Original subtitles

♪ We went over to Parder to smuggle out tin,

♪ Ourself and the Jaysus and young Martin Quinn,

♪ With me right toorin-arinan

♪ Toorin on the dairnan

♪ With my right toorin-an

♪ Toorin-an the dandy

♪ Up comes the old sergeant with a smile and a grin... ♪

This is a four-generation Traveller family.

From me grandfather, Johnny Collins,

who I'm called after, and whose voice you can hear singing,

to his brother, my grand-uncle, known as Big James,

who's one of the last Traveller tinsmiths in Ireland,

from me mommy, me old man, me cousin known as Young James,

me sister Christine, to her daughter and son,

Catherine and Dan.

This is my family, and this is our story.

♪ With me right toorin-arinan ♪

I was down in Tannaghmore doing a

course down there with young lads.

Well, they're not young fellas, some of them older men, are doing

very well down there in Ballbriggan.

You need to make me a cup first.

47 or 48 years of age, and they're doing very well.

There's three of them doing very, very well.

Listen to this fella, being smart.

You better make him a saucepan before you croak.

He'll make it himself.

Are you still being taught by Miss Mooney?

Yeah.

She's still teaching? Yeah.

Well, I'm saying she's still teaching.

She's, like, maybe 30.

Still teaching is crazy.

You went to school right after I did.

That sounds like she's really old, but she's not really old.

It's just weird that she's still there.

Oh, how was school today? Good, good, good, good.

Great. What were you doing?

Art.

Art?

What's for dinner?

What's for dinner? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what's for dinner?

I think, em, I think Mommy's cooking something

or Nanny's cooking something.

Yeah, she's one of... she's the first child

I've ever seen that likes school 'cause the rest of the children,

you couldn't get them out of bed.

She's up first thing in the morning.

You know it. Raring to go! Yeah.

What's for dinner?

Em, spuds and a bit of corned beef, Catherine.

Okay. I'll make you a corned beef sandwich now, though.

Here, take your jacket off.

I mean, I'd like to focus on art a bit more.

I'd like to get more creative with it and, like,

expand what I draw with and things I draw of.

I feel like it's just good to express yourself,

'cause, like, you should be able to show people,

like, who you are, and be, like, different, if that makes sense.

But not like you're forcing yourself to be different,

just like...

it's good to be different,

and it's good to have different things

for people, but it's also good to, like, share things

with people, if that makes sense.

And... oh, I actually kind of like computer stuff, 'cause I do

coding and... well, it's called ICT.

I'd like to do that for Leaving Cert.

And I don't know, I feel like it's something kind of fun,

'cause it's kind of like... there's a lot to learn about it.

And I feel like when there's a lot to learn about

something, it kind of just makes it more interesting,

'cause it, like...

you kind of have to go more into depth to, like,

actually get good at it.

Yeah, we started, like, going on to our CBA and, like,

what we're gonna pick for the Junior Cert,

because, like, the CBA,

you can basically just use whatever you do

for the CBA in your Junior Cert.

Baby, you're so American, it's shocking.

I'm not American!

Her accent, like.

You're definitely not talking like me anyway.

You're so American. Like, I sound American and she's worse.

You sound American. And she's worse.

You genuinely sound American. I know, I know.

Like, no, it's not from me.

We have it for the same reasons, but it's not from me.

A lot of the content that we both consume is from YouTube and shit,

and when people are making stuff on the internet... Ah, come on.

D'you know what I mean, like? They're talking like Americans,

Right, but also, I would spend like, eight hours of my day

playing video games with Americans.

Oh my God, I'm begging ya! I'm begging ya!

Catherine, say your name.

Catherine? Aw...

"Catherine?"

Stop! This is absurd.

It's... that's how you say it though, because when you say

Cathy, it's Catherine. "Catherine?"

What am I supposed to say? "Catherine?"

I don't know where we got them from.

She sounds like one of the Americans out of The Quiet Man.

She sounds like a real bad

fake American accent. No! Yeah.

You're so American. Not even a good one.

It's actually... I like your accent, honey. Don't mind them.

Thanks. They're bullying me.

You gotta give out to them.

Cobblestoner!

That's your grandfather there. Great-grandfather.

Great-grandfather. I'm your granddad.

I'm your grandfather. He's your great-granddad.

He wrote a couple of poems, but I think one of my favourite

was called The First Traveller.

"They call us knackers because we travel around,

We laid our straw beds on the cold, cold ground.

Our Blessed Mother was a Traveller

who travelled around..."

She gave birth of our Lord on the cold, cold ground.

She had no possessions, just a donkey and a shawl

And the child in her arms

Was the king of us all.

Our Lord was a Traveller who travelled the Holy Lands.

He had no possessions, just a stick in his hand,

And in his heart he built no walls.

He made us equal and he loved us all.

This is me son Johnny.

Johnny is the youngest, and Johnny's called after my father,

Johnny Collins, and he started college this year,

which is great, and we're all delighted for him,

'cause he's actually the only...

first one in our whole extended family that's gone

to third level, which we're very proud of.

