to know what's your basis for comparison?

All you can give me is that it needs to be famous. Is that it?

Should we teach 'Friends' in school then? I mean there's a famous cultural artifact.

If you're going to tell me one culture is valid and another isn't, you'll really have to explain it. It just makes no sense to me other than an excuse to throw hateful comments around.

I mean, I'm not aware of any 'famous' Sami cultural artifacts. Or Ashaninka. Or Druze. Are all of the thousands of minority cultures around the world made up to you?

Nobody's deflecting, just showing your hate filled, loaded question for what it is.

The truth is there are thousands of minority groups worldwide and few, if any, of their cultural artifacts are 'famous', or even familiar to a global audience.

That doesn't mean we should follow some kind of isolationist approach, and not teach kids to appreciate and understand a diversity of cultural viewpoints.

Posters here are careful enough not to make such statements explicitly, but that’s the general tone of posters ONLY “sharing their experiences” 🙄

Do you think Travellers are a homogeneous group?

They're not, just like the settled community.

Your attitude, and snide cowardly remarks, don't make all, or even the majority of, the settled community, ignorant hate filled racists.

What are you looking for when you say, 'Tell us something positive about them'?

I couldn't tell you something positive about 'the French', or 'the Italians', without it being some meaningless broad generalization or stereotype. What does that bring?

I couldn't say how far back you're going when you talk about Travellers being liked. Back when I was in primary school in the 80's I remember kids talking about being warned to stay away from Traveller camps when they came. My father would have talked about when he was a kid, and in my grandad's time, that there were positive and closer relations between settled people and Travellers. I think this was especially so in rural areas where the services you talk about would have been provided, and Travellers and settled people would have had greater day to day contact.

Sadly I think there's an ever growing disconnect between Travellers and settled people. More and more we see this sensationalized view of Traveller culture particularly around violent criminals, or feuds, etc. Of course these things are happening, but how much more violent has society in general become in the last 40-50 years?

You've talked about Traveller funerals and weddings as being these awful occasions where towns are shut down. I'm not saying there hasn't been sporadic trouble at these events, but that's grossly over-exaggerated. With an estimated population of 40,000, and people returning from abroad too, I'd estimate maybe 500-1000 Traveller weddings and 500-1000 Traveller funerals per year. The vast, vast majority of these are normal happy weddings and sad funerals, happening without being noticed.

Likewise this figure of Travellers making up 7% of the prison population is being sensationalized. The majority of people in prison are from backgrounds with long-term unemployment, early-school leaving and addiction. All this figure points to is what proportion of those are Travellers. It's been bandied about a lot on this thread but no-one has yet, or will, show any sort of causal relationship between being a Traveller and crime.

What the people making those claims and sly suggestions about Travellers need to do is go and have a bit of reflection for themselves. Go and learn a bit about Traveller culture, think about the similarity between the problems facing Travellers and those faced by minority groups worldwide, maybe have a think about how we could play a part in bringing the Traveller and settled communties closer again. Leave the hate behind.

Well if you're judging any group by court reports or crime videos they won't look great will they?

Here's a small selection of videos on youtube that aren't 'call-out' videos, might give a more balanced view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2sLgw_fL2g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vKhhqVNd4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9CSA55Pb9M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQXw-4ToHgY

So, no single positive aspect then? I mean, anything beyond what anyone else in this country (not world) can/does do. Granted, my view is skewed due to experience, but I still don't know exactly what their modern culture is. What defines a traveller now? As far as I can tell, they're no longer "tinkers" (the original meaning, not the "bad" one), they dress the same as everyone else, they drive modern vehicles, they have horses (but so do thousands of non-travellers). Like, I'm struggling to see what the modern traveller culture is. And if it's not distinct enough, in a positive way, then it's not a separate culture anymore, no?

I'm willing to have my mind changed, for my understanding to be expanded, but right now I see no difference, culture-wise, from most other people their ages now. Well, no positive differences anyway. If the culture is entirely based on the bad things they do, that's a different type of culture and not one we should be promoting in schools.

This nasty, derogatory question has been dealt with already.

It's a loaded, invalid question that has no answer which won't resolve to generalizations or stereotypes. By all means explain why it isn't if you can, but pretending you don't see the response given already and asking again with this faux innocence doesn't hold up.

Likewise this pretending not to know what Traveller culture is, so as to deny it's existence or portray it as inferior.

The idea that because Travellers dress more like settled people than they did before, therefore their culture is inferior or non-existant, is such a conveniently blinkered approach, it's quite clear it's purpose is nothing more than to marginalize and be hateful.

Guess what, all over the world people are dressing more alike, driving the same vehicles and eating the same food. This applies to larger and smaller ethnic groups.

If an American was visiting an inter-railing hotspot where young people from around Europe were on a night out, they'd struggle to tell cultural groups apart. All the kids would be dressed alike, listening to same music, behaving broadly the same, drinking the same drinks etc. As a settled Irish person in this scenario I could likely identify other settled Irish by certain nuances, maybe an O'Neills label, hairstyle or subtle behavioral clue.

Taking this global phenomenon and using it to belittle another group amounts to nothing more than bullying and nasty cultural racism.

If you really want to know what Traveller culture is go out and learn, rather than spending your time spreading hatred and prejudice. It would do you the world of good.