North’s first Traveller-led support group set up in Omagh

WHILE Ireland has been reasonably successful in driving most forms of discrimination out of mainstream society, the same equality has not been afforded to Irish Travellers.

There will always be people that harbour hatred towards others based on their identity. Thankfully, though, it is the racists, homophones and sectarians, rather than those they loathe, that increasingly find themselves as the maligned minority.

However, when it comes to Irish Travellers, people still speak slanderously, uttering words like ‘tinker’, ‘gypsy’ and ‘knacker’, not in a whisper, but with a sense of strident impunity.

Why?

Well, according to Martin McDonagh, who is part of the North’s first Traveller-led support group, which is based in Omagh, ‘Travellers are the last group in our society that it is still socially acceptable to discriminate against’.

“In the likes of Omagh, there tend to be Traveller surnames that dominate, mostly McDonagh and Ward,” he said, speaking with the TyroneHerald.

“As soon as you call a restaurant and try to make a booking under one of those names, it’s, ‘No, we are fully booked’. Or if you try to get into a bar and they hear your accent, all of a sudden the doors are closing and you can’t get in.

“It is embarrassing, it’s horrible, and it has no end.”

Travellers have been recognised as an ethnic minority in the North since 1997, which created a legal framework to allow members of the community to take discrimination cases before the courts.

However, Martin said this has done little to change the way he and his friends and family are treated.

“Legislation is only useful if there is a will to enforce it,” he said.

“These laws were enacted almost 30 years ago, but we are treated virtually the same way our grandparents were. It depresses me to think that my children will face the same marginalisation that their great grandparents did.”

It is not only in social settings that this widespread, deep-seated animosity pervades. Martin said that discrimination – a sense of being made know you are not welcome – penetrates every aspect of a Traveller’s life.

“It’s there in school. It is there when you apply for a job. It’s there when the security guard follows you around the grocery shop. It’s everywhere. And it is not that we want special treatment, we just want equal treatment.

“In 2024, that should not be too much to ask.”

The support group, which does not yet have a name, hopes to provide a unified, formalised voice for the Traveller community in and around the Omagh area.

“Firstly, we want to tackle discrimination in bars and restaurants, because it is the most brazen and visible form we face. Eventually, though – and I know it is ambitious seeing how little progress there has been in the last hundred years – we want to see Travellers being treated the same as everyone else.

“There have been many support groups set up over the years and some have done a great job, but this is first time that we will have a chance to speak up for ourselves.”