So we're in UCD,

and I'm not off the verge

of heading on to my English literature class.

Ah, John, look, you're up first.

There you go.

I put a bit of a thing at the bottom.

I think I also, like, showed the rhyme scheme throughout it.

I didn't realise I was going to be reading it in class.

Okay. But there's a thing at the bottom talking about how I maybe

messed up the syllables thing.

Okay, an apology, like? Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's a long literary tradition!

Cool, so am I just reading it? Take it away.

Starting college is horridly stressful

Hours of new classes passes us fastest

Between modules charging like a bull

Baptised practise the haphazard latest

Slipping through sighs, hiding from piercing eyes

Confounding halls like a labyrinth and all

Classes full of prize and newfound allies.

Some days vanish quick, others pass or crawl

Expectations on new education

Speeding past, looking to enjoy the rush

At my station, searching for elation

Bubbling in my chest, emotional mush

I'm giddy and making my way forward

I can and will do this, you have my word.

Excellent.

Yeah, I'm seeing you're hitting all the points there.

Yeah... Could I ask you a question?

Is there an actually standardised way of knowing how many syllables

are in a word, or is it based off your pronunciation of it?

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

'Cause I... And this is why, this is another reason why I like to

get people to read it out as well, you know.

Yeah. 'Cause I might read a word differently to you.

Yeah? Yeah.

I got mainly into poetry because of my father.

My auld man writes a lot of poetry,

and he does stage writing and acting, and...

he's genuinely, like,

one of my heroes.

I love him to bits.

I write because I need to write a poem, not 'cause I

want to write a poem.

Like, one of the themes in it is that I'm

too settled for many Travellers, and I'm too much of a Traveller

for a lot of settled people.

Right. Did you ever have that problem?

Eh... Feeling like you're in between instead of part of either?

I would have met people who I would have worked with,

same situations as yourself, worked with,

played football with,

socialised with, who would...

bring up a conversation about Travellers as if they were

talking about other people. Yeah.

And then when I'd intervene and say

"What do you mean by that?

I'm a member of the Travelling community."

They'd go "Ah yeah, but you're not one of them Travellers.

You're not, you know,

you wouldn't be like those Travellers."

Yeah. And then some people would say

that you're not a real Traveller

because you don't travel around in a caravan any more,

or a trailer as we call them. Yeah.

Or a wagon, or if you owned horses,

or if you collect scrap, they don't see you,

or doing the markets, then you're not a real Traveller.

And that's something that would have been done

by Travellers years ago.

So the whole culture of Travellers have changed,

but it doesn't mean Travellers are any less

of being Travellers.

So you just have to teach them that.

Yeah. But yeah, it has been said to me.

But there is also just a part of it where it's like every time

that any group of people, and this is a widespread thing,

like, most groups of people find out

that I'm a Traveller, or I tell them at some point,

or it comes up in conversation, I mention it,

because I'm not going to go out of my way to tell people,

but I'm not going to go out of my way to hide it. Yeah.

And it does become this thing of, like,

"Oh, well, there was this one time that I heard a story about this

Traveller, and why did he do that?"

Or "Well, there's all these problems

with Travellers, why don't you fix this, or why don't you fix that?"

And then it comes down to this thing of feeling like you're

representing a whole community of people.

Mm. Where it's like... because you're the one Traveller

that they know, you set the opinion of all

Travellers based on how you treat this person.

And that's not fair.

And you add the other layer into that now, Johnny,

in the contemporary world that we live in with social media,

whether that's on Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, or whatever

else that's going around.

Look, if you look at the articles that are going on this minute

in relation to Travellers in the media,

and the commentary that's underneath it in terms of the way

that people are perceiving the community. It's vile.

So even people that you would think that would have a better

understanding or a better... maybe a better way of describing

some of the things that they feel about Travellers

are actually brought down to the ground when it comes to it.

They can say what they want, it's a free-for-all, they can...

and they can get away with it.

And because some of them are actually on

these online platforms,

and they're able to hide their identity, makes the comments

and the stuff even more serious.

My mommy and daddy used to live down in Dublin.

That's where me cousin James and me great uncle Big James live.

But, sure, then we moved up to Cavan when I was about 2 or 3.

But I'd say about half of my poems are written about

my mother or my father.

But even outside of that, like, I've written poems about

relationships and love, and I can confidently say

that my mother and father's relationship had a very

heavy impact on that.

'Cause a lot of the things that I'd want in a relationship are

kind of born from my mother and father's.

And so I think even in the poems that I'm writing

for hours on end about wanting to so badly fall in love

with someone, I wouldn't want to write those if

my mother and father didn't love each other so much, you know?

♪ Some say that I am a fool for love

♪ What's a crazy heart

♪ To do ♪

♪ I'm lost stolen page from the book of life... ♪

Me and Catherine met in 1985,

and then we got married in 1986, and Christine was our eldest.

