Planning and Philanthropy: Travellers and Class Boundaries in Urban Ireland, 1930–75

Abstract

In 1960, the Irish government established a commission to investigate the lives and habits of a group categorised as ‘itinerants’ with the intention of discovering how their lifestyle could be changed so as to prevent conflict with the majority ‘settled’ population. Although the nomadic minority called themselves ‘Travellers’, and were commonly known as ‘tinkers’, the official term for the group became ‘itinerant’ until the publication of another report brought ‘Travelling People’ to the fore.¹ The Report of the Commission on Itinerancy recommended settlement and an end to travelling for a group who were not recognised as ethnically distinct from the Irish population as a whole, but who were, paradoxically, an easily recognisable group set apart from the housed, settled population.² Their nomadic lifestyle and the accompanying horses, caravans and tents were deemed their most distinguishing feature by the commission, which expected settlement to bring an end to conflict between Travellers and settled people.³