Steo Wall,
singer-songwriter

It’s a weird buzz for me, because if you were to meet me without me telling you that I come from a Traveller background, you’d never guess it. I suppose the discrimination stuff that I would experience, especially down around here where I’m living, would be discrimination and racism that’s ingrained in people toward Travellers and people from outside, like refugees.

I experienced it last year. There was a direct provision centre here in Miltown Malbay, and the guys there were fleeing for their lives basically. We used to do coffee mornings and play some songs with them, and just get to know them on a human level. They’re amazing chaps, but the conditions in the Centre were horrible. One of the activists who was helping with the direct provision centre, trying to get better conditions for the lads, she started getting hate mail, and that fucking boiled my blood. It inspired me to write a song that’s going to be on my next album, called ‘More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish’.

It got me thinking. Irish people have been economic migrants for hundreds of years. Even going back to the Famine, we fled. But if you fast-forward to the 1970s and ‘80s in London, you had ‘‘No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish” – I remind people about that in this song. It’s kind of inverted.

I don’t know what you call the ‘racism experience’, but I know the way that it makes me feel. I know that when I’m in those social situations and someone mentions the k-word, there’s a little defence mechanism that kicks off inside me. Sometimes – it probably depends on the headspace I’m in – I’ll say, “Oh, I’m actually a Traveller.” And sometimes you just let it go. I’m either in the headspace of, “Actually, that’s not fucking cool because I’m a Traveller and you’re being racist”, or I just go real quiet and distance myself. I build up this wall. And then I’m just nodding and smiling “Bye”. And I walk away.

I probably should be more upfront with it. The way I am, even as an activist or a songwriter, I’m not in your face. I’m not on social media calling out all bits of discrimination. It’s not my buzz. There’s other Traveller activists who do that kind of stuff. My thing is, whatever I see going on in the world, I take it into my little fecking room here and I write about it. I let the song do the talking. That’s the way that I’ve always been. I work from the background, in the shadows.

When I release ‘More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish’, that’s going to say everything I need to say on this issue. We’re in the studio working on it now. It was supposed to be this really chilled out, laidback kind of vibe, but now it’s turning into trumpets and trombones and drums. I hate talking about my own songs, but this is turning into a bit of an anthem.

I’ve always said that change needs to start at grassroots level. They’ve passed bills and stuff now, where teaching Traveller culture and stuff is on the curriculum. When I heard that I thought it was amazing, because what we need to do is educate people on the beautiful ways of not just Traveller culture, but African culture, Iraqi culture, Iranian culture. All cultures. We need to get the melting pot going.

Read Part 1 of 100 Voices: #AllAgainstRacism, in the current issue of Hot Press. Available to pick up in shops now, or to order online below:

Special thanks to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for their support in this project.