She was born in 1987 or '88, I think it was '88.

And Catherine would be one of those

Travelling women who would be...

you know, really articulate and really, really strong.

She set up the Blanchardstown Traveller Support Group

20-odd years ago,

and adapted two plays,

and she managed to get ten Traveller women

on stage for two weeks.

I think a lot of the young people,

not... maybe not even so young,

but I think a lot of the people that are there today

in mainstream television, theatre, or filmmakers,

or creators,

would actually contribute some of their inspiration coming

from Michael Collins because he was the first

on mainstream television,

and the first Traveller.

There was loads of Traveller characters, but they weren't

played by Travellers. They were played by non-Travellers.

So his was the first Traveller character played by a

Traveller on mainstream television.

And now he does his own plays and he writes them,

and they used to be one-man shows, but now me and him do them

together all around the country.

And that's a general thing in the Traveller community.

Arts and performance and drama is something that's been passed

down through generations.

So this Traveller woman goes

into the council, she's asking them about accommodation.

"Excuse me, sir, we're living on the one side

out there for the last 15 years."

My format really is, you know, what I do is when I go to

weddings or christenings or funerals, and most of them are

in the Travelling community, because

Travellers don't use two or three words

like 'Ah, that was terrible, I hope it never happens again.'

They would go into the story, they would tell you

a story about it, and I'd always listen to their stories.

And then when something would hit me,

even though I'd be at a wedding

or a christening or a funeral, I'd keep playing it back

in me head till I got home.

And then when I got home, I'd run around

looking for the Dictaphone.

I'd pull out the Dictaphone and I'd record it,

and I'd give me Dictaphone over to my wife or my children,

and they would type it out for me, and then I'd put

a narrative through it. That's the way that I work.

Do you see where it says "piss, piss and shitting"?

Yeah. Put in "piss and shite-ing,"

because that's funnier. Okay.

Today we're doing a show called Magpies on the Pylon as part

of suicide awareness, and the show is about a father

who loses his son through suicide and shows the other side

of the effects of suicide on the people who are left behind.

I'm still your little old boy, aren't I?

Oh, geez.

You'll always be me little old boy, son.

Please don't go, son.

Please don't go yet, son.

Please, son, don't go, son. Just one hug, son!

Please, I beg you, don't go, son!

A lot of the time, Travellers could be looked at like

statistics, 'cause we're a group of people that maybe a lot

of people don't know about or interact with.

So in the general population, we're put down to statistics. It's

seven times higher, suicide in the Traveller

community, it's 'this amount of Travellers in prison' or whatever.

Infant mortality rate... It's statistics.

Accommodation, education, they're all statistics.

It's all statistics, but what these stories do is they

make it so that you're not looking at a number on a page,

you're looking at a family.

Johnny started college, which is great because,

would I want any of my children to become an actor or a writer?

Em, yeah...

But no, if that makes any sense to you.

I wouldn't want him to make a living off it,

'cause I was saying to Johnny, like,

I think Johnny is gonna be...

Johnny's gonna go places because Johnny has...

Johnny wants it, Johnny loves it, Johnny needs it.

But I said to Johnny, make sure you get something

that you can fall back on.

I didn't.

When I'm unemployed, I'm fuckin' unemployed.

And when I was unemployed, I could be unemployed

for six months.

One starry night, as I lay sleeping,

♪ One starry night, as I lay in bed,

♪ I dreamed I heard wagon wheels a-creakin'

♪ But when I awoke... ♪

When I was growing up, there was a queenie stove in here.

Queen stove, wasn't it?

And you light your fire on it,

you can make your tea on it as well.

And then this is a double bed here on top, this one here,

and then you had another bed in here.

You had a bed in there as well,

for the three or four kids in there, and the...

Be father, mother, and two or three kids up here,

d'you know what I mean?

They were very warm, like, you know what I mean?

They weren't cold, or anything like that.

How long would you do it all the time?

They can't.

I always do it all the time.

When I used to go to my mother and

would say, "Have you seen a woman

at the door?" And she'd say to me, "Geg the beoir for a bit

of dura." Now you haven't a clue what that is.

That means ask the woman for a cut of bread.

Or "Geg the beoir for a few cullions."

Now, the cullions means spuds.

You know what I mean?

The head of kob was a cabbage.

You know what I mean? The...

The sark, the father'd say "Put the horse out in the sark."

Well, that meant put the horse out in the field.

"Close the sratta" was meant close the gate.

The grudas was the door.

If the Guard came down the road, he'd say,

"Here's the shades coming." Well, the shade means the Guard,

but the Guard wouldn't have a clue what you were saying.

"Tackle the kuri" that means put the harness on the horse.

The blanog was a cow.

The grito was windy.

Sure, that's all dead and gone, that's gone history.

When you were reared on the road, you never forget.

But then during the summer, you'd be working side by side

with the settled people.

The winter-time was a hard time, but it was a good time.

You never complained.

