Date of Award

6-2013

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Anthropology

First Advisor

Linda Cool

Language

English

Keywords

Ireland, travellers, society, perception

Abstract

The Travellers, a nomadic group of people indigenous to Ireland, have long been marginalized in Irish society as a result of discrimination. The Travellers themselves have had a history of working to keep themselves separate from the settled Irish, essentially maintaining their own ethnic identity. Traveller culture has undergone a number of changes since the 1960s, a period of increasing urbanization and economic transformation in Ireland. With the changes in both Traveller culture and Irish society as a whole, there has been a corresponding shift to a more positive relationship between the media (newspapers, documentaries, and commercial films and television) and this marginalized group of people. This shift is largely due to a transformation in the Travellers’ self-perception along with their discovery of the importance of self-promotion and the recognition of the media as a tool through which to channel this self-presentation to the larger Irish society.

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