The Perspective of the Irish ‘Traveller* Community’ Dr. Kevin Griffin Dublin Institute of Technology The Irish ‘travelling’ or ‘traveller’ community is an indigenous Irish ethnic minority with shared history, culture, values, customs and traditions which makes them a unique group. They share some similarities to Roma and Gipsy peoples.

Context

Pilgrimage Local Regional / National International Issue 1: Focus of Pilgrimage Research Glocalisation? Contradiction in a Globalising World

Issue 2: Organisation of Pilgrimage Structured and Ordered  Organised  Structured  Planned  Routes / itineraries / packages / bundles / targetting / managing / coordinating etc.  What about those that are ‘outside the box’ – living a nomadic life / illiterate / non-conforming ?

Issue 3: Audience / Research Pop. Core / Normal / Standard  In Ireland we focus on : Catholic Regular Mass attendees Settled / comfortable / middle-old age etc. ‘Native Irish’

Issue 4: Lens Personal and Experiential  This paper focuses on what Alison McIntosh described as meaningful experience – not consumption and production, but personal meaning for the individual  We need to understand their daily life to understand their experience.  Throughout this I am questioning myself – ethically / morally / objectivity etc..

Introduction – Traveller Faith Access via a ‘grass roots’ religious leader who gives me legitimacy

Insights into faith  ‘Travellers are very religious. I love a lot of blessed pictures and statues and plenty of holy water in the place. If I miss Mass it takes a lot out of me. Travellers believe a lot in priests and cures. We are very superstitious - marriages and black cats. We believe in ghosts - it gives us an idea that there's life after death... ’ We wouldn't miss the patterns of the graves. --Kathleen McDonagh (Traveller Voices, Pavee Point Travellers Centre )

Insights into faith (from interviews and focus groups)  When I was young we travelled and slept in tents on the side of the road – I was born in the County Home in... and baptised in... My mother made sure we were settled in a stable campsite for our communion and confirmation – but she had no care for reading or writing – you could get on without them. ... He wasn’t a great goer of mass, but he always said his prayers every night.

Insights into faith (from interviews and focus groups)  I can’t do the rosary right, but I’m trying to learn (grandmother)  ‘You have your own belief’  ‘Our Lady is always here’  I believe in Our Lady and the Sacred Heart and all the Angels and Saints  I’ve been to Meduguorgie three times this year already (young male c.20yrs)  The Lady has been good to us (male c.40yrs)

1. Knock

Background Information  No. 1 visited site in Ireland  c.1million visitors (pilgrims?) per year  Marian Shrine  Formally recognised by the Church  Visited by Pope John Paul II (1979)

Many questions for Knock  Many sceptics question the ‘validity’ of experience at such a site.  Does this site cater for ‘all’ visitors / pilgrims  Is this level of ‘organisation’ needed at sites  How much of the illustrated fabric fits into the ‘sacred’ end of the continuum and how much into the ‘secular’ end ?  As an academic I can pick holes in this site because it is - trendy great fun gratifying to my intellectual ego.  BUTTTTTTT:

2. Knock through the eyes of the Travelling Community

Traveller’s Comments on Knock  ‘In Knock you really feel closer to Our Lady – where she appeared’  ‘The statue procession is wonderful’  ‘This is a peaceful and holy place’  ‘There are no words to describe my experience of Knock’  ‘Everybody should come here’

Traveller’s Comments on Knock  ‘Its beautiful’  ‘Knock is a funny feeling – you feel the presence of God’  ‘There was only a small crowd today – it was lovely’  ‘Being close to the processional statue made my day’  ‘Going to Knock is a long family tradition – this kind of pilgrimage is part of who I am’

What Travellers did in Knock  ‘We went around the old chapel 3 times & kissed the stone at the apparition 3 times’  ‘I said prayers for people who need them’  ‘I lit candles’  ‘I got masses said for the sick’  ‘I took photos of the statues / chapels / procession’  ‘I went to the blessing of the sick’

What they bought in Knock  ‘I bought relics and presents’  Gifts  Medals  Bracelets  Rosaries  ‘You need to bring things home for everybody’

3. Other (domestic) sites visited by Travellers

 Some travellers try any different site, wells, priests, healing men.... I stick with just one.  Many of these sites are liminal in the standard spiritual / religious / secular framework  Traveller practices are often as Corina Griffin described yesterday – to the outsider what they do makes little sense, but to the ‘pilgrim’ what they do is profound.

St Brigid’s Well Kildare

St Brigid’s Stream & Well - Faughart, two miles north-west of Dundalk Eye Stone Knee StoneHead Stone Hip / Leg Stone ‘We Visit for Intentions and cures’

St Bridget’s Well Liscannor, Co. Clare

Croagh Patrick (The Reek)

Killeigh (The Seven Blessed Wells

‘we leave something from sick people’

Other Sites  Fr McDonagh’s Grave ‘My father knew Fr. McDonagh’ we visited him in the 1970s. He was a living saint... now lots of Travellers visit his grave.  Fr Moore’s Grave  St. Kieran’s Well in Kells  ‘loads of holy wells’  St Bridget’s Stream  Glendalough the stairs  Mt Mellary

4. Travellers and International Pilgrimage

International Travel  In the past people ‘didn’t have the way of going places’. Now we can go anywhere in the world.  Can be argued that Travellers are not interested in what Christina Seidl called topical trends and modernity they just use modernity to carry out their traditional life in a slightly different way

International Sites The sites of ‘Father Pio’ - San Giovanni Rome – the Vatican Mejugorge Fatima Lourdes  Lourdes is my favourite I went there in 1975 for £40 – 14 of us in a mini-bus and camped on the way. I’ve been there every year for the last 7 years. I don’t know where I get the money, but I get it.

Concluding Observations

Travellers and Pilgrimage  Reductionist theories are not sufficiently precise and frankly insulting to this ethnic group  There is no ‘universal’ pattern in traveller practice – which is familial and individualistic  Often Travellers don’t require services but if they exist will make the most of them  Their lives are random / unstructured in a conventional sense – St Winifred’s well in Wales

Travellers and Pilgrimage  Ritualistic / accused of being almost pagan  Contrast men V women Physical / Masculine penance v the feminine  Little risk that tourism will (as warned by J. Jafari) absorb this kind of religion

Other Links 

Thousands wait for Knock apparition Irish Times Monday, October 12, 2009  THOUSANDS GATHERED at Knock Shrine, Co Mayo, yesterday hoping to see an apparition of Our Lady.  There were ripples of applause from a crowd estimated at more than 5,000 as some people believed they could see the sun shimmering, changing colour and dancing in the sky....  [One observer] said: “I’m 53 years old and I never seen the sun go like that before.... The sun was spinning in the sky. I experienced a feeling of total happiness. It is a feeling I would love to experience again. It was amazing”  Earlier in the week Dublin-based clairvoyant Joe Coleman predicted Our Lady would appear at the old parish church – scene of the 1879 apparition – at 3pm. Quite a number of those present were members of the Travelling community.