You'd no complaints at all.

It doesn't matter if it was hail, rain, or snow.

You're just same as like that out there.

You'd pass the more heat of it.

But me Uncle James is a very gifted man.

Now, James would be, like people in his own generation,

would be illiterate.

And James would be able to... he's a beautiful tinsmith,

and he would have learned from his grandfather,

and he would make a bucket or a pan

or a saucepan. And then he built a wagon.

He built a barrel-top wagon from the ground up,

built the wheels and everything on it.

And even though James would never see himself as an artist,

and to see the paintwork and to see how the wheels were made and

the way everything sits so perfectly, that is an artist.

But James would never see himself as an artist.

I'd like to see young lads picking it up, you know,

they're learning the trade.

We're not going to live forever, and then that'll be the end

of the tinsmithing.

There was a time

♪ When her love was mine

♪ When our two hearts they were entwined ♪

I am a single mother of two children.

My daughter Catherine is 14 and my son is 15.

My son has autism and an intellectual disability.

Now I will give credit where credit is due.

Daniel has an amazing father, and his daddy is very good

with him, and he's always been a great help with Daniel

and Catherine, even though we haven't been together since

the children were babies.

The day that Daniel got his diagnosis,

he got diagnosed in a private clinic,

and they told me that he would never show me affection,

that he would never hug me, he would never tell me he loved me,

and that he would never show signs of love and affection,

and that, em, that he may never be potty-trained,

and that he wouldn't be able to communicate with me,

and he'd never be able to tell me what he wanted.

And he was 3 and a half.

Come on, beautiful.

Oh, ta.

Yeah. Oh, thanks.

Now. Now! Now.

Yeah, I'll leave you alone now.

What age are you?

Look at mommy. What age are you?

Say "15." 15.

Spell your name.

Spell your name. D...

D-A-N-I-E-L. Good boy.

Like, I firmly believe that my child was meant for me

the way he is, and I wouldn't change a hair on his head.

That's the truth.

He can be hard work at times, yeah, but he's my hard work.

D'you know?

And like, I do believe that God doesn't give

you a cross like that to carry if you're not able to carry it.

Like, tell me, Catherine, like, from your point of view,

what it's been like, like, having a bigger brother with autism?

I don't know. It's not different.

'Cause it's just normal for ya? Yeah.

Yeah.

But like, do you know, like, when he used to, like,

not sleep and, d'you know, like,

when he gets angry and stuff, like,

does it, like, does it affect you? On your day?

I don't like it, but I ignore it. You ignore it?

You're just used to it? Yes.

Talk about basking in the sunshine!

You good?

You okay?

I was in school one day and, em, we were playing basketball out

on the basketball courts, and I was quite good when I was

younger at basketball and stuff.

And this boy couldn't get the ball off me,

and he called me a knacker.

This is crooked!

Oh no, look, come here.

Straighten that up a bit! Don't blame the net!

There we go.

Now, no excuses.

Oh!

This is Mr. Courtney.

Mr. Courtney was my 6th class teacher, and then he became

the principal of the school after, he was like "I don't want

to be a teacher no more. I'm going to run the school."

"Class traumatised me."

Allegedly!

You remember your first communion photograph?

I do.

I actually do. That's mad.

Look at the size of my hat.

Look how different, like, Traveller culture is

just oozing out of it!

Yes. I...

When I was in sixth class with you, when we...

had, like, the altercation on the basketball court,

and somebody called me a knacker

out of frustration. Anyway, it was what it was,

and I came and I told you, and there was no question

and doubt, and you were like, 'Okay.' Went to Mr. Nolan,

and Mr. Nolan was like, 'Look,

how do you want to deal with this?

Do you want him suspended? Do you want him punished?

Do you want to sort it out, sit together?' And I said, 'No,

I don't want him suspended.

I still have to be in class with him.

I want him to know that what he said was wrong.

I'm not a knacker. I'm a member of the Travelling community.'

So, em,

I had a conversation with Mummy and Daddy, and...

and they were like 'Write, like, a little letter,

and stand at the top of the class

and tell them why you're proud of being a Traveller and who you

are and where you come from.' Yes.

And you allowed me to do that, and very much so,

advocated it, to be fair.

But even in that, you know, that little moment

in time, yeah, that was transformative, I think,

for a lot of children in our class, in that, A,

you had the confidence to stand up and do it,

but then obviously the content of what you had to say

was so critical, and there was such buy-in from the class.

Yeah, no, they were... they all listened. They actually...

They listened attentively. Yeah, they did.

And like, there are things I still say to Catherine today,

like, and even though Catherine's father

is not a member of the Traveller community,

I would have very much so...

still want her to know everything about

the Traveller community that I came from because she's half a

Traveller, do you know what I mean?

Like, you guys were talking about, like, the segregation or

whatever that word is. Segregation, yeah.

And, um, like people not getting opportunities.

I just think that everyone gets treated that way and it's

not fair at all for anyone.

