Latest news with #Travellers
CTV News
5 hours ago
- CTV News
WestJet cancelling flights from Ottawa to Winnipeg, Fort Myers this winter
Travellers wait in line at the Ottawa International Airport in Ottawa on Thursday, July 3, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Why the Moon Travels review: Eye-opening show is not just a retelling of Traveller folktales
Why the Moon Travels Bank of Ireland Theatre, University of Galway ★★★★☆ Travellers are part of the world, and the world is part of Travellers. The phrase figures in this new show from Moonfish Theatre, which aims to open up the Traveller world, but also help preserve some aspects. Devised from the book of folktales Why the Moon Travels, by Traveller activist and writer Oein DeBhairduin (who is dramaturge here), along with the ensemble and directors Máiréad Ní Chróinín and Ionia Ní Chróinín of Moonfish, it opens the curtains a bit. On stage are three strong, articulate and warm Traveller women, Catrina Connors, Ellen Doyle and Sarah McDonagh. The set includes a yew tree, the moon, a screen shaped like the back of a barrel-wagon, edged with Traveller symbols, and on the floor a giant wheel shape. This isn't just a retelling of folktales from the 2021 book, which is, rather, a starting point, with the cast adding their own takes and experiences. READ MORE The stories are largely unfamiliar to settled people: about the old man whose beard grew and grew (eventually becoming the bog across Ireland), the origin of the yew tree, the three sisters and their kindness to a crow, the truth about why the moon travels. In the stories there's a thread connecting humans and the natural world, with elements of the supernatural thrown in. As one of the cast tells a story, the others bring it to life with shadow puppetry on the screens behind, alongside songs from Rosie McCarthy. They also show something of themselves, and of Traveller hospitality and traditions, sitting for chats and stories with a cup of weed (tea, in case you're wondering), baking soda bread onstage (very tasty), spinning and weaving (we take home a traditional Traveller red and white cord, to tie around the wrist), along with the odd bit of the Traveller language Cant, fleetingly understandable to the outsider. The three performers have an ease and naturalness and there is a bit of gentle slagging and off-the-cuff that's lovely to witness. That level of comfort takes work and time and guts to develop, along with the professional skills and experience of Moonfish. It's backed by support from University of Galway's O'Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, the Arts Council , Galway City Council and a bursary from Galway International Arts Festival and Galway Culture Company. The care and attention to detail and approach shows in the finished result. For the audience, there are hints of things we want to hear more about, too: the women's own lives, and a passing reference to why many Travellers no longer travel, on foot of bad experiences. We're a small society but outsiders know little about the traditional culture of Travellers, who often get a bad rap. This is a lovely show, eye-opening and rich in the sharing with settled people, but also important for Travellers themselves, retelling the stories for fear of losing them. They ask, what do we lose when the old stories disappear, and what do we gain when they are told again? Significant too, that this show takes stories from an oral tradition, which were then committed to the page by DeBhairduin, and are here returned to a version of the oral tradition.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Travellers arrive at Birmingham park in 'greater numbers than ever before'
Travellers have arrived at a popular Birmingham park in 'greater numbers than every before.' A large group of caravans and other vehicles drove onto Swanshurst Park, on the border of Moseley and Billesley, on Sunday evening, July 20. It was said to be the fifth incursion this year and the council's Interim Head of Parks told a Moseley ward meeting the authority was looking to install extra barriers. READ MORE: Crowds at Birmingham New Street as trains north and south cancelled and delayed READ MORE: Birmingham city centre crackdown explained - affected streets and banned activities READ MORE: New security measures on the way for Birmingham park after Travellers set up camp multiple times It was said that travellers gained access this time by moving a large log and driving in past bike racks. The Friends of Swanshurst Park, a volunteer-run group, posted on Facebook on Sunday evening: "I'm sorry to say what some of you may already know - there are travellers on Swanshurst in greater numbers than ever before. Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp, click the link to join "This was not because the council measures were inadequate. The new security measures are intact but they moved one of the large logs by the car park and drove in past the bike rack. "The eviction notice will be served tomorrow. It would really help if members of the public did not employ them. "Then they would not have an incentive to come here." The council said previously: "birmingham-city-council>Birmingham City Council is committed to actively protecting its land and will take steps to recover this land where unauthorised encampments encroach upon it.'The council has useable transit sites and plots for use by the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community – which is in line with Government policy – and details of the Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessment carried out and updated in 2019 can be found on our website."
