Darkness On The Edge Of Town

Most Travelling people are sickened by the escalation of violence in certain shockingly deprived, urbanised pockets of Traveller communities over the last decade: from the grotesquely armed gang wars (often characterised by the media as family feuds ) to the use of shotguns (often in front of women and children) by hot-headed young men, goaded by angry older Travellers most of them criminalised or institutionalised at one stage or another.
Between March and May this year three Travellers met horrific deaths. On March 24th, Matthew Hand (32) was shot dead at the Ballycoolin halting site near Blanchardstown. In two other unrelated incidents, Patrick Ward (38) from Manchester, was shot dead at a Traveller s funeral in Ballymote on May 10th. Then, at dawn on May 16th, Thomas Harty (26) was shot dead in his caravan beside his wife and four children, at a well-integrated site near Portarlington, Co. Laois. Gardam made several arrests, but all suspects have been released on bail.
While most of the culprits are well known and in hiding with other gangs out baying for vengeance the killings have sent ripples of fear throughout all Irish Traveller settlements: fear of possible recrimination or, more wearily, of the usual intensification of interest from Gardam. Sure enough, there has been a widespread Garda clamp-down across the country, although mainly in Dublin, co-ordinated by Regional Assistant Commissioner Jim McHugh.
Typically, this involves dawn raids of entire sites looking for firearms or stolen goods. In Dublin alone, this has affected many halting sites in recent weeks, including those at Ringsend, Inchicore, Grand Canal Harbour, Burton Hall, and others in the Shankill/Stepaside, Tallaght and Blanchardstown/Finglas/ Mulhuddart areas ringing the city.
At least eleven guns (mostly shotguns, including some pump-actions) have been seized (as of June 23rd), mainly in the North-west of the city, on the Blanchardstown end of a ribbon of settlements stretching to the large site in the shadow of Dunsink tiphead. Stolen property has been seized from other sites, including two caravans in Tallaght, while nothing at all has been recovered from many more. Travellers representatives are left wondering whether the actions of a violent few have led, yet again, to renewed vilification of an entire ethnic minority most of whom just want peace and quiet.
The dawn raids, targetting every caravan, have led to much trauma for children, sick and elderly Travellers even those in mature, well-integrated sites which are known to be no trouble to local residents or Gardam. In one of many disturbing incidents reported to me, Gardam are alleged to have barged into a trailer where a year-old baby lay, recovering from a bone-marrow transplant. Even community workers had not been allowed into the caravan, for fear of infection.
The most heavy-handed raid occurred at two adjacent, controversial sites, Cruiserath and Lady s Well near Blanchardstown, on May 27th. At least 80 gardam including five members of the crack Emergency Response Unit (ERU), a large contingent of the Public Order Unit (in full riot gear) and an Air Support helicopter swooped in on 30 families shortly after 5am. They quickly secured the site and found four firearms, ammunition and some stolen property. According to Gardam, four men were arrested but are now on bail, although the files have not yet gone to the DPP.
The testimony of local Travellers reflects the murderous tensions between these sites and nearby Ballycoolin where Matthew Hand was shot dead. According to Travellers I spoke to, several said they were awoken at about 5.10am by three gunshots coming from near the entrance to the Cruiserath site. One woman, the mother of a delicate retarded boy, ran between trailers to check on her other, adult children and grandchildren, and saw smoke drifting, the way you would after a gunshot . She and others described hearing a car revving off. She says she attempted to phone friends, but her phone had been temporarily cut off, presumably as part of the Garda operation. Gardam say they looked into reports of gunshots at that time, but found no evidence to substantiate them.
However, whatever scared them gunshots or the Garda arrival two Traveller men ran barefoot from the Cruiserath site over the earth mounds into Lady s Well, and alerted another Traveller close to the gate. Within minutes, the Garda helicopter was overhead and police swarmed into the Lady s Well entrance, led by the ERU. According to Travellers, the three men were rapidly overwhelmed, handcuffed, and laid face down on the ground at gunpoint. A middle-aged Traveller woman arrived (summoned by mobile phone), and began screaming, thinking the three men had been killed.
Travellers claim the ERU were hyped up and roaring at people to vacate the caravans. In the heat of the moment, they claim guns were pointed at children, that one 13-year-old (whom I did not meet) had gotten a black eye, and that Traveller women were jeered at and called slappers by individual Gardam.
