Dr. David Joyce:

I can answer that. The Deputy hit the nail on the head in that the economy of the community has been obliterated by the approach of modernity, including through the mechanisation of farming and the use of plastics in modern society. As tinsmiths and weavers, Travellers played a huge role in rural society, travelling from fair to fair to provide a service that was quite important to the local economy. Travellers were among the first recyclers in this country and were heavily involved in scrap collecting and the recycling of copper, tin and aluminium.

One thing that people miss about Travellers is that they were seasonal farm workers. They were often a very welcome sight on farms because they provided cheap and accessible labour for many farmers when harvesting and planting. They usually helped with tillage farming but also with livestock, although very rarely. The onslaught of modernity and the mechanisation of farming from the 1970s onwards turned us from pretty much rural people into urban people. With that, we started moving into urban centres. We were of an oral tradition rather than a literary one, so we lacked the skills that many in the settled community had, meaning reliance initially on social protection. With regard to falling into poverty, the circumstances have kind of been recreated, with economic marginalisation. There was a difference in understanding between the settled community and the Traveller community in that respect. The Deputy really hit the nail on the head in that not being useful economically has led us to being left behind in many ways.