I'm a traveller- AMA

[Pinkyyy]

I was actually asked on another post to start this thread, I've been debating the idea for a while but usually decide not to because I've seen threads like this turn sour before. Hopefully I can avoid that and actually provide information and educate people on a way of life they may well know very little about.

I invite you to ask any questions you may have, and I will do my best to answer them all honestly. I ask that you don't bother to comment if you're going to bombard me with racism and ignorance. If you'd like to question a common stereotype, by all means go ahead but I will not respond to those who are simply here to be hateful. I also hope you'll respect that I don't like to share too much of my personal details on here, so I'm aiming more to speak about travellers as a a whole and not so much about me personally.

So.... AMA

www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/suicide-rate-among-traveller-men-is-seven-times-higher-1.2879754%3fmode=amp

I've been trying to phrase the question I have ... and have pressed 'delete' a lot of times....

I have taught in a school with a large percentage of Traveller families from a big nearby settled site. The patterns of marriage / family within that site were unusual measured against my non-Traveller standards: a small number of mostly older men had families with a series of increasingly younger wives, lading to a large number of half-siblings of different ages. These children seemed to be brought up quite 'collectively' (so some of my pupils would have no specific trailer in which they would sleep at night, for example, but might stay with a variety of 'aunties', and many of the younger ones would be mostly looked after by their older half-siblings).

Was this in any way typical of a Traveller community, or was it a specific and unusual feature of that particular one?

Can I ask about domestic violence Pinky?
With traveller - police relations I imagine that route is out of the question.
What happens? Do the elders intervene or older family members?
Do you think it's a big issue in traveller society?

@Bluestitch I'm not sure I believe what is written in that article. If it is indeed in fact true, I'm positive that it isn't the same case with travellers in England

BellaDonna

If you want any help, I don't know a huge amount. If you trust me with the name, obviously not who you are, I will have a look on ancestry for you, or can find some websites that might help.

But it’s not ‘gorger’ In the sense of ‘someone who over-consumes’ — isn’t it ‘gorgio’ in Romani? Any reading I’ve ever done about gypsies — early 20th century stuff, I was reading about John Sampson and the Gypsy Lore Society for a novel — had ‘gorgio’, and it was just a neutral term for people who lived in houses ie, non-gypsies/Travellers,

en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gorgio

@RomanyRoots I would love help with mine! If you ever had any spare time and were willing

@NottonightJosepheen something is definitely going wrong if that is the case

@Parthenope I'm no expert on the origins of the words but that does seem quite accurate

Pinkyy it was a traveller support organisation that raised concerns about the high suicide rates and the stats come from reports on travellers health. So I'm not sure why you don't believe it?

@Bluestitch because a suicide in our community is a big thing. We live in a community where everyone knows everyone and when someone as tragic as this happens, everyone finds out and attends the funeral to mourn

I teach some traveller children and wonder if you have any tips for making them feel their culture is valued in school.

my son's grandfather came from a romany background and had old photos of his relatives in old style caravans, although he was married to a non romany. He was a violent man and would force his sons to settle childhood disputes by fighting and take them to the house of someone who they had a playground fight with in order to make them fight again and win.

I have always wondered if this behaviour was linked to his romany roots or was his individual temperament?

Definitely Pinkyyy I've hit a brick wall again.
It is weird, sometimes you can have a link that goes back to 1700's other names you can't get past 3rd generation, and your family can usually give you this info anyway.
I've been doing it for so long as I never thought I'd meet my family.
I should give up now, the kids aren't even interested but it's become a bit of a hobby and challenge.
many is the time I look to see it's 3am.

cathay,

One thing we did which did seem to work well was to have people from different Traveler heritages in to talk to the children - we had a storyteller, someone from a fairground travelling background, older traveller teens from secondary schools, traveller adults coming in to talk about their jobs as part of a whole 'jobs people do' week. etc etc.

We did also have a Traveller who had married into a non-Travelling family as a TA to work with the younger children - read with them, did their homework with them, played with them etc. I know that won't always be possible, but it was brilliant.

