Name:Mary O'Sullivan Address:Kinsale Road, Cork DwellingBungalow Here since:1989
I live in a group housing scheme with seven bungalows. We're all Travellers. We've been there for 17 years, and only one or two of the families have changed in that time, so we really know our neighbours. I would have been a settled Traveller, but then I got married and moved to a halting site in the Black Ash, near here. I lived there for 10 years, but then the council needed the land for the link road, so we negotiated for these bungalows, not far from the halting site.
I welcomed the move, because I was reared in a house, and then went from a house to a mobile home, so it was back to what I knew. However, the majority of women that I work with would prefer to be on the road. It's a psychological thing - the freedom to be able to just go and move.
Living in mobile homes and caravans will die out. I see it first-hand; you can see the sense of loss with the older Travellers. It's a mindset. I lived on a site for 10 years, but when I moved in here, we still used to book a mobile home in Youghal for two weeks, so my children wouldn't lose that part of their heritage.
I'm a voluntary secretary for the Cork Traveller Women's Network, and we cater to Travellers all over the city. The network bases its work on the support and development of Traveller women, so that they can build their confidence. We're the lucky ones because we got an education, and we're trying to pass that on to women who wouldn't have had that opportunity. What we started 10 or 15 years ago has paid off, because the mothers get the training, and that trickles down through the families.
The network had a project in the Cork Capital of Culture. We built a life-size barrel-top wagon, because it was a part of our culture that was gone. In the year 2005 to see this wagon going down the streets of Cork, just to see it, brought up a lot of emotions for people.
We organise an adult-literacy scheme. We started with 16 Traveller women doing a programme one night a week. Now we have 140 participants in eight different programmes, from 16 years old to the oldest woman, who's in her 70s. It's empowering people that's the bulk of our work. The sense of community that it fosters is huge, because everybody is growing stronger together. Some people think I'm mad doing all this voluntary work, but if I can spread the educational thing as far as I can among my community, that's what I want.
• In conversation with Davin O'Dwyer