We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
The Making of a Left-Behind Class Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2024
Ireland's 30,987 Traveller population was officially recognised as an ethnic minority on 1 March 2017. It was the culmination of a long campaign by Travellers to have their identity, culture and unique social position recognised by the Irish state as constituting a separate ethnic group. Public recognition was a mark of respect towards an ethnic minority that has long experienced discrimination and racism in Irish society. While it was symbolically a historic moment, it did not resolve the problems of poverty and social inequality that are at the core of the marginalised status of Travellers in Ireland. Nor did recognition as a minority ethnic group represent a qualitative change in the Traveller community's social status. Travellers and Roma continue to experience discrimination and racism in their everyday lives, as the comment by Maria Quinlan (following) clearly illustrates. There are no official statistics regarding the number of Roma in Ireland but the population is estimated to be between 3,000 and 5,000 people.
The president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, in a message for Traveller and Roma Day, 8 April 2021, declared:
The statistics are appalling in terms of what has persisted as exclusion. Today only 14 per cent of Traveller women have completed secondary education, compared to 83 per cent of the general population. Some 60 per cent of Traveller men have not progressed beyond primary education. This is compared to 13 per cent of the general population. Yes, it is true that the number of Travellers with third-level education has doubled in the last number of years, and that is to be welcomed – what a great achievement – it is ground-breaking and exemplary – but it represents just half of one per cent of the Traveller population. The figure for the general population with third-level qualifications is 47 per cent.
Maria Quinlan (2021: 60), in a report entitled Out of the Shadows, quotes ironically:
[W]e talk all the time [about] the assimilation policy, we see education and I’m sure the government sees education as another way of making us settled people.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
