A report on itinerants
THE BRITiSH used to describe the Irish in much the same terms as the Irish themselves now describe the itinerant. The descriptions, then as now, had elements of 'fact in them. We were dirty, we were ignorant, we were fractious, and superstitious. All of these characteristics, however, were a direct result of our oppression. Denied access to education, ignorance was inevitable. Taxed for improveements to our houses, we lived in hovels. Denied the rights accorded to others, we fought for these rights and our only consolation in times of desperation was our religion. When these strictures were removed from our people, they presented themselves as no more dirty, fractious or ignorant than the rest of mankind. By Mairin de Burca
It might be no harm if we were to take a look at the itinerant populaation in the light of this historical fact and see if, like our British master of old, we are not responsible for the traits of which we accuse the itinerants', and. which prevent their speedy assimilation and settlement. . In 1963 the tents of itinerants were described in a government report:
'A small one measured 6' long, 4' wide and 3 1/2' high with a cubic capacity of about 90 cubic feet. A large one measured 12' long, 4' wide and 4Y2' high with an interior space of 100 cubic feet. These tents have little head-room and they have no floors. In nearly all cases the floor area of the tent is taken up by mattresses which· are often of straw, hay or bracken. Heating is usually provided by a fire outside the opening, which has on occasion been the cause of death, when the wind changed while the occupants were asleep. Ground under the tents is often damp, if not actually very wet or waterlogged.'
The conditions in which unsettled itinerants of Galway live today are very little different from that desscription given in 1963.
In the tent where the baby in our photograph was lying, a family of 13 people lived. The tent was divided into two sleeping areas by a small cleared space with a stove. On either side of this space there were mattresses and old clothes spread all over the ground, and in this space the thirteen people lived.and slept and ate.
The 1976 figures show that 862 families still live on the side of the road. Small wonder, perhaps, that personal hygiene in such conditions comes low on the itinerants' list of priorities.
It Was under such conditions that Mrs. Therese Mongan and her family lived for 17 years, although she had put her name down for a corporation house almost the day she was married. In all but the actual tenancy of a house, she has been settled all her life. When I visited her in her new house in Ballybane she had a fire in the grate, she was waiting for her younger children to come home for a midday meal from school, and slre was preparing to do a big wash in the bath. All normal things that most house-bound mothers do every day. Her house had little furniture but was clean and comfortable 1 and she was very obviously pleased and happy with it. Despite the hostility of her first days and nights under a settled roof, her pride in having settled her family at last was evident.
What about the second most common adjective - 'ignorant'? It is only comparatively recently that any organised attempt has been made to provide education for itinerant childdren. Being so much on the move, education has, at best, been a hit and miss affair and most adult itinerants today are illiterate. Even yet, except for those families who have been housed, education is a matter of education on the site. All-itinerant schools, like all-itinerant housing sites, while better than nothing, fall far short of integration and equality with that of the other children of the natiort.
After the common cries of 'dirty' and 'ignorant', the most common o bj ection to itineran ts, particularly in the countryside from farmers, conncerns their animals, which are usually allowed to wander unattended, posing a real threat to life and limb on the roads. Latterly there is also the fact that an increasing number of itinerants make their living from scrap metal, and this means that their sites become very ugly, littered with old cars and other scrap material. The first problem can be controlled by law, and there is no reason why the gardai should not enforce the laws relating to stray animals. But we must face the real problems. As long as itinerants make a living from' dealing in horses, they will need grazing land, and they will need space for their scrap metal. As long as lack of education and our own prejudices denies them access to. other forms of employment, we cannot expect them to abandon the only way they have of making a living. Or if we do make it impossible for them to follow their traditional trades, we cannot in all fairness complain that itinerants are lazy and unwilling to work.
Less easy to deal with is the apparently intractable prejudice, the need to look down on another section of the community. This is most evident In the attitude of the poor whites to the rather poorer blacks in the States. The discrimination that exists in higher places is usually economic in origin, but it seems that it is only by convincing himself that there is someone lower on the scale than he is, someone that he can treat with contempt, that the poor white can live with his own insecurity and poverty, Thus in Galway. it is no surprise that one of the first persons out on the picket outside the Mongans' new home was himself a settled itinerant. This is the attitude that makes all the attempts at integration so difficult.
Ireland is not the only country with an itinerant population. On the contrary, in comparison with many European countries our itinerants present a very small social problem, and one with which we should be able to deal.if only we are able to recognise the roots of our apparently intractable prejudice.
The 1963 report of the Government Commission on Itinerancy showed that there were an estimated 60,000 itinerrants in France, 20,000 in the Netherlands, 200,000 in Hungary and 2,000 in Finland. In Ireland, there are 1,900 families of whom more than half have been settled, either in houses or on serviced sites. In other words the problem, if such we must describe it, now consists of 862 families living on the sides of the roads. It must be that this is one problem whose end is in sight.
