Travellers drinking in the Four Roads Public House in Glenamaddy, Co. Galway were attacked by a mob wielding clubs and hurley sticks.
In Bantry Co. Cork, a group of hired vigilantes wearing balaclavas broke into the caravan of an elderly Traveller couple. They hit the woman in the face with a pick axe handle, breaking her nose and leaving her needing dozens of stitches.
In Bray Co. Wicklow a Traveller family with ten children were burnt out of their caravans and forced out of the area. When the Council offered them another site in Rathnew, a picket was placed on the proposed site to prevent the family from moving in.
In New Ross Co. Wexford a group of Travellers were attacked by a mob.
Last Christmas a 300-strong crowd marched through a Traveller camp in Enniscorthy in an attempt at bullying and intimidation. One of the organisers of the march - while claiming not to be racist - said that Travellers "should be sent to Spike Island or Timbucktoo".
Over the last few weeks a 24-hour picket has been maintained on a proposed halting site in Navan Co. Meath to prevent its construction.
Anti-racist and anti-fascist work has been a major concern of the left - not just in Ireland but throughout Europe - over the past couple of years. Given the rise of racist attacks throughout Europe, this is extremely important work. However there are still very few groups or individuals even on the left who identify attitudes to Travellers as Racism.
But surely there can be no doubt about the fact that a group of people who are routinely refused service in pubs, shops, cinemas etc., who are forced to sign on for social welfare payments at different times to the rest of the population, who if they live anywhere in Dublin and wish to claim Supplementary Welfare Allowance have to do so in a separate health centre suffer from nothing other than racism. In South Africa it was called Apartheid. In Ireland the dangerous pretence is maintained that Travellers are just settled people gone wrong, deviants, people who were forced off the land during the famine and have been moving around ever since etc. etc.
Much so-called 'research' has been done in an attempt to deny Travellers' ethnicity. Official policy is based on identifying Travellers as a problem and in need of special support to assist them back into so-called 'normal' society.
In 1963 the Government "Commission on Itinerancy" in its report stated
"While it is appreciated that difficulties and objections will be met in the early years from many members of the settled population, it is not considered that there is any alternative to a positive drive for housing itinerants - if a permanent solution to the problem of itinerancy based on absorbtion and integration is to be achieved."
The problem - Travellers and their way of life.
The solution - their disappearance through absorbtion and assimilation into the settled population.
And while over the subsequent decades the language may have become more subtle, the policy remains.
In February 1991 Dublin County Council's 'Proposed Programme for the Accommodation of Travelling People' suggested that the authority should endeavour
"....to secure the return of all new families arriving in County Dublin and occupying roadside areas or sites on public land to the areas in which they have been normally resident."
Echoes here of the repatriation threat hung over black communities in Britain by the most right-wing elements of the Tory establishment.
In another report prepared by Dublin County Council officials in January 1993 it was proposed that Travellers should be forced to adopt a "more responsible" lifestyle by calling a halt to the building of sites.
Brian Fitzgerald Labour TD for Meath was quoted in the 'Sunday Tribune' on 9th April this year as saying in relation to the problem of providing accommodation for Travellers
"We have to think about controlling these people's movements. They will have to be registered in that local authority area and only move when a vacancy in another local authority area occurs - on a site or in a house. It's impossible to provide health services when people keep moving."
Again we have the none too subtle proposition that Travellers' lifestyle is to blame for the fact that the State is failing to provide adequate health services. One could almost imagine him saying in a different context 'It's impossible to provide adequate health services when the poor keep on getting sick.'
In the same interview Fitzgerald - described by the reporter as 'forthright in his views' - makes one of the most racist denigrations of Traveller culture that I have ever heard
"I don't know what kind of culture they want to retain" he says. Where, he asks, are the nice painted carts and the ponies, the skills and crafts there used to be? Perhaps he would agree with the contention that since we don't all live in thatched cottages and bring home turf from the bog on an ass and cart, there is no such thing as an Irish culture.
In a letter published in the 'Tallaght Echo' on Thursday April 13th, Pat Smith Senior Administrative Officer with South Dublin County Council in attempting to justify the forced removal of thirty Traveller families on to a so-called 'temporary' site with few facilities says among other things
"North Clondalkin needs investment and jobs. Hence, leaving the situation of unauthorised encampments with scrap cars, wandering horses etc. as it has been for a number of years was not an option. That would not have served the needs of Traveller families or of the settled community."
So now the people of Clondalkin can all look forward with bated breath for the arrival of legions of entrepreneurs and businesspeople all eager to invest in their area now that the Travellers have been moved out of sight to Lynch's Lane, three miles from the nearest shop!
These are just a few quotations from officialdom in recent years. Perhaps however the most inherently racist aspect of official policy is that of "Spreading the Burden". Under this policy local authorities around the State are supposed to be working to a site construction programme based on a quota system which sets a maximum number of families to be located in each electoral ward, thus defining Travellers as a problem to be shared out.
In 1986 Dublin County Council adopted a policy of constructing no more than 2 small sites in each of the then county's 15 electoral wards. This has led to a situation where Travellers' own preference for small extended family sites in traditional camping places is more often ignored than respected. Sites are proposed in areas where Travellers have never camped and in areas such as Clondalkin, Tallaght and Blanchardstown site provision lags far behind demand. It leads to a situation where residents associations in some areas are able to get away with racist campaigns against halting sites on the basis that other areas haven't 'taken their share of the problem'.
It has led to a situation where a proposed halting site for the Tymon Park area of Tallaght has been objected to because it should be less than a mile up the road in Terenure. Before the 1992 general election Mervyn Taylor Labour TD for Tallaght and currently Minister for Equality signed a petition against this site saying
"Once again the onus for settling Travellers has been dumped on Tallaght".
