The Irish Travelers - A Forgotten People
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Dates2017 - Ongoing
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Author
- Location Ireland, Ireland
This series of photographs is a personal journey that documents the lives, culture, and traditions of the Irish Travelers, a forgotten people. The images are a result of my deep and meaningful interactions with the Travelers I have met.
The Irish Travelers are an insular ethnic group that has lived on the fringes of mainstream Irish society for centuries. They live an itinerant lifestyle, with long traditions and gender-based roles passed down from generation to generation. Sons commonly take over jobs or enter trades their fathers and grandfathers have practiced for hundreds of years. Daughters are encouraged to marry early, and families with eight to twelve children are not uncommon. As a result, discrimination is widespread, school dropout rates are high, domestic violence is rampant, and suicides are increasing.
However, the lives of Travelers are changing in many positive ways. Recently recognized as an Indigenous Ethnic Group by the Irish government, Traveler families find it easier to live in government-serviced halting sites rather than continue their nomadic lifestyles. Teenagers are trying harder to stay in school, graduate, and pursue careers outside the Traveler community. Young women are waiting longer to marry and have children. For better or worse, the Travelers are assimilated bit by bit.
My Irish Travelers series is ongoing and started in 2017. I have been back two other times since then to continue my project. One of the greatest joys is revisiting families I had previously photographed and meeting new travelers and their families. The travelers are a proud community eager to have their stories told to the settled Irish and people outside of Ireland. But unfortunately, they feel mistreated, regarded unfairly, and misunderstood by their fellow countrymen.
Although the Travelers have had a reputation for violence and criminal behavior, I found them to be generally friendly, approachable, and tragically misunderstood. Therefore, it is essential to document the Travelers as we know them today, to collect a photographic record of a unique people and their traditions before they disappear.
My project plan is to develop my series on the Irish Travelers. I intend to travel back to Ireland to photograph the families and individuals within their halting sites and illegal encampments. I will incorporate multimedia elements such as audio and video excerpts to enrich my story of the Travelers and expand my photographic documentation. Through exhibits, I want to display the Travelers' unique heritage and unconventional way of living to a broader audience, both in and outside of Ireland. Therefore, I plan to pursue more opportunities for solo exhibits. I will have prints made to take back to the Travelers I have photographed previously. I also plan to revisit book publishing offers from various publishers in hopes of designing a book. Finally, I will use some of the proceeds collected to give back to the Traveler community, who have been so kind to allow me into their community to photograph and tell their stories.
My goals for this project:
Photograph the Travelers in their living spaces, and include other everyday events with their particular Traveler traditions, such as first communions, weddings, and funerals.
Expand my photographic documentation into audio and video by interviewing Travelers. Use video as an additional layer to the photography.
Edit photographs into a tight body of work to be displayed in an exhibit or made into a book.
Create an exhibit that tells the story of the Travelers through both photography & multimedia.
Get prints made & framed.