Criss-crossing the Irish Sea: Shifting traveller women’s identities in home and school environments

In recent years there have been increasing demands to acknowledge the heterogeneity of Gypsy/Romani/Traveller communties (e.g., Levinson, 2014; Tong, 2015; Tremlett, 2013). There have also been suggestions of a need for more gendered analyses. A growing number of sources (Kóczé, 2009, 2011, 2015; Magyari-Vincze, 2006, 2007; Oprea, 2005a, 2005b) have focused on Gypsy/Romani/Traveller women’s identities, studies that are all outside of the UK and Ireland. This article addresses that gap, highlighting the differences within Irish Traveller communities, showing the ways in which identities fluctuate as participants criss-cross over the Irish Sea between Ireland and England. It shows ways in which participants use identities of “Irishness” while in England, so as to distinguish themselves from other Travellers, while back in Ireland, they revert to Traveller identities, or use strategies such as “Polishing” to distance themselves from those (disadvantaged) identities. Using data gathered from an ethnographic study of Irish Traveller women in the fictional townland of Baile Lucht Siúil in the Republic of Ireland, the authors consider the implications for participants and their communities through such transitions.