The Justice Minister and the philosopher

The 1964 arrest of Travellers’ rights activist Grattan Puxon was controversial, writes Ryle Dwyer.

PAPERS released by the Justice Department today included files on the 1964 arrest of Grattan Puxon, an English campaigner on behalf of Irish itinerants. This controversial issue sparked a series of letters between Bertrand Russell, the philosopher and peace campaigner, and Justice Minister Charles Haughey.

Grattan Puxon had come to live in Ireland in the early 1960s. He was struck by the plight of Irish Travellers and helped organise them to resist evictions. He was living in the Cherry Orchard area of Dublin, where the first Travellers’ school was set up, but after a few weeks Dublin Corporation bulldozed it and evicted the Travellers because they were squatting on corporation land.