Traveller women threaten demos over pub ban

TRAVELLER women yesterday threatened to stage protests in Killarney if they fail to get a meeting with local publicans.

Peace moves are underway in the Kerry town in a bid to settle the long-standing problems between publicans and Travellers, who claim they are being discriminated against and refused entry to pubs and other public places.

Acting as intermediaries, two local councillors, Michael Courtney and Donal Grady, met publicans’ representatives earlier this week.

A group of Traveller women had threatened to protest in Killarney on St Patrick’s Day, but called off their planned action after meeting with Mr Courtney and Mr Grady who promised, in return, to help resolve the Travellers’ grievances by setting up a meeting with local publicans by this afternoon.

The councillors had warned the parade would be cancelled if the protest went ahead.

Travellers’ spokeswoman Theresa O’Brien yesterday said: “We’re not taking this any more. They (publicans) are pushing it off. We’re going to go ahead this time.”

Mr Courtney and Mr Grady said they were still trying to resolve the situation, first by meeting the sides separately and then bringing them together.

“The vintners’ representatives are now going back to their own organisation and we’ll see how they get on. Some Killarney publicans continue to serve Travellers and we’re trying to see both sides of the story.

“This is not an easy problem to deal with and publicans are not the only people Travellers have grievances with. We’re trying to make some sense out of the situation. We’re hopeful that a meeting between the vintners and the Travellers will take place,” he said.

Last year, Travellers in Listowel mounted protests outside pubs in the town for almost a month in a campaign to get more access to premises.

Leonard Evans, a Listowel Travellers’ spokesman, yesterday said their situation was now a “tiny bit better” but Listowel publicans were still putting a limit on the number of Travellers they admitted.

“It could be the first six, or the first 10 of us that are let in,” he said.

Mr Evans said he had successfully brought a court case against a Listowel publican, who had refused to serve him, and added that he was advising the Killarney Travellers on their campaign.

“I’ve told the Killarney people they should keep their protests peaceful and that they should pick occasions that will embarrass the town and show them up for discriminating against their fellow Irish people,” Mr Evans said.

“If they keep up the protests, they’ll get some results. But anyway you go about it, it’s a hard struggle and people get sick of protesting after a while.”