In the wake of the Nally case, Rosita Boland visits Tullamore in Co Offaly to find out how the Travelling and settled communities feel about each other
'If I saw a bit of scrap or something in a garden I thought somebody didn't want, I'd go to the front door to ask for it. If there wasn't any reply, I'd go around the back of the house. I've been doing it all my life," explains Margaret Ward, a member of the Travelling community, who lives in one of the two temporary halting sites near the railway station in Tullamore, Co Offaly.
"It's called recycling these days - taking things away and using them that others don't want," explains her daughter, Maureen.
It's probably true to say that, when it comes to your home space, everyone has boundaries, whether we think about it consciously or not. It's a topic highlighted by the recent case of farmer Pádraig Nally, sentenced to six years for killing Traveller John Ward, who was on his land uninvited.
Problems can arise when what might be acceptable to one person in respecting those boundaries of property is seen as intrusion by another.
It's a country tradition that if people were going out of the way to call to your house, they would knock on the front door, and if they didn't get a response, it would then be acceptable to go around the back to see if there was anyone there who may have been out of earshot.
In 2005, depending on the relationship between the visitor and the resident - friend, business caller or stranger - ad hoc traversal of a property could be seen as more alarming than neighbourly.
Margaret Ward says she doesn't see it as alarming, that she has never meant any harm by trying to make sure there is someone home, even if it means wandering around the property. This has always been the Travellers' way, she says.
There are 20 caravans on this site, 14 of which belong to Margaret's branch of the Ward family. They've been on this site for seven years.
A "temporary" halting site is one recognised by the local authorities, where either the land is in temporary use as a halting site, or the Travellers living there are doing so on a temporary basis. A "permanent" site is one also recognised by the local authorities, where the families live on a permanent basis.
These sites have basic services, the extent of which can vary from site to site, but all of which comprise regular refuse collections, running water, toilets, bath and showers, access to electricity and fire precautions.
This is two days before two-year-old Michael McGinley and his 22-month-old brother Joe McGinley die tragically in a fire at a halting site in Clondalkin in Dublin. There is still controversy about the circumstances surrounding the fire, and who was responsible for it. The McGinley's electricity had been cut off at the time of the fire.
Given that according to the 2002 Census there are only 24,000 Travellers in Ireland, why do the Wards in Tullamore think they have such a bad reputation within the settled community?
"When a member of the Travelling community does something wrong, everyone gets labelled," says Maureen. She works at the Tullamore Youth Project, where she is their only paid staff member. Does she not think this is a bit too cliched and simplistic a statement? Are the problems between the two communities not more complex and subtle than that? She considers.
"It should be about individuals, but it's not. There's not enough integration, therefore people on both sides of the community are ignorant about each other."
Margaret, Maureen and Michael (Margaret's son) watched RTÉ's Prime Time reconstruction of John Ward's murder. "He was looking for scrap, he wasn't going robbing. It wouldn't make any sense if he was going robbing to leave the younger person in the car. You wouldn't leave the older person to go in, would you? It doesn't make sense," Michael says. "Nally should have got life."
"Settled people judge you by your namesake. It might be a Ward in the news, but that family would have no relation to you, so something like that is bad for everyone," Maureen says, pointing out that many Travellers share similar surnames - Ward, McDonagh and Sweeney are the three most common names.
"Why did he shoot him like that?" Margaret says. "Even if he was robbing, why not let him take what he wanted and then call the guards?"
THE OTHER TRAVELLER halting site, only a short walk away, is also a temporary site. Davy Ward, now separated from his wife, Bridget, has six sons and six daughters. Two of the daughters, Teresa (Tracy) and Geraldine, also live on site, and have been there nine years. Davy has five immaculately-groomed horses in makeshift stables behind his caravan. What does he use them all for? "It's like this," Tracy explains. "I have two dogs, they're my pets. The horses are my father's pets."
What do they think the settled community think of them? "They don't care about us," Tracy says. "They never say anything when they pass you, never say hello. We get very bad press, but we have very little say in what's said about us, because we have so few people to represent us."
"I haven't a clue what they think of us, other than we're tinkers and the tinkers are blamed for everything bad," Davy says. "That man Nally should have got 20 years. The judge gave him six years for loading a gun, not for killing a man."
One issue none of the Travellers at Kilcruttin in Tullamore will answer is how they deal with proven criminality in their own community, or even if they acknowledge that it does happen.
What if someone on their site, where secrets must be hard to keep, was found to be stealing cars or breaking into property? How would they deal with a criminal in their own immediate community? "Nothing ever happens here," Davy says stoutly. "Ever."
But what if? How do the law-abiding Travellers deal with those in their own immediate environment who don't obey the law?
Nobody will answer this question. They won't be drawn on conjecture. They say they don't know how other Traveller communities deal with crime on their sites. All they know is what happens on their own sites. And no crimes are ever committed by people on their sites.
You can see the Tullamore camps from O'Molloy Street, on the opposite side of the main road in Kilcruttin. What do the residents there think of their neighbours?
"I put clothes on the line out the back one time and they were robbed by Travellers," says one young man, who does not want to give his name. How does he know they were Travellers? "They were seen," he says. "We just know it was them."
Does he think all Travellers are likely to be robbers? "I suppose they aren't all robbers, but plenty of them are. That Nally man's sentence was way too hard," he says, before firmly closing the door.
"I don't know why Travellers have such a bad reputation," Norah McArdle says. "I don't know any of them. People say - not me, you understand, but people say - that they are afraid to let them into their houses because they think they'll look around, and come back later and rob them. That's what people think. So that's why they don't invite them into their houses.
"He's in jail now, Nally, that poor man. I don't think he should have got any more time because he was only protecting his land. He was terrified. He got too many years, in my view."
A woman on the street says she feels sorry for Travellers. "Their money is as good as ours." She gives her name and then changes her mind. "In case any of them might see it; I wouldn't like them to know my name." Them? "The Travellers."
Carol Malone grew up in Ardview in Tullamore, where there were three families of settled Travellers on her road. "There are nice Travellers out there, and I know some of them," she says. "The fact that I grew up with Travellers as neighbours has made a difference to the way I view them, because I don't class them all the same."
Before buying her current house on O'Molloy Street, she put an offer in on a house where there was a Traveller family living next door.
"It wouldn't havebothered me at all. But I do know that settled people can be very ignorant towards Travellers. I might have been the same if I hadn't grown up with them living on my street."
Recognition: Traveller Focus Week
Traveller Focus Week, starting tomorrow and running until next Friday, is jointly organised by Ireland's three national Traveller organisations; the Irish Traveller Movement, the National Traveller Women's Forum and Pavee Point Travellers' Centre. This year's theme is "Recognition", and each day's events have a different theme. They include:
Accommodation (Monday)
Irish Traveller Movement panel discussion on Traveller accommodation, at Pavee Point, 46 North Great Charles Street, Dublin, 10.30am-1pm
Health (Wednesday)
Round-table discussion with Pavee Point, the Equality Authority and Health Service Executive on the topic of "the application of equality and Traveller-proofing in health policy and practice", at the Equality Authority, 2 Clonmel Street, Dublin, 1-2.45pm
Culture (Friday )
Pavee Point 20th anniversary conference, to be opened by President Mary McAleese, Clontarf Castle, 10.30am. Traveller concert with Finbar Furey, Mickey Dunne, Mary Frances Keenan at the Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square West, Dublin, 9pm
More information: Tel 01-8780255 www.paveepoint.ie