More recently John Hannon FF chairperson of South Dublin County Council told the 'Tallaght Echo' in February 1995
"Both Dún Laoghaire and Dublin Corporation have not been prepared to take steps to deal with Traveller settlements in their areas and this has resulted in an unfair burden being placed on South Dublin."
And, responding to reports that South Dublin County Council was preparing a revised plan for Traveller accommodation, Jim Lawlor chair of Tallaght Community Council said
"We have had enough of this. Areas with clout have got away with bloody murder and it's now time to call a halt."
While electoral wards with no site provision must certainly be challenged, it must be recognised that the entire policy of "Spreading the Burden" is clearly racist. Travellers themselves should be consulted about the location, size and design of halting sites and group housing schemes.
In order to justify this policy of "Spreading the Burden", it is necessary for officialdom to deny Travellers' ethnicity. Not that ethnic or national origins should have any special significance or importance except that they add to the rich cultural diversity of peoples.
However there are a number of criteria which are generally used to define an ethnic group. These include:-
Clearly Travellers as a group fulfil these criteria. Yet ethnicity is not conceded and the distinctive Traveller identity is not recognised or resourced.
The effects of the racism which results from this failure to accept Traveller ethnicity has been documented in many reports. The "Travellers Health Status Study" published by the Health Research Board in 1987 showed that the age structure of the Traveller population resembles that of a developing country with many children and relatively few in the older age group. Almost 50% of the Traveller population is under 15 years old.
The increase in the Traveller population in the period 1960-1986 shows that the population more than tripled in that period from approximately 6,000 people in 1960 to approximately 18,000 in 1986. This particular study also showed up the following
In terms of education, the majority of the adult Traveller population are illiterate and have had little or no formal education. The education system has systematically discriminated against Travellers for decades. While a large number of Traveller children have been enrolled in Primary schools over the last couple of years, the Primary school curriculum remains largely mono-cultural and the curricular changes necessary to promote a genuinely open interculturalist approach to education remain the stuff of dreams.
Less than 15% of Travellers in the 12-15 year age group attend second-level education and commitments to addressing this remain largely aspirational. The recent White Paper launched by Niamh Breathnach Minister for Education last week laments the "unacceptably low" participation of Traveller children at second-level and sets a policy objective that all Traveller children will complete junior cycle education and half will complete senior cycle within 10 years. However in the absence of any attempt to ask Travellers what they want from the education system or to reform the system away from an examination and qualification oriented rat-race, this 'policy objective' is a sick joke.
The racism practised against Travellers in Ireland is part of the world-wide racism practised against Gypsies and Travellers. This racism reached its peak this century with the murder of a quarter of a million Gypsies by the Nazis. In order to devise a strategy to combat this racism, it is first of all necessary to understand exactly where it comes from.
Racism - whatever ethnic group it is targetted at - is not simply an irrational response to difference. It is not a case where people with white skin or people who live in houses have innate hateful attitudes to people with black skin or to Travellers - attitudes which can sometimes lead to violent and evil actions. It is not a case of racism being endemic in white society or among the settled population.
Racism is a historically specific and materially caused phenomenon. Quite simply it is a product of capitalism. It flourishes as a means of dividing the working class between insiders and outsiders, between native and immigrant, between settled and Traveller. It provides the scapegoat whether it is the Asian community in London being blamed for the entire drug and crime problem or Travellers in Ireland being blamed for crime, litter and the lack of jobs.
In times of economic crisis, racism is heightened and used by sections of the ruling class to divide and conquer. As capitalism needs an excuse or explanation for unemployment, housing shortages, health service crises etc, then the anti-immigrant or anti-Traveller rhetoric is swung into action. In Ireland anti-Traveller racism has been used to deflect attention from the lack of jobs or resources in many working class communities. And the line between the rhetoric and the intimidatory attacks is very thin indeed.
It is only if we recognise this material basis of racism and its use under capitalism to divide workers, set immigrant against native, settled people against Travellers and to provide convenient scapegoats for all the problems capitalism produces, that we can devise strategies to effectively fight it.
As Anarchists, the Workers Solidarity Movement state quite clearly that racism can only be defeated by a class-based strategy - a strategy which aims to unite non-white and white, settled and Traveller in a common struggle to overthrow the capitalist system which breeds racism. Appeals to individuals or groups to behave more decently or act more generously to those perceived as 'different' are of limited effect. it is only when capitalism is destroyed and replaced by a free open and truly democratic system that racism will finally be defeated for ever. That is why we call on all members of the working class to join us in the fight for that new society - in the fight for an anarchist society.
Of course that is not to say that there is nothing that can be done in the here and now to combat racism. Victims of racist attacks must be defended, perpetrators of such attacks must be challenged - physically if necessary. Official racism must be challenged at every opportunity - through Trade Unions, parents committees in schools, residents groups etc. etc.. Every place we find ourselves we must attempt to make a racism-free zone.
In conclusion, it is important to remember that racism has a devastating effect on people at a personal and at a community level. To be a Traveller in Ireland or an Asian in London can be a debilitating experience. Racism shatters self confidence and self image leading to low self esteem and poor mental and physical health. For this reason if for no other it is important to challenge individual acts of racism when we come across them as well as campaigning politically against it. This means walking out of pubs or shops whenever Travellers are refused service, it means challenging the use of derogatory terms such as "knacker". It means practising our anti-racism on a day-to-day level.
A talk given by Gregor Kerr to the Dublin WSM Public Meeting, April 24th 1995