My life as an Irish Traveller in Trinity

My own life as a Traveller is not perhaps a typical one. I qualify that statement, as there is no such thing as a typical life for an Irish Traveller, considering how diverse the group actually is. I, personally, grew up in a house and attended primary and secondary school and in that sense would be indistinguishable from most non-travellers. However, in that sense alone I differed a great deal from my family. My grandparents are barely literate, my parents have no educational qualifications and I am the only one of my siblings to complete A-levels.

In another way, I differed a great deal to many of the people I went to school with. Strangely, for someone in Northern Ireland, I did not readily identify with either the Nationalist or Unionist Community; rather, I was first-most a Traveller and all else second.

Some people would find it odd, that for someone who has lived in a house for all his life, that I would readily identify as an Irish Traveller, a phrase that by definition would imply a nomadic existence. This speaks, however, of a misunderstanding, as being a Traveller is being part of a separate ethnic group that one has to be born into. It relates to being part of a large extended family with cultural ideas often different from the general population. Whether you live in a house or trailer is immaterial.

Alienation

My first day in Trinity Halls, at the beginning of first year, was a day which vividly echoes in my mind a year and a half later. Roughly half an hour after I was dropped off, two of the new flatmates began to discuss how awful it would be to have a Traveller as a flatmate, unaware that one was sitting right beside them. One of them dropped out some days later. The other found out I was one and apologised, and we became friends afterwards.

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