# Travellers fighting in Mullingar



## The_Banker (31 Jul 2008)

First off, this is not an anti-traveller thread but more an anti-crime topic.

My point is there is a feud going on in Mullingar with a number of families and I read this morning (in the Indo) that the gardai have offered to mediate between the families.

Surely this is wrong? If you break the law you go before the courts and the judge decides your punishment. I believe the gardai should not be involved in mediation between two warring factions. Instead they should be arresting the culprits who break the law.


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## Guest114 (31 Jul 2008)

It was a bare knuckling boxing event with a purse of €50k. When the fella won it, the money wasn't paid up. That's what the row was over.


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## BountyHunter (31 Jul 2008)

I read that the main instigators have been remanded to Cloverhill prison until August 4th...
With regard to Garda intervention I would say its probably a good idea, it may not stop the fued but at least the Garda are trying.. also if the travellers are aware the Garda ar monitoring they may not be a quick to riot? Then again maybe not... I would just feel sorry for the locals who are living in and around this area.
In my limited experience the law has never really applied to travellers anyway, just one example would be this, a friend of mine has a "settled" family living in a council house quite near to him with two `08 cars in the drive, these cars might cost 30K each, how can they afford such expensive cars??
Just my humble opinion.

BountyHunter.


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## BountyHunter (31 Jul 2008)

AlistairDick said:


> It was a bare knuckling boxing event with a purse of €50k. When the fella won it, the money wasn't paid up. That's what the row was over.


 
Still quite illegal regardless..


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## z103 (31 Jul 2008)

> two `08 cars in the drive, these cars might cost 30K each, how can they afford such expensive cars??


Bare knuckle boxing maybe?


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## Simeon (31 Jul 2008)

Or barefaced robbery!


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## shnaek (31 Jul 2008)

Perhaps they were the ones from Dunsink!
()


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## sidzer (31 Jul 2008)

Why is it that even though travellers live in NI they don't seem to behave in the same disgraceful manner that we see in the Republic?

S


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## MrMan (31 Jul 2008)

At the best of times they could be described as travelling gangs rather than travellers and that would not apply to a small minority as is often the case when people back them up (having said that I'm not sure if travelling is much on the agenda with a lot of them these days).


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## Ash 22 (31 Jul 2008)

What is so annoying about so many of these travellers is the fact they think they can take the law into their own hands, no regard for people or property then they have every crib under the sun that they are being treated differently. They don't want to settle in houses. Seemingly in Rathkeale they have fantastic houses and yet they live in caravans in the driveway. I know of a family that were housed not too far away from where I live and off they went and left the house in some state. I'm sure they're not all the same and people would'nt have problems with them if they had a bit of respect for those around them.


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## MandaC (31 Jul 2008)

I really feel for the rest of the people living in the estate to have to put up with that type of thing.


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## Ash 22 (31 Jul 2008)

It is very unfair on their neighbours. I was just watching Michael Collins from Pavee Point on Prime Time and he says 99.9% of travellers abhor violence. Thats hard to believe.


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## sandrat (31 Jul 2008)

MandaC said:


> I really feel for the rest of the people living in the estate to have to put up with that type of thing.


 
Anyone who knows the estate knows it has been a pretty rough estate for years and years. Needs regeneration like the big dublin council estates but is unlikely to ever get it


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## Brianne (31 Jul 2008)

I think it is fair to say that most reasonable people accept that not all travellers are engaged in violence. However listening to their representative on Prime Time , I think they as a group have been badly served by both their reps and social policy.
In the past it is fair to say that most of out ancestors lived in hovels(it is said that in pre famine Ireland , the road from Cork to Mallow was literally crowded with such hovels). But time has moved on , we no longer have pigs in the parlour and good housing and education has done more for people than any medicine.
Please explain to me how persisting, in this climate, to live in caravans and then try to say that it is one's 'culture' and demand that the council allow you to do this where you like, in any way furthers your cause?
By being lenient with travellers, they have now become above the law. Would anyone here be able to park a caravan anywhere and leave litter where they like? The bottom line is that Travellers do this.
As a relative who is over eighty said: I have gone to a lot of funerals in the course of my life and never have I found it necessary to arm myself with slash hooks and various other implements that are so often a feature of Traveller funeral rites!!!
I think policy should target the women mainly; education and housing and integration coupled with vigorous tax law enforcement and enforcement of law regarding schooling is the only hope for positive change .Then their mortality rate and their infant mortality rate might start to fall but pussy footing around with their rights without responsibilities is doomed to fail.


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## MandaC (31 Jul 2008)

sandrat said:


> Anyone who knows the estate knows it has been a pretty rough estate for years and years. Needs regeneration like the big dublin council estates but is unlikely to ever get it



Thought that allright.  You will always find  though, that there are some lovely people in these estates who are trying to move forward but this type of thing sets them back years.  I really feel for them.

Pavee Point have lost a lot of credibility after the Roma incident last year, so would really take their views with a pinch of salt now.


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## boris (1 Aug 2008)

Moved to Mullingar myself last year. There was an article on the free local paper 6 weeks ago that they were no longer delivering this paper to people in that estate as the persons employed had been badly beaten up and attacked on several occasions. Now I don't think that has anything to do with a 50k purse.

