Irish Travellers, Ireland’s indigenous ethnic population, are rarely shown in movies. When they are — think Brad Pitt as the incomprehensible bare-knuckled boxer in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000) — the depiction, says Travellers filmmaker John Connors, is “superficial and patronizing… fucking terrible and insulting to be honest.”
At the same time, the Travellers community remains among the most disadvantaged and discriminated against in Western Europe, a legacy of generations of forced assimilation and active oppression by the Irish state. Part of this includes Ireland’s industrial schools’ program, a nationwide system of reform schools for “neglected, orphaned and abandoned children” that included a large number of Travellers kids. A national inquiry into the industrial schools’ program reported, in 2009, that many children had been subjected to “systematic and sustained physical, sexual and emotional abuse” and that the institutions, most of which were run by the Catholic Church, protected the abusers.
All that...
At the same time, the Travellers community remains among the most disadvantaged and discriminated against in Western Europe, a legacy of generations of forced assimilation and active oppression by the Irish state. Part of this includes Ireland’s industrial schools’ program, a nationwide system of reform schools for “neglected, orphaned and abandoned children” that included a large number of Travellers kids. A national inquiry into the industrial schools’ program reported, in 2009, that many children had been subjected to “systematic and sustained physical, sexual and emotional abuse” and that the institutions, most of which were run by the Catholic Church, protected the abusers.
All that...
- 9/15/2022
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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