Like I wouldn't think of it as in

'Oh, it's just this group being

treated like that,' 'cause everyone is getting treated

like that, no matter what because it's just that...

it's not like there is stuff...

like many stuff positive in the world anyway. Mm.

Because there's just too much negative,

so people just go to being negative,

because it's just, like, the attitude they take on.

Can I make a counterpoint, though,

and I know this isn't what you're saying.

It's... in Ireland, the reason why you might not notice

it as much is partially because it's a lot

quieter now and it's a lot more behind your back.

But the other part of it is, is that racism towards Travellers

in this country is far more normalised than any,

any, anything else.

If you were to make fun of German people for being German,

you'd get pulled on the fact that they're German.

But if a Traveller, if a settled young fella made fun

of Travellers in school, they probably wouldn't get pulled on it

because everyone else would just laugh, 'cause Travellers

are fuckin' weird to them.

And it's a thing of, like, it's a lot more normalised

in schools and it's a lot more normalised in Irish culture as

a whole to be racist towards Travellers.

And I think the thing, though,

for the schools, particularly today,

while they are much better about inclusion,

I think that they still have a long way to go

before the teachers are able to deal with

the racism that's levelled at Travellers

within the school. Now I know you don't experience it

on a daily basis,

but your mommy experienced it when she was in primary school,

and I was in a class where I was getting

taken out of the classroom,

and the rest of the children would be doing Irish

or doing maths, and we'd be brought down

and we'd be showered and we'd be washed,

we'd be fed, and then we'd be put

into a Traveller class where we were drawing pictures,

for three hours.

Well, I wouldn't subject it that my whole generation thinks it.

It's just I'm not affected by it, and I don't really care, 'cause

why would I put my whole life and time and thinking

and thought into, like, being bothered about something

like that when I have other stuff to be bothered about?

Junior Cert, Leaving Cert, work, friends, probably,

pressures, I don't know.

I've been 15 years separated

and I'm not actually divorced yet,

but I got the divorce papers, they're down there filled in,

they're waiting to get sent away.

So I'm going to get the divorce sorted.

And...

But yeah, it's a lot more common these days than it used to be.

But, so, yeah, it's not a thing that, like, people would...

It's not a taboo any more, if that makes sense.

But it was for a long time. Oh, so long!

But like, there used to be a very weird thing about being

a separated woman.

Like, you'd get treated weird. That's... You still do.

That's still the same. Yeah! Yeah.

Which is just, like, odd because it's like... you're a person,

you're living your own life, and then it's like

"Well, what are you doing?" Yeah.

Oh no, you're just thrun there, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now I have me own house, my own car, a job.

I do a bit of acting here and there.

I'm rearing two children by meself, and I'm very independent

I would say, and I get... you're just thrun there.

Yeah, like, that's crazy.

Where you going to, Johnny?

Going out to college.

College is a bit of pressure.

I'm enjoying it, but I'm not loving it,

if I can be perfectly frank.

And I wrote this poem: "I never cared about school,

Always thought I was too cool.

Found the fairies in the trees,

Never needed education to see.

Secondary did nothing for me,

I hated its regiment.

Couldn't find the beauty or the seelie,

Couldn't fall into the monotony

Now they long for me to fall into their box.

It'd be class for a Traveller to be in college for them,

As I choke on society's pox.

But fuck, if I throw it all away, what will I be then?'

I'm telling you now, I can't stand an acting class.

Yeah. Unless it's simply 'Yes, we are going to act.'

But the best half the time they ask you to fuckin...

'Oh, pretend you're a fuckin' giraffe now,'

or something like that. Do you know what I mean?

I'm telling you now, they'd make you down on all fours and go and

crawl along the ground like a giraffe or an elephant

or something. I wouldn't do it.

Neither would I. I wouldn't do it.

Neither would I!

So I kept out of them, sat away from them.

This is my cousin James, and he's my Uncle James's James.

'Cause you all have the same name.

No more than ours.

But, em, so my daddy would be his daddy's

brother, and we would have grew up together,

on and off. Yeah.

No, I...

I'm not Luke. Am I Luke or no?

I suppose I'm very into films, like, a bit of a cinephile, like,

just something I like doing.

Fuck!

I thought ya...

Dead Poets Society, love that film.

I suppose it kind of goes back into the acting as well, where

Neil, he wants to be an actor, his father wants him

to be a solicitor.

His father's very strict on it.

I suppose he kind of found joy in his art.

He wanted to do it for life, wanted to go to drama school.

Wasn't allowed to.

It kind of correlates again with acting or any sort of the arts

and being in the Travelling community or any sort of

family that wouldn't be... that's not even a Traveller,

that wouldn't be support of all this.

Like, get a real job sort of thing, do you know what I mean?

How did I get into this line of work?

There was no big...

it's not as if someone wakes up in the morning and decides,

you know what, I want to fuckin' unclog toilets, like.

So there was no big, like, thing about it.

So whatever took me on first, and they ended up taking

me on first, so...