Of the other European countries mentioned in the 1963 report, only the Netherlands, as with so many other social problems, were making any serious attempt to improve the situation. It was their advice that police harrassment only aggravated the problem, and that what was needed was a gradual programme aimed at total integration with the settled community, which was taken as the basis of our government's official policy.
This programme for integration and settlement was to have a three step approach. First, there should be serviced sites for travelling itinerants to use when they arrived in any particular town. These sites should have running water, toilets, and plenty of space for caravans, animals and scrap metal. There would be no compulsion on the itinerants to stay in them permmanently, but while they were there they would pay a small rate. Camping in other sites would be forbidden.
The second step in this gradual process of settlement would be to provide annexes to caravans, for families who were prepared to stay for some time in one place. These would be called tigins. After some time in these tigins, during which hopefully the itinerant family would become settled, educated and employed, they would be offered local authority housing.
And, it should be said at once, that in a number of cases it has worked. In Dublin, 60 families had been housed by 1976, 135 were on serviced sites and the number remaining on the roaddside was 163. Even in Galway, despite the notoriety of its citizens' and civic officials' reactions, forty families have been settled with relative peace', Jeaving only 31 families still to be housed. Hard cases make good newspaper headlines, but don't always tell the less sensational truth.
Looked at from the itinerants' point of view however, there are snags to this plan of progressive resettlement. For, one thing it means uprooting the family twice in a relatively short period of time. First the family has to cease its travelling habits and this is often diffiicult. Apart from the poverty and harddship of our climate, the travelling life has its attractions and to be tied to one place, often not a very interesting place, is irksome. Still, many families have done it, usually for the sake of their children.
What happens then is that having settled in one place, and been deemed fit to live with a settled community, the itinerant family may well be uprooted again and sent to live in a local authorrity housing estate on the other side of the city, far from the families with whom they have, for a short while, formed a community. On top of that they will almost certainly have to face hostility in their new home.
Little wonder then, that what tends to happen is that the itinerants more or less settle in either the serviced sites or the tigins, thus forming a close ghetto which presents great difficulties often to the local authorities. One of the suggestions of the Galway councillors, not one of whom came to visit the Mongan family in their recent trial, was for a special itinerant town to be built outside the city, far from the ordinary community. Fortunately they baulked at the prohibitive cost of such a venture, but if the idea is revived the problem of Galway's itinerants will not be settled in our lifetime.
The Mongans' story is worth looking at in some detail. For a start Mrs. Mongan had been brought up in a house, and had thus presumably passed the test of being able to settle in bricks and morrtar. She had been on the Corporation housing list for seventeen years, almost since her wedding day, and had spent six years on a 'settled' site before she was offered a house. Her first offer of a house was in the Bohermore estate, where there was already trouble over itinerant families, and to try and settle that difficulty she waived her right to the house. She was then offered one in Ballybane, and was lucky to be settled "there before the neighbours got propperly organised to resist the arrival of herself and her family. She was threattened while bringing in her few bits of furniture. Some of her future neighhbours took chairs from her children and cut them open with knives.
Not the least disturbing of the probblem of housing itinerants is this apparrent indifferense on the part of the Gardai to-flagrant andrepeated breaches of the law. Gardai are mainly either farmers' sons or natives of small country towns. The itinerant has no more bitter enemy than the farming community for reasons which are understandable to an extent. Just as the American policeman tends to find some difficulties in enforccing the law against his own race in favvour of blacks whom he despises, so also it seems the Gardai are not up to their usual standard when ostensibly protectting the rights of itinerant citizens.
When a social worker was denied access to the Mongan family by .their neighbours in Galway the Gardai stood by impassively. The Assistant City Mannager had to make a complaint before a Garda escort was provided to take the food to the family.
No such restraint overtakes the force on other occasions. The excuse that they did not want to inflame a delicate situation holds no water when it is seen that no subsequent summonses have been taken out against people who have been guilty of a whole strirtg of offences.
The local clergy too did not distingguish themselves. The one Catholic priest who did visit the Mongan family told them that they would have to go, and later on Television defended his parishoners in Ballybane by referring to their generosity to his Church. The Bishop of Galway, Eamonn Casey, took rio public attitude to the dispute when one public statement from him might have transformed the situation. He did acti- . vate a special committee when it was all over. Even the local committee of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties could not find a name to put to their convoluted and lukewarm statement on the dispute.
What of the future? A spokesman for Galway Corporation believes that Ballyybane was the last trouble spot and that future settling of itinerants will not provoke such public antagonism. That is
The Mongan Family 'clean, comfortable and well-pleased' not to say that there will not be bitter private feuds. But the itinerants themmselves seemed unmoved by this prosspect. Their attitudes are of endurance.
They have their own iarge family suppports, they are not totally isolated and eventually even the bitterest feud dies down. Mrs. Furey who provoked one of the worst public battles in Rahoon many years ago is now settled in peace in her house. She claims not to have had any trouble from her neighbours since the trouble ended. Her house is spotless and her children educated, respectable members of the communnity. There are no horses in her garden or scrap in her back yard.