Irish Traveller's Series
Sweetmeat & Sourbread
The Irish Travellers are a source of unknown for most. Unknown is an open invitation to misinterpretation. Fear for some. When I got the opportunity to work with them, I did not hesitate. I wanted to understand.
I heard, saw and experienced many things during that glimpse of time, but one of the aspects that struck me most - as a mother - were the children. Finding the right way to express the duality of an Irish Traveller’s childhood is where I started this series.
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Their endearing lightness of being and poetic freedom, so intricately meshed with the spitfire attitudes as if prepared for the rough future ahead, create a sense of melancholy. Lovely freckled faces, adorned with disheveled red or blond hair, sometimes covered in strong make-up at an early age or happily smudged with dirt from top to bottom in often ill-fitted hand-me-downs. Screaming, laughing little pouty lips spitting out words too big for them. Little hands holding toy guns. Pudgy bare feet running amok between tires, dog shit and broken glass in a nearby sandlot.
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​They don’t know yet how short this time will be, for they are thrown into the deep end of adulthood by their teen age. Or maybe they do know, and they make the best of it. Without even broaching the subjects of high infant mortality rate, low access to higher education, social isolation or the impact of governmental forced assimilation on their trades, there is an undeniable beautiful sadness.
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It is all around. In the community history and customs, the large families' stories and frequent gatherings (funerals as much as weddings or baptisms), the daily struggles, the cracked yet neat trailer floors or the single flowery bed shared by five brothers without a complaint. There is sorrow and loss, but there is joy. There is love. There is hospitality, generosity and pride. In the margin of Irish society, the tight-knit itinerant community lives by tradition or by rejection. The Travellers remain as they have for centuries, and the children play as the sweetmeats and sourbreads that they are.