Like, if you're doing something, right,

that's artistic, yeah?

There's no such thing as a 52 weeks in a year salary,

so you need something that's...

I dunno, that you can fall back on.

This is torture, acting is...

what I like doing, I suppose, d'you know what I mean?

Would you face much, like, racism in Dublin?

Ah, the odd time.

Like, I got a fair bit of it in Cavan, but I always thought

that it'd be a lot worse in Dublin.

The odd time, yeah, but sure...

You just don't really pass heat to 'em, I suppose, yeah.

It's either don't pass heat to them

or it's throw a thump, murder 'em.

That's the way it, now, obviously you might be a bit different,

but the way I look at it is either you joke it off

or else you get thick. Yeah.

I'd say 90% of the time I probably got thick.

Yeah. In schools and work, and the whole lot, so...

Which I know probably does go into the Traveller thing,

'Oh, their men, all fighting,' and, you know,

stuff... Stereotypes, yeah. Yeah, but...

I suppose if someone's being racist

towards you, lad, do you know what I mean?

A couple of thumps sort them out, to be honest!

I'm very big on having a constructive conversation.

No.

I'm very big on talking to someone! I'm not.

Levelling with them, being like, 'Hey man, do you know what

that word means, how it's used?' 'What am I?'

'A knacker?' You said what?

Oh, is that what I am, yeah? Ooh!

We are the Travelling people

♪ Like the Picts or Beaker folk

♪ Them in Whitehall say we're parasites,

♪ But thinker is the word

♪ With our gum shellac alay ra lo Move us on, ya boyos

♪ All the jobs in the world we have surely done,

♪ From making Pharaohs' coffins, now... ♪

College doesn't really like people

that can't conform as much as I probably should.

And so I kind of suck at college.

Like, I don't suck at college, I can do all the work

and that's fine.

I just suck at enjoying college.

Like, everything comes with a box and you

can either fit in the box or think outside it.

And I think that's why I love Oscar Wilde a lot,

'cause Oscar Wilde was gay in a time where being gay was

super-bad, like, completely illegal.

And being a gay Traveller is, depending on your family,

a death sentence.

People have been fully disowned,

people have been killed for being gay,

people have killed themselves

because their family disowned them and got rid of them and every part

of the community that they spent their whole life in was ripped

away, and so they offed themselves.

Like, gay bashing is a whole thing in the Traveller community.

They'll kick the shit out of you for being gay.

It's not easy, and I don't mean gay...

I guess queer is the term I mean, but like,

I don't mean being a gay man.

I mean, there's also Traveller lesbians, there's also

Traveller trans people.

There's also Traveller bi people.

There's also Traveller pan people.

It's like... but most of them hide it.

And before they had the choice to even know, the chance to know

who they were, they were already married and having a child.

I don't even believe in God.

I think it's just a force of habit.

You know when people ask you the question, do you believe in God?

You're always afraid to say no, just in case there is a heaven.

I would have fell out with the church,

and the priests, and a couple times with God, over the years.

I think we all need faith, we all need God.

The Travellers are very religious.

They're men that believe in God and go to Mass, say a few prayers

at night time when you're in bed.

You know what I mean, all that means an awful lot

to the Travellers.

The younger people now, the younger people is not

like the old people at all, d'you know what I mean?

Not like the old people at all.

So if I was to learn off you how to do the tinsmithing,

how long do you think it'd take?

About how many, uh, how many tinsmiths are still alive?

One. Him.

Are you the last one? I'm the last one.

Swear to God?

The other fella died here about two months ago.

Jesus Christ.

Tom O'Donnell. Yeah, yeah. Tom died.

Good old tinsmith he was.

And how do you feel about it?

Would you like a young fella to pick it up?

I'd think of someone picking it up from me. Yeah.

Over here now, Johnny, in the...

This is like shed here, I'd be doing all my tinsmithing in here.

Now that's a... them's the tin saucepans, called a ponder.

Right.

You know what I mean, and I'll show you how that's done.

Have to get the good glasses out, do you?

Have to get these ones out!

And what are you doing there?

Just widening out the holes for the rivet to go through it.

Right.

Those are lagging clips.

You see the way that's level there?

Yeah. All around.

Without that, you wouldn't get any bottom on.

And you have to cut it exactly as big as the bottom of the cup.

See the little mark? Yeah.

You don't go inside the mark, you have to keep on the outside

of the mark. Okay.

And is that all you do to get it on?

Just keep tapping it? Yeah!

Jeez, I just think this is deadly.

You can sit down there and try to make one yourself, Johnny.

Do you reckon? Huh?

Do you think I have it in me?

Go on, Johnny...

Do you want to tell me a bit about your father?

He was a tinsmith.

Yeah. Would he be doing the tinsmithing every day?

Every day. Every day? Every day.

That was the only way

we had to feed ourselves at that time.

Sorry.

You're a man now, Johnny!

That's the one you have you made yourself.

