Abstract

This paper examines accommodation policies and spatialized practices designed to rehabilitate, assimilate and integrate Irish Travellers (Ireland’s indigenous nomadic population) into mainstream society. With a specific focus on Dublin, the study covers the period from the commencement of the National Settlement Programme in 1964 until the mid 1980s when the depth of division between the settled community and Travellers reached crisis point and was expressed in outbursts of intercommunal violence in neighbourhoods throughout Dublin. I have chosen to concentrate on this particular period as it was a critical time in Travellers’ history and the accommodation policies and programmes developed during this time continue to have profound consequences for Travellers right up to the present day. It was during this period that widely held negative perceptions of Travellers were validated and cemented in research and policy1, legitimising behaviour towards Travellers that has ranged from shunning to verbal and physical violence; from territorial exclusion and evictions to vigilante attacks.