Traveller men I spoke to conceded that, yes, guns were found in a nearby field. But they maintained that two impounded cars were not stolen, as was widely reported, but legitimately bought and insured in the UK a claim subsequently confirmed by police. However, under the Customs Consolidation Act, Gardam have impounded the cars until importation duty is paid. Other property was also confiscated including TVs, videos and even generators. The general rule seems to be that the onus is on Travellers to provide receipts of purchase before property is returned in other words, guilty until proven innocent.
At about 5.30am, Mags Hand, the young widow of Matthew Hand, shot off a roll of film, resulting in the blurred, rare photographs of the police activity, which are reproduced here.
On the strength of the photographs, the incident was aired on TV3 news, and Fr. Frank Murphy of the Parish of the Travelling People went on RTE Radio 1 s Five-Seven Live. A baffled Myles Dungan asked a rather irritated Superintendent Michael Roche of Blanchardstown, if the heavy-handedness of the operation wasn t a little like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?
Whatever about the controversial nature of the Garda response, it is undeniable that there has been a rise in violence within certain sections of the Travelling community. Recently, within a mile radius of the Cruiserath site, there have been several alarming incidents involving Traveller men, including a slash hook being put through the window of a Garda patrol car, narrowly missing a beangarda s head.
Tension has also been rumbling dangerously between Travellers from Cruiserath/Lady s Well and the nearby Ballycoolin site. Mattsy Hand died needlessly in Ballycoolin last March in a row which escalated over Fingal Council s decision not to include heating stoves among the amenities being built into the brand new Council halting site next door. Travellers said the incident was like a Wild West shoot-out , with children able to describe the buckshot wounds. Mattsy Hand, who lived in Lady s Well, left behind five children. His widow, Mags, is pregnant, due this September.
After the killing, several families moved out of Ballycoolin, and caravans they left behind were burnt out. On Monday, June 21st, a group of about 10 men, including some from Cruiserath, gate-crashed a Traveller family wedding in a Navan hotel, and provocatively sang songs dedicated to Mattsy Hand, ultimately reducing a peaceful wedding to a bar room brawl. The same men are believed to have later attacked the Ballycoolin site, breaking windows in several caravans.
The following day, June 22nd, Garda intelligence suggested a convergence of Traveller men on the area. Again, 70 to 80 Gardam were mobilised: the Air Support Unit, the ERU and the riot-gear Public Order Unit. They secured the area with checkpoints by 4pm.
According to Garda sources, there were about 30 local Traveller men hanging about, and there had been an amount of drink taken. A search of a ditch close to the Cruiserath site uncovered a loaded shot gun, five petrol bombs, a number of knives and an array of slash-hooks. One Traveller from Cruiserath was detained under Section 30 of the Offenses Against the State Act, after cartridges were found in his caravan.
Since then, everyone has moved out of Ballycoolin which presents a sobering vista from the road with its charred ruins of caravans while construction on the new site has now been abandoned for good. Most recently, Gardam have brokered an uneasy truce.
In terms of their own operations, Gardam have scored some notable successes in policing Travellers, such as the famously brokered truce between the factions in Tuam last September, as well as the arrest and conviction of certain dangerous criminals from within the Travelling community.
But even those who realise the severity of the situation around Cruiserath found the May 27th Garda raid over the top while for their part, Gardam argue they have to adopt a hard-line to protect themselves when their intelligence suggests illegally held firearms.
We re constantly preparing for these big-scale encounters between groups of Travellers, Superintendent John Farrelly of the Garda Press Office told me. In the past, we ve prevented all kinds of almighty mayhem, and at the end of the day, we re just in the business of trying to save lives. But yes, I would admit that with such a Garda presence and the very nature of raids there are always elements of trauma. But unfortunately, it s also partly due to the unique nature of Traveller culture, where most of the sites are closely interlinked between families.
There is huge embitterment there already, and people are lining up for trouble. At least if we go in with large numbers, we can defuse the situation and prevent a confrontation, or come out with what we re looking for.
However, such tactics contribute to the deep mutual mistrust between Travellers and Gardam as did another disturbing incident reported in The Irish Times on Monday, May 24th. Two Traveller families had moved illegally onto private land at Ferndale Hill near Shankill (one woman is unwell, awaiting bypass surgery). At about 11.30pm on the previous Friday (May 21st), they say shots were fired over their caravans from within the perimeter fence of a nearby private house. The Travellers informed a detective that night, but other than visiting the house, the detective took no action and drove off, without returning to allay their fears.