I tell you, you can tell which one's been made

by the fella that's been doing it for 60 year!

No, there's no difference between the two of them.

I have to say I'm delighted with me cup.

So you can bring that one with ya,

I'm gonna bring that one as well.

Thank you very much.

Travelling culture is dead now.

Like, I've lived in this site all me life.

Do you know what I mean?

The furthest I've travelled is across the road,

'cause I used to live in it when me mother

and father first married, they lived in a trailer like meself,

across the road from me granny's.

Now they have a house.

Like, I've not travelled.

Which, to be honest, I'm grand being settled, like,

I wouldn't want to travel.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, it's probably hardship, do you know what I mean?

There would be hardship.

Just plant the mobile on the sight, like,

saves you a lot of money, you know what I mean?

I'm not saying the whole community's dead, like.

I mean, I hope the traditions keep on.

Like, you don't really hear anyone that's settled

getting married under the count of 25,

whereas most times here it's 18, 19, 20.

Do you think the culture is dead?

Say, the travelling, the actual travelling, like,

from place to place and making up your own halting sites,

getting evicted, all that sort of stuff,

that's gone, that's dead.

They're all settled now. Do you know why that's gone?

'Cause they got houses! No.

Oh, 100%, they got houses, they got sites. No, no, no, no!

But that's not the reason why.

Well, how isn't it? They used to do that to live.

To live.

Go from place to place to live. No, but there was, like,

laws passed in the '70s and '60s that forced

Travellers to settle down.

Like, they couldn't travel any more with the Trespass Act

or whatever it's called.

Going onto land and camping on it unless it's a designated

camping spot is illegal. Yeah, it was illegal.

And that's how people travelled.

Yeah, f course, it was illegal back then too, Johnny.

They still got evicted back then too.

No, but then they brought in, like, social welfare.

And they brought in the schooling system and your children get

took off you if you didn't have a house.

That's why so many Travellers are in foster care. And, em...

So it was like the state forced Travellers to settle down.

It wasn't 'cause everyone just decided they wanted

to give up on the travelling.

I think they just got settled.

I think they just got more comfortable with the houses,

with the running water, with the porta-loos, with everything,

and they just decided... I wouldn't say it was like a...

they didn't do it as a culture, man. They, like,

if Travellers years ago... they didn't do it as a culture.

They didn't do it, "Oh well, this is our culture now,

we're going to keep doing this."

It was a way of life to keep living.

If they got a little plot of land for their trailers,

for their site, they got running water,

and they got Portaloos,

it's more comfortable for them,

it's more comfortable for children,

they're gonna stay there!

Yeah, I suppose that's... Then a few years later

they got rid of some of the sites and gave them houses,

even more comfortable now.

There's a bit of a narrative with other younger Travellers

and there's a bit of a sense of

the Traveller culture being dead,

or there being, like, a severe loss of identity

in younger Travellers,

not feeling as so connected to the culture and

what it means to be a Traveller.

Say somebody like Daddy, like Daddy grew up

when he was younger on the side of the road living in camps,

you know? Daddy used to go fishing in the...

in the river to get food for the evening.

And I've never had to do any of that.

I've never... I've lived in a house me whole life.

I went to school with settled people in settled schools,

in settled classrooms, and I can't deny it, I do,

in a little bit understand where

other younger Travellers are coming from

in the sense of thinking that the culture is dead. Mm.

So what could I say back to them?

Well, I suppose the very first thing that you'd say to people is

that culture is not static, so it doesn't stay the same. Mm-hmm.

And people who study different cultures across the world,

they're social anthropologists,

I'm not one, but social anthropologists

have studied nomadic people

and in particular studied Travellers here in Ireland.

And what they would say is, yes, there is a change and a shift

in the type of culture that we have,

but if you look at Ireland as a line, that line there,

you look at Travellers, we're under that line,

so we've always been here. Mm-hmm.

So our parallel existence in Ireland has always

been different to white settled people. Mm-hmm.

So our culture and customs and beliefs and value systems

have changed and adapted as the culture has changed,

because it has progressed and evolved.

But our culture is nonetheless a set... a separate culture

from the settled culture, and it is still specifically

Traveller culture. So even though you live in a house,

it doesn't mean that your beliefs

and value systems that you're taught up with and brought up

with every single day are not different to that

of settled people, because they are.

And you cannot know where you're going if you don't know where you

come from, and your history is part of what shapes your future.

If you could go travelling in the morning, would you go?

Well, son... if I had a way of going travelling

tomorrow, and if I had a good wagon,

and a tent, I'd be gone like a march hare.

'Cause I tell you, son, it's in the blood.

And you mightn't know it, but it's in your blood too.

Learning who you are and learning how to be who you want to be

and how you want to get there.

'Cause I am a Traveller. It's in my blood.

It's in my DNA.

My family are Travellers.

My family's... my mother and father are Travellers.

My mother and father's mother and father are Travellers.

And simply me being... is Traveller enough.