@cathay123 how wonderful of you to ask that question, they are very lucky. I've never even considered this before. I know that if even a small amount of time was spent talking about gypsy life, perhaps even the way they were treated during certain historic events, they would go home so pleased and their families would be equally happy to hear that our community had been acknowledged

@myidentitymycrisis sadly it sounds as though he was a bit extreme in his ways, it would be normal to settle disputes in this way for adults or even teenagers, but between children this shouldn't have happened

@RomanyRoots you are probably more of an expert than majority of travellers who have grown up inside the community. Your knowledge is amazing

Parthenope

It's the same word, just changed over time. The language is amazing, I've heard tales of one family meeting another from a different part of the country and not being able to understand them.
I guess this is just like us with accents and colloquialisms.
Either way it was never meant as a derogatory term.

John Sampson was the guy along with Hindes. You can also see gypsy accounts in Bunyans Tales, my 4x grandfather has 2 humorous tales written about him and some hedgehogs

I wish people took time to understand us the way they do Muslims etc.

Hahhaha I wish you would be Muslim for a month and see how much people understand you then.

@TacoLover I'm certainly not here to compete for who is the most discriminated against, but even having our culture represented in education the way your religion is, would be amazing

thanks your reply and for starting this thread Pinkyyy. it is so informative.
I agree that his behaviour was extreme, I thought the premise came from a romany background as I'd never come across it in other circumstances.

By contrast I knew another romany family growing up who were very quiet and never mixed with the local community. The parents were both romany and they were settled in a house they owned. The children didn't come to school much and certainly not in secondary as you have described.

Pinkyyy, the very high suicide rate for Travellers, particularly Traveller men, is absolutely true -- the statistics are from a credible source (the All Ireland Traveller Health Study, and are based on confirmed suicides from the GRO, not including drug overdoses, which are responsible for almost 50% of male Traveller deaths) and it's Traveller-run advocacy organisations like Pavee Point (a Traveller and Roma rights organisation) that have kept the issue in the public eye:

www.paveepoint.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Suicide-Facts-Figures-A0.pdf

And Traveller women are five times more likely to commit suicide than non-Traveller women. Travellers have far worse mental and physical health than the general population -- male life expectancy is 15 years lower than the general population, women's 11.

More on the study and how it was conducted here:

www.ucd.ie/news/2010/09SEP10/030910-shorter-life-expectancy-and-higher-suicide-rates-among-Travellers-study-shows.html

It's the same word, just changed over time.

I wasn't suggesting that it wasn't, only that it's nothing to do with 'gorging'!

@myidentitymycrisis you're very welcome. It sounds as though it was a result of his Romany beliefs, but he just took them a bit far. That sounds like quite a typical traveller family, attendance % tends to be low because if there are any events within the community, they will be prioritised over school

@Parthenope I had no idea of this, how awful. I wonder what the main contributing reasons for this are? I always thought physical health would be better due to the more active lifestyle

Hello, waves to can't

I've heard of a couple of schools in our area who had a traveller go in and tell stories tales and differences/similarities in culture. I heard they were successful.

Pinkyyy send me a pm with family name and somebody you are stuck with. I can't promise anything as sometimes it really isn't possible.
A geographical area if you have one, or a guess. A time scale and any links like first son always called Cornelius, that narrows it down a lot

Cathay,

Continuing to think about your question (I don't know if you are primary or secondary):

The school I taught in was a primary and did Forest School weekly. The Traveller children were 'acknowledged experts' in Forest school, the children everyone went to for ideas and answers and games and skills (the Travellers who lived on the local site were very 'outdoors' focused - I know this won't always be true). We used the Forest School site extensively for practical work in Maths, English and Science as well, because it promoted confidence in those specific children.

We also avoided anything that was inherently - even if unintentionally - alienating. So anything that assumed that everyone lived in a house, for example...'draw your house', 'how many people live in your house' etc etc.