Early next morning, these Travellers were subjected to a thorough Garda firearms raid. None was found. Later that morning, joined by a community worker, three of the men visited Shankill Garda Station where, they allege, the desk sergeant angrily refused to take a statement. Hours later, detectives finally agreed to take a formal statement, and questioned the men separately for almost an hour mostly, the Travellers allege, about their knowledge of stolen goods or firearms among the Travelling community.
Superintendent Farrelly respectfully suggested that rather than ventilate such allegations in a magazine, I should recommend that the persons involved go to the Garda Complaints Board. However, among the 1,400 annual complaints (and rising), Board official Declan Hoban informed me that he could at best recall one or two complaints involving Travellers in the last decade. Certainly, none was upheld.
Solicitor Kevin Brophy has represented many Travellers in connection with local authority evictions of Travellers from Council lands. I have difficulty getting police and local authorities to accept that a Traveller s caravan is not a piece of scrap, but a family dwelling, he says. And the problem with a criminal investigation is that a caravan is a moveable object in the eyes of the law. It doesn t have the status of a house, but it is a dwelling under the Constitution.
Brophy s partner, solicitor Greg O Neill, also argues that local authorities are not observing either due process or their statutory obligations. It raises the question as to whether they are acting outside the law in these instances. Kevin Brophy also questions the police s role in evictions of Travellers, which seem to be intensifying, given the Councils new powers under the Housing (Travellers) Accommodation Act, 1998.
In recent years, a disturbing practice by local authorities has been to employ private security firms to enforce evictions. All Travellers representatives and community workers I spoke to described the cavalier disrespect for Traveller life, limb and property displayed by these security firms, who operate outside the tight restrictions confining the Gardam. However, Gardam are always present, and although their role is to prevent a breach of the peace, they in effect enforce the eviction.
Last month, for example, a Traveller family with six children in the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown area skipped the queue by moving into a Council site in Shankill, to avail of the amenities for their young baby. After a 24-hour notice was served, their trailer was forklifted onto a low-loader and dumped a mile away at the side of the road, where it was torched within hours by persons unknown and with it, all personal belongings and memorabilia, including some of a child they lost some years ago. The family are now in a hostel in north inner city Dublin.
The following week, another large family of eight sons (aged between two and 17) were evicted from the run-down, low-amenity, official temporary St Maelruan s site close to the Square in Tallaght. According to Billy Coman, a senior official in the Community Department of South Dublin County Council, other Travellers on the site had made signed statements complaining about joyriding by members of this family.
Once again, the Council and Gardam oversaw the family s three caravans being transported to the nearby Kishogue site where, due to local tensions, the caravans were, again, later burnt out. Ironically, some of the family are still in St Maelruan s in a cramped caravan belonging to people believed to be among those who made the original complaint.
Billy Coman can truthfully say that the Council was not responsible for the destruction of the caravans, but the private security firms frequently do cause damage to Traveller property. However, criminal convictions or even indictments are almost unheard of.
The use of such private firms goes back at least as far as the mass evictions of almost 200 Travellers from Coldcut Road in Clondalkin in May 1993.
Coldcut Road hosted a vicious confrontation as the heavies went in, watched by over 40 Gardam. There were broken arms and legs. One woman was injured when a forklift truck drove right into her. Several other people were injured, including a mother and her young daughter, when they were lifted inside their caravans and dumped onto the road. The devastation to Traveller property was extreme, and afterwards, Gardam were faced with the messy duty of clearing the road, while some younger Travellers burned out cars in protest.
Court-order evictions from Council, private and industrial-estate lands now occur almost weekly, to public and political indifference. With every patch of land in the country spiralling upwards in price, there is a chronic Traveller s accommodation crisis, with a minority of Travellers living on Official Permanent halting sites, while the majority live on run-down, decades-old Official Temporary sites, with minimal amenities such as the odd tap or creaking, filthy Portaloo. Roughly 1,200 families live on the side of the road without any amenities at all. It is a humanitarian scandal.
A report just published by the Southside Travellers Action Group on Traveller accommodation in the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Council area makes sobering reading. In that leafy district, 49% of Travellers have no water supply of their own and 25% no access to a toilet. 32% have no refuse collection service, and of those that do, 71% were unhappy with it. 95% have no access to fire safety equipment, and 85% have no phone.
As to the Council s statutory responsibilities, over the past five years, there has been a 69% increase in families living on the side of the road, and a 27% decrease in the number of families accommodated by the Council on permanent halting sites. To express it more clearly, a total of two extra families have been accommodated in Traveller-specific accommodation in the Council s area over the past five years. Meanwhile, two unlikely proposals for large halting sites in Dalkey Quarry and Sandyford were predictably shot down.