Also heard tonight from locals that no Chinese or other deliveries will go there as they have been manhandled in the past. I don't Garda talks are going to help those people or that they would be covered in that agenda.

The army barracks are only a short distance away. Maybe they should be brought in to escort the pizza delivery men etc.


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## sparkeee (1 Aug 2008)

spike island


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## Green (1 Aug 2008)

Brianne said:


> and then try to say that it is one's 'culture' and demand that the council allow you to do this where you like, in any way furthers your cause?By being lenient with travellers, they have now become above the law. Would anyone here be able to park a caravan anywhere and leave litter where they like? The bottom line is that Travellers do this.
> 
> I think policy should target the women mainly; education and housing and integration coupled with vigorous tax law enforcement and enforcement of law regarding schooling is the only hope for positive change .Then their mortality rate and their infant mortality rate might start to fall but pussy footing around with their rights without responsibilities is doomed to fail.


 
You have made some good points there but one think that is lacking is a politician to say something fundamental like : the day of travelling around Ireland is over. 

The reality is, and I'm open to correction, is that every facet of Irish society has changed over the last 40 years and why should travellers not change too.


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## Pique318 (1 Aug 2008)

Careful now...this thread is ripe for someone to start shouting about racism.


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## Simeon (1 Aug 2008)

Travellers seem to want it both ways. We were all nomadic once ....... so we all have the same heritage/culture. In this respect there should be no special treatment. If there was political will, things could be addressed. If people want to avail of society's social benefits ......... they should contribute. Get their house in order etc. Before a country applies for admittance to the EU for example, they have to get their act together. AND before they get the _goodies_ they have to have certain requirements. What's the difference between a state (a group of citizens) and travellers (a group of citizens)?


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## demoivre (1 Aug 2008)

There's no way travellers should be allowed to fight each other bare knuckled or with pickaxe handles........they should only be allowed use machetes imo.


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## truthseeker (1 Aug 2008)

One of the things that holds back open and reasonable discussion on matters regarding travellers is that they themselves (and other people also) are too quick to jump in with 'discrimination', 'anti-traveller' and 'rascism' accusations. So it is well near impossible to get any kind of dialogue going because if you express a negative opinion at all you are then in the firing line for accusations of discrimation.

There is traveller accomodation quite near my home. At residents meetings for the entire community the issue of rubbish being dumped on the road outside the accomodation was raised. The response from the travellers representative about the issue was 'youse just dont like travellers' quickly followed by absolute shut down and refusal to discuss the matter. Peoples hands are tied in situations like that. Its impossible to make changes when one side will not acknowledge unacceptable behaviour but instead insists that they are being picked on for being a traveller.


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## MandaC (1 Aug 2008)

demoivre said:


> There's no way travellers should be allowed to fight each other bare knuckled or with pickaxe handles........they should only be allowed use machetes imo.




My sister's first house was partly backing onto a traveller halting site.  My sister's house backed onto a school, but the houses further up the block backed onto the halting site which was in the next field to the school.

One poor girl up the road was awakened in the early hours to see two guys with machetes taking swipes at each other in her back garden.  Poor girl was afraid in her house after that and sold shortly after.


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## Guest114 (1 Aug 2008)

They won't pay for skips to take their rubbish away. This is my only problem with them.


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## Simeon (1 Aug 2008)

Surely it is the other way around. Travellers don't like non travellers. That's why they treat them with contempt. Except for the pseudo-intellectual-liberals who soft-voice their opinions on discrimination, exclusion and all that other claptrap. They (the travellers) and only they are the architects of this discrimination. Why not try assimilation for a change? That would require doing a days constructive work and meeting one's social obligations. This is not in the curriculum of these card carrying members of the victim culture.


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## MrMan (1 Aug 2008)

I think that they should be referred to by nationality like everyone else and stop letting them use the tag traveller as an excuse to get away with things. i don't think traveller describes their lifestyle anymore. They are just accepted but there has come a time where they should be brought to book about how they live outside the system and yet still benefit from it.


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## Brianne (1 Aug 2008)

I can't remember where I read this: ' As long as we encourage a culture of victimhood,we will continue to raise victims, and so the cycle or underachievement continues.'.


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## sidzer (1 Aug 2008)

At the back of a small traveller estate which is beside a school and DKIT there is rubish being burned as a part of a waste disposal business run by some travellers who live there. The DKIT playing fields are a superb facility to go for a walk but about 3/7 nights an inferno blows nasty toxic black smoke into the air making the fields unusable.

The fires are usually started after 8.00 and if the wind is blowing across the field you have to get out quickly as the plastic they burn would make you physically sick.

I can't understand how the local coucil ignores this serious public health and safety issue....

When the fires are not lit you have to watch out for large rats who scavenge food waste. 

This is going on for the last three years. I presume the council own the houses - could the council fine themselves for burning on their own property?????????


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## Ciaraella (1 Aug 2008)

I think the OP was making the point that regardless of whether this kind of violence involves travellers or not, it seems wrong that Gardaí should be offering to mediate. If laws have been broken then the offenders should be arrested as any ordinary citizen would be. Offering mediation, in my mind, likens the situation to a political one such as Northen Ireland where organisations were justifying their use of violence as a political cause. Riots between feuding families, travellers or otherwise should not be given the same political stance.


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