My work with families meant I met and got to know very well many families from the travelling community. That included a large number from the Irish Travelling Community. They're well aware that traditionally they're seen as at the bottom of any caste or class system within the Gypsy community. My mum used to call us naughty little tinkers when we misbehaved - Irish Tinkers during her childhood in the 1920's were identified than as likely to get up to no good. In those days, they travelled throughout the year, staying in traditional stopping points. They'd sell pegs, lucky heather , sharpen domestic implements and tell fortunes as a means of raising cash. Those traditional stopping points have all been gentrified, built over, turned into dual carriageways, with the result that travelling is increasingly problematic.
The families I knew were mostly housed, or lived on council sites. The housed families would share a trailer (caravan) with extended family, which would be used to travel between June and September. As PECS, Luckygirl and others have said the community like all others, has its law abiding, hard working as well as its lawless individuals.
It's a vibrant, physical, noisy, demonstrative culture. Children are encouraged to learn how to manage and work with animals, drive vehicles, use tools etc from an early age. The importance of education is increasingly recognised. Primary schools local to the areas where travellers settle all have schemes to help illiterate older family members to learn basic literacy. All the parents I met recognised their children needed literacy skills and the verbal culture had to move on but not be lost.
I share the frustration about how best to manage situations where large groups arrive and take over an area, to the extent they exclude the residents of that area. I am puzzled about the mess left. The houses and caravans I visited were all immaculate, its part of the culture.
