Aren’t we a great little nation, all the same? Hasn’t it been nice to spend the last few weeks basking in the glow of the world’s approval? Better than St Patrick’s Day; better than winning the Eurovision; better even than Italia 90, wouldn’t you say?
Let’s not lose the run of ourselves just yet. Yes, we’ve come a long way; the marriage equality referendum proved to anyone who cared to consider it that Ireland has indeed matured into a more tolerant and inclusive society. But if we’re such a tolerant and inclusive society, then why are racism and discrimination still so widely accepted when they are directed against Travellers?
There’s the overt kind: the pubs, hotels and (in a shameful incident last year) funeral homes that continue, despite equality legislation, to refuse to serve Travellers; the spleen vented online whenever an article about Traveller rights or their entitlement to recognition as an ethnic minority appears; the use of derogatory expressions such as “pikey”.
But there are also covert, more subtle forms of prejudice: the priests who make generalisations about perceptions of Traveller traditions around marriage under the guise of concern; the schools whose “parent rules” make it more difficult for Traveller children to gain admission.
Would a priest dare to tell a member of the majority settled population off for dressing “inappropriately” at a Communion? Of course not. Yet, even after an incident in Co Clare last month – in which members of a Traveller family said they were “publicly humiliated” by being prevented from attending a relative’s Communion Mass because they were deemed to be dressed inappropriately – neither the priest in question nor the diocese felt the need to make a public statement.
Settled women like to wear short dresses and low-cut tops on occasion too, and yet I can’t imagine a priest daring to suggest to one how to dress, let alone the entirely justified outcry that would follow if he did.
In common with most settled people, I have no clear idea what it’s like to live as an Irish Traveller. But it doesn’t require any great leap of imagination to appreciate that how Travellers are treated in our society ought to be a source of shame to every Irish person.
Being a Traveller means living your life burdened with the knowledge that other people think they know something about you, and that something is invariably negative.
It means constantly having to prove your worth in the face of politicians suggesting you should be sent to Spike Island, or judges referring to your community as “Neanderthal men, living in the long grass, abiding by the laws of the jungle”.
It means being sullied by association with the minority who engage in feuding and criminal behaviour.
It means that your risk of suicide is six times higher than for the general population.
It means you face an unemployment rate of 84 per cent.
It means you will die on average 15 years earlier than a member of the settled population.
And yet, when these inequalities are pointed out to the majority, the response is usually a shrug, a kind of collective sigh of sure-they-bring-it-on-themselves.
Granting Travellers the status of an ethnic minority – as the Government has committed to do following recommendations from the United Nations and the Irish Human Rights Commission – will go some way towards forcing us to address these inequalities, as well as recognising the contribution to Irish culture and community made by Travellers.
But whether or not you regard Travellers as a distinct ethnicity is, in a way, beside the point. If everyone shorter than 5ft 3in, or everyone who lived west of the Shannon or who spoke fluent Irish suffered worse health, poorer employment prospects and died 15 years earlier than the rest of the country, we wouldn’t need a nudge from the UN to address it.
Looking at Ireland from my viewpoint on the other side of the world – the west coast of the US, which I now call home – it is barely conceivable that the small-in- stature, giant-of-heart country that voted to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples is capable of such callous disregard for another group of its citizens; a group that is, arguably, considerably more vulnerable and marginalised.
If Ireland intends to live up to its new-found reputation as an equal and inclusive society, granting Travellers recognition as a distinct ethnicity is the inevitable next step.
Girls: there are more important things than being liked
As a woman – even as a feminist woman – one of the toughest challenges is to learn to live with being disliked. It is also one of the most liberating. From childhood, society teaches little girls to “play nice” and “be kind” and “be polite” – important messages, sure, but maybe not as important as “stand up for yourself” or “ask for that raise” or “say no” or “stop worrying about whether they like you, and worry about whether you like them”. Boys, meanwhile, are encouraged to be strong, to fight hard, to win at any cost.
The writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie made an important point for women of all ages at an awards ceremony last week when she said: “I want to say to young girls . . . forget about likeability.” She said that women are taught from a young age “to twist yourself into shapes to make yourself likeable, that you’re supposed to hold back sometimes, pull back, don’t quite say, don’t be too pushy. And I say that’s bullshit.” Words to put on a Post-It and stick on your bathroom mirror.