Daddy, I'll be honest with you, I'm still a bit

hung up about it all.

Right. Em...

And I don't know, like, I got into college... Good, yeah.

And it was brilliant, and it was lovely,

and I was going to all these classes,

it was all new, and that was class.

Right. But then,

the... to be honest with you, being on the campus

depresses me a little bit.

What are you saying?

Are you saying to me that you want to...

I think I want to leave it.

You want to leave it.

And what do you want to pursue?

Well, I have me short film and I'm almost finished

the script for that.

And, like, I have the poetry and I love going to the poetry events

and I love doing the acting and I love doing the writing.

And it's like, anytime I have to do any of them things,

I'm jumping out of me bed to get up and go do it.

Right. And whenever I have to go to college, I'm tearing meself out

of bed and forcing meself to get on the poxy bus.

Right, lookit.

You says, em, I mean...

I'm not gonna bullshit you, I would

love to see you going to college.

Mommy would love to see you going to college, getting a degree,

because all we want is our children to do better than us,

and that would be huge for us.

But son, if you're not happy, you're not happy.

Now this is my advice I give you.

You're 21 years of age.

If you decide to stick to your poetry, your drama,

and your writing, if you want to do that, you do that.

Now, I still think that you have plenty of time.

If you don't want to go back to UCD, I still think you have

plenty of time to do college.

If you went back when you're 23 or you're 25

as a mature student,

you done your three years or four years there,

you'd be still only a young man, like,

and you're finished with it. Mm-hmm.

So maybe that might give you a chance to grow and to think

about what you really want to do.

So what I'm saying is it's really up to you.

I'll be honest with ya,

it really meant a lot to me

that he didn't... he did say he'd be a bit disappointed,

and that's fair enough. I can't blame him.

I'm his son, and watching one of your children go

to third level education,

especially the first of your children

going to third level education.

That must be a very proud moment, and to have it

not really be seen through to fruition,

and be a bit disappointed is fair enough.

But...

I do love...

that if it doesn't make me happy and I want to stop, he gives

me full permission to do so.

If you don't enjoy it, what are you doing it for?

And...

it just means a lot, that that goes for everything in life.

The thing about the four generations

and the difference in them is

James would be very old-school and old-fashioned

and set in his ways and have, I suppose,

a certain outlook on life, and then

he has this incredible talent which is tinsmithing.

And then my daddy would have been the next generation to him,

and my father, with his upbringing,

and the segregation and the racism

and discrimination, I think made a very strong emphasis

on the fact that he wanted his children to have an education

because he always felt like it was the tool

that was taken from him.

So because of that, I think me as his first child, I suppose,

to go through the education system,

and he was very adamant that, like,

that was it, you were going to get a Leaving Cert

whether you wanted to or not.

And so I suppose with Catherine, it's still very different

because where I had to go to school

'cause it was, like, something that Daddy pushed on us,

which I don't regret,

Catherine loves school, and she's, like, very intelligent,

and I love that about her, I won't lie.

So tell me then what you think the difference is between

you and Big James.

Everything... Everything.

So would you still think that even though Big James is so

much older than you, and you're the youngest of us all

in regards to this documentary, that...

We would be best friends, but I just don't have

anything in common with him.

Even a drink of water out of a cup or a tin mug

is completely different.

You'll never go back to a cup or a mug again.

That's the God's honest truth.

I was reared to be proud of the fact that it's okay for me

to have a culture and a heritage that's the same as yours

but different, and that we have a language that pre-exists Irish.

Our way of life, where we came from,

travelling around this country, campsites to wagons to trailers,

to some of us in sites, some of us in houses like I am,

doesn't take away from my identity

as a Traveller, my culture,

my heritage, and my people.

In the Lord Edward pub on the last Thursday of a month,

they do the Sunflower Sessions.

It's literally just an open mic in a tiny room at the top of a pub,

and it's a really just safe and lovely environment.

This last one I wrote, it's about coming from, like,

a lineage of artists, and I tried to hit all

the notes I possibly could.

It's called "Flows Through My Veins."

I come from a long line of people

that wouldn't call themselves artists.

From tinsmiths to wagon builders, poets to singers.

Working for money or catharsis, to feed your children

or pull out stingers.

My auld man fostered everything creative in me,

taught me how to connect through words that paint an image.

My mother opened my eyes to things I couldn't see,

but never once letting the passion diminish.

I have heard stories of my grandfather's songs,

stolen lines from his poems to make my own.

I have also heard stories of his wrongs.

He was a man that I had never known.

The blood of artists before me flows through my vein,

and I promise to put it to good use.

For everything that strikes my heart with pain,

there's a poem to draw some kind of truce.

And that's my lot, gang. Thanks for listening.

♪ I remember when Father would sing this old song

♪ He would tease you to sing along

♪ He would sing out of key, just as happy as can be

♪ I wonder if he's teasing you now

♪ I remember the day my mother passed on... ♪

Subtitles: RTÉ 2026