This roughly reflects the situation in every local authority area in Ireland.
The Housing (Travellers) Accommodation Act of last year was widely seen as a cause for hope, as it obliges local authorities to produce a comprehensive plan for Travellers accommodation in their area. However, so far it has been implemented only in its negative aspects the Councils increased powers to evict.
Chris Flood, Minister of State for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, is forceful and well-versed on the issue.
It s a national disgrace that today in Ireland, there are 1,200 families on the side of the road, with no facilities or services, no access to water or sanitation or power, he observes. And these poorly managed, so-called temporary sites, where people have lived for years, have very little investment by the State. It is recognised that over 3,000 units of accommodation are needed, but despite the fact that the resources seem to be there, the commitment certainly isn t.
All of this is part of the continuing marginalisation of travellers, with residents groups having their big public meetings to get them out. Local authorities should be impelled to provide properly serviced halting sites, because in my experience, there are no problems with Travellers in these situations. It s the utter lack of support that gives rise to difficulties just as happened in the settled community in areas of high disadvantage. There is compelling evidence that these areas fall prey to crime and a devastating misuse of drugs and alcohol.
If a community or group of people are consistently told they re not wanted, it frames and shapes their minds, particularly the children. My concern is that efforts should be made to support and develop the leadership of their community. Travellers can t do that on their own, they need support and education to find a way to communicate the great things in their culture, the music, storytelling, crafts, language and ways of doing things.
I would also express the hope that the Gardam behave as sensitively as possible, bearing in mind all the neglect and disadvantage Travellers have suffered, but I believe from my sources that tension is building up, and Garda should be supported in defusing the situation.
Gearoid O Riain of Pavee Point, the Travellers lobbying and cultural centre, describes the relentless racism Travellers endure.
Individual racism is very visible, but institutional racism is more insidious in the long run, he says. The Department of Health is open to everyone, but what are the outcomes? Only 1% of Travellers are over 65, while infant mortality is nearly three times the national average. Health sector workers may not set out to discriminate, but there are so many assumptions behind the medical card scheme: for example, that you are sedentary rather than nomadic or even that people can read.
He took me through last year s Department of Education figures. Of at least 24,000 Travellers in Ireland, 50% are under 15. Yet only 4,300 Traveller children are in mainstream primary schools, a sizeable number of them over 12 years old, thanks in part to a well-meaning triple-capitation rate for Traveller children from the Department.
Meanwhile, reliable estimates for Travellers in secondary school for 14 counties totalled 638, sliding from 314 in 1st year to 15 in 6th Year. Interestingly, the situation is particularly bad in Kildare, Wicklow and Dublin which host the biggest concentration of the country s Travellers. Between the three counties, there are only 98 Traveller kids in secondary school.
Pavee Point are now highlighting problems in the Equality Status Bill, currently before the Dail. O Riain: As it stands, it doesn t explicitly mention services provided by the State, and this has been found to be a problem in other countries. After all, State services have a huge impact, far more than publicans and hoteliers. We would require that state services be named explicitly, as otherwise, we envisage that it will enshrine discrimination as it currently stands.
O Riain and his Pavee Point colleague, Traveller Martin Collins, are also piloting a training module in the Garda Training Centre in Templemore so far, just two-hour sessions with groups of 80 trainee guards, four times a year. We raise issues, and obviously we get a range of frank exchanges of views from, if not active hostility, then conventional assumptions that all Travellers are involved in crime or stealing, through to much more positive attitudes, although individual gardam may not always be encouraged to express those views.
Undoubtedly, it s part of the general language and everyday culture to see Travellers as subhuman and therefore it s a problem in the police force. And if you re in a position where you have power over Travellers in a confrontational situation, things obviously get more accentuated.
For its part, the Garda Operational Development Unit has been running seminars and workshop-conferences on policing a multi-ethnic society, as well as beefing up the Social Studies Section in Templemore, which brings in members of US police forces and the London Metropolitan Police and hopefully they talk about the Stephen Lawrence case. Yet, in a total Garda force of 11,200, there are now two coloured guards, only 50 Gardam from a non-Catholic background, and no Gardam whatsoever from the Travelling community.
On a more encouraging note, September will see the launch of a new Government-funded initiative involving representatives of the Travelling community itself. Amongst other things, The Travellers Communication Strategy will involve much-needed training programmes for Travellers and joint settled/Travelling community activities.
Hopefully, it will go at least some of the way towards empowering Travellers and helping the settled community rethink prejudice. n