It is easy to forget that, until very recently, Irish society was assumed to be a homogenous entity. Questions of “difference”, whether social, historical or cultural, received little acknowledgement or were completely ignored.

This book is a collection of essays written by Travellers and “settled people”. As the title of the volume indicates, the writers have approached the theme of engagement and interaction between Travellers and “settled people” in a new and dynamic way. They have traced the themes that bind both the Traveller and the non-Traveller communities today, in addition to those cultural aspects that remain distinctive to both communities.

Travellers and the Settled Community is unique in its elucidation of the Traveller voice, the Traveller perspective and the important light this sheds on Irish society as it developed from the rural to the urban.

The contributors to this volume depict a new and revealing energy in Irish society, an impetus that jettisons the fixed and unchanging viewpoints of old and prefaces our shared multi-cultural future.