Anne Burke, a Traveller, has been married to Brian, a member of the settled community, for five years. They have a baby daughter, Maya, and she has two teenage daughters from her previous marriage.
While she and Brian have experienced few problems around their "mixed" marriage, Anne worries that the discrimination her two older daughters, Karen (14) and Bernadette (12) sense every day may close their minds to any notion of fully embracing or marrying into the settled community.
Anne, from Cork city, had been married to a Traveller when she was 18, "young and romantic". The couple moved to London and had two daughters but when the marriage broke down she brought her children home to Cork.
The couple got a church annulment. Her family were "tremendously supportive", though many in the community were less so of this 24-year-old's decision to leave her marriage. And the discrimination against Travellers had, if anything, she says, become worse in the five years she had been away.
"The discrimination was not as bad in England. It's so multicultural there, so cosmopolitan," she explains.
A turning-point for her came one evening when she was going into a chip-shop with her daughters to get their tea.
"As I was going in a man brushed past me and drove off in a big car. When I went up to the counter the girl said, `You see him? Well, he's the boss here and it's nothing to do with me but he told me not to serve you'. I had never even been in there before, just wanted to get some food for my children. I just thought: `This can't go on. What kind of future are my children going to have?' I got involved then in the Travellers' Committee in Cork."
From there she attended conferences, where she describes hearing Travellers speaking positively about themselves as a "weight lifted".
She got a place at NUI Maynooth to study community and youth work, travelling by train to Maynooth every Sunday and returning to Cork on Friday evenings. Her sister looked after the girls in her trailer while Anne was away.
"I couldn't believe this was happening to me. The course was brilliant. It opened my eyes so much, answered questions I didn't even know how to ask. By giving you the basis of how things went wrong I'd get ideas on how to solve them."
It was during her continued involvement in the Travellers' Committee that she met Brian, who was also working there. Both their families, she says, were "great", though some of the other Travellers on the official halting site where she lived had "raised eyebrows". She says it was felt her relationship with Brian was yet another "odd" thing she was doing.
They had a "biggish" wedding of 100 and now have a young daughter, all living in a house in the Blackpool area of Cork. Nearby in other houses are her mother, brother, sister and an uncle. "Like all Travellers, I need my family near me. It's the only way I can live." Despite the fact that they lead an essentially "settled" life, her daughters still experienced discrimination, just as their mother did.
"Oh, being refused entrance into discos, being followed by security guards every time they go into a shop, being called names at school. They say they want to marry a Traveller person. I think they are wary of settled people. "Another problem is school. Karen is dying to leave school because she just feels she doesn't fit in. I am trying everything to convince her to stay but I can feel she's slipping from it more every day.
"The discrimination is very insidious, constantly being told you're insignificant, not wanted. It's every day and it kills something in you if you let it."