Unsettling truths on the marginalised

The Gmelchs recorded Travellers’ lives in 1971. A new documentary sees them catch up 40 years later, Colette Sheridan reports

SHOWING on RTÉ One this evening is Unsettled — From Tinker to Traveller, a new documentary, directed by Liam McGrath and Kim Bartley, about an American couple (both professors of anthropology at San Francisco University) who came to Ireland in 1971 to live with a Travelling community in the Dundrum/Balinteer area of Dublin, known as Holylands.

George and Sharon Gmelch, were looking for an aspect of Irish culture to study. They became interested in Travellers and lived for a year in a barrel top wagon with members of the Traveller community. They documented life in the community at a time when many people didn’t read or write or have cameras. The Gmelchs carried out some of the first academic research into Travellers and published a number of books including The Urbanisation of an Itinerant People and Tinkers and Travellers.