Traveller’s ethnicity recognised: Indigenous Irish have an historic day

The State’s formal recognition of Irish Travellers as an indigenous ethnic minority is an historic day for Ireland.

For the first time, it acknowledges their unique culture and identity in a way that is positive and hopeful.

The Taoiseach’s address to the Dáil last night was witnessed by members of the Travelling community who were in Leinster House to watch and hear him speak.

It was an emotional moment for them, even though they and their fellow Travellers knew Enda Kenny was stating no more than the obvious. It was never in the gift of the Government or the Taoiseach to declare Travellers to be a distinct ethnic group; they already were.

Yet successive Irish governments have been in denial about that.

As recently as 2004, in a report to the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the government of Bertie Ahern stated that: “The Government’s view is that Travellers do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.”

The UN committee responded by expressing concern at that position and encouraged the “Irish Government to work more concretely towards recognising the Traveller community as an ethnic group”.

Most of the settled community have also been in denial, embracing diversity elsewhere but ignoring Travellers. That is why recognition, though largely symbolic, is so important.

We have come a long way since the work carried out by the various government Commissions on Itinerancy during the 1960s which were tasked to “enquire into the problem arising from the presence in the country of itinerants in considerable numbers”.

The infamous 1963 report of the Commission on Itinerancy defined Travellers as drop-outs to be “rehabilitated” and “re-absorbed” into society.

It presented a prejudiced and stereotypical view of Irish Travellers: They were either descended from victims of dispossession during the Cromwellian Wars in the 1600s or the Great Famine in 1847.

While, by its own admission, the commission carried out “no special study of the origins of the itinerant population of this country”, it adopted a politically expedient version of Traveller origins which concluded that many were no more than one or two generations removed from being part of the settled community.

This gave “resettlement” and “rehabilitation” its moral imperative.

We now recognise that such an approach which defined Travellers as no more than an economically deprived group without a common heritage was based on profound ignorance not only of their origins but their culture, music, language, folklore, values and customs.

Formal recognition is welcome but not enough. In the areas of health and education in particular, Travellers are hugely disadvantaged and this must be addressed if welcome words are to lead to decisive action. That must involve Traveller representatives being among the decision makers.

Putting a Traveller in the Dáil would be a good start.