The National
5 days ago
- Politics
- The National
Backbench MPs should remain loyal to constituents, not parties
The very use of that term speaks volumes about how the party leadership may regard both its troops and any perceived dissension from the party line. This follows a year-long freeze of her Labour credentials dating from a letter Diane wrote to The Observer in early 2023. It also follows the suspension of seven other 'miscreants' who had the temerity to suggest the two-child cap should be history and had no place under a Labour Government. And, of course, the massive recent rebellion over changes to welfare eligibility. Featuring, among very many others, all of the latest MPs to lose the whip. READ MORE: 'Time to take action': What it was like at the national Palestine demo in Edinburgh At which stage, the Labour leadership earnestly assured its flock that it would listen more intently to its backbenchers and absolutely didn't regard the latter as mere 'voter fodder'. Abbott's letter said, not very controversially, that the kind of lifelong racism encountered by black and brown people, differs from the kind of prejudice suffered by Irish people, Travellers and Jewish people. 'Any fair-minded person will know what I meant,' she later said in a statement to BBC Newsnight. Indeed. Surely a textbook example of 'we ken whit she meant'. (Image: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire) In an interview for James Naughtie's Reflections programme last Thursday, she said she had no regrets about these remarks despite having apologised for them at the time. She reiterated that face colour is an immediate red rag to racists in a way that their identity probably isn't for other minorities. Cue portions of the Labour roof falling on her head. Again. It may be that her real crime was a historical closeness to former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. At any rate, the Mother Of The House has now been unceremoniously flung oot the Labour house. You might think that a government with a large majority of seats on under 34% of votes cast in a poll where fewer than 60% of electors bothered to use their vote might display some humility. Rather than take a sledgehammer to crack people denounced as irritating nutcases. Especially since their MPs – more than half of them in parliament for the first time – are there to represent a constituency where two-thirds of electors either didn't vote for them, or simply didn't vote. The Labour Party's draconian attitude to dissenters suggests complacency and a tendency for overreaction. It also suggests they hope their hardline stance will result in fewer Labour MPs willing to take risks. Not so much the firm smack of government as political punishment beatings. From a Scottish perspective, the most instructive victim is Brian Leishman, the luckless Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth. Grangemouth, you will know, was Scotland's solitary refinery, a place the Scottish Labour leader promised to save during the election campaign. Leishman, unsurprisingly, thought he would therefore be on safe ground when he vocally supported the workforce. Alas, that, plus his stance on welfare reform, meant he would instead get his jotters. Without warning. He said, thereafter, that he hadn't been elected to make people poorer. He also argued that he'd been elected 'to be a voice for my constituents across [[Alloa]] and [[Grangemouth]]'. Not, it seems, if that voice fails to chime with the latest stance of his leader. Anas Sarwar's silence on this matter, at the time of writing, has been positively deafening. READ MORE: 55 arrested in Westminster as protests grow over Palestine Action ban The [[Alloa]] and [[Grangemouth]] MP says that the Scottish Labour leader has not been in touch since a WhatsApp message last January. You might have thought he'd pick up the phone over Grangemouth at least, if not over the latest party row which saw one of his own Scots Labour representatives publicly humiliated. However, Leishman says he still supports Sir Keir's leadership and 'I will be out campaigning to get Scottish Labour candidates elected for Holyrood next year. I'll be doing everything I possibly can to get Anas into Bute House'. Each to their own and all that. Also interesting is the role and function of MPs of all parties. They don't have a statutory one, but they do have a code of conduct based on seven principles of 'selflessness, integrity, objectivity, honesty, accountability, openness and leadership.' However, the code also acknowledges the challenges faced by MPs when the needs and views of their constituents come into conflict with those of the party whose rosette they sported on election night. Or, as the code puts it: 'As members of a political party, MPs are expected to support and promote the policies and principles of their party. However, this should not come at the expense of their duties to their constituents or the wider public interest.' So let's suppose that the chap representing the workforce at Grangemouth was doing little more than exercising his duty to his constituents and the wider public interest. Not even to mention demonstrating integrity objectivity, and accountability. The code does understand the complexity of the MP's role in a way their parties may not: 'At times a constituent's demands may conflict with party policy and your MP will have to decide where their first loyalty should lie.' And woe betide any MP if their first loyalty is not to their party, it seems. Thus far, the people who found themselves minus the Labour whip were, to a man and woman, all demonstrating their commitment to what used to be thought of as traditional Labour values. For other quite mouthy MPs like the usually admirable Jess Phillips there was instead a plea for party unity and a respect for party discipline. So says the MP who resigned from the Labour front bench in 2023 over the carnage in Gaza, having backed an SNP-instigated vote on a ceasefire. Then she said: 'On this occasion, I must vote with my constituents, my head, and my heart which has felt as if it were breaking over the last four weeks with the horror of the situation in Israel and Palestine.' This time, the tune seems to have changed and she says: 'Constantly taking to the airwaves and slagging off your own government – I have to say, what did you think was going to happen?' Maybe, Jess, they hadn't realised voting for the wider public interest shouldn't be a hanging offence in a party which once described itself as 'a broad church'. Or, as Abbott wrote on a social media post: 'Silencing dissent is not leadership. It's control.' But voting with your constituents, your head and your heart is not apparently an option for others whose inner voice tells them their party has simply got it wrong. Angela Rayner, one time darling of the Labour left, confined herself to saying that the Abbott situation presented 'a real challenge for the party' (sure is)! READ MORE: The Chancellor's words don't line up with her actions Rayner is an enigmatic case in point. She was, after all, a prime mover in getting the party to admit Abbott as a Labour candidate after her last long suspension. Labour's very own working-class woman has obviously decided that she can exert more influence as a deputy leader than a serial rebel with a number of causes. You might think that she had rather more in common with Abbott than, for instance, the current Chancellor. But for heavens sake, don't say so out loud if you have a Labour Party card about your person. The moral of this latest debacle is that if you get elected to parliament as a Labour candidate, please be sure to check in your conscience at the door. It has no place in the chamber these days.
Evening Standard
6 days ago
- General
- Evening Standard
What, exactly, has Diane Abbott said that's so wrong?
Well, so there are. And Ms Abbott knows, because she's black. Few Jewish people and Travellers are. Of course, it may be apparent to some people who is Jewish or Traveller or who isn't. I, for instance, can usually tell who's a Traveller, but that's because I've been accustomed to seeing Travellers most of my life. As for Jews, many of my friends and colleagues who are Jewish don't look, at least to me, different. If you wear special clothes or hair – if you're an Orthodox Jew who dresses as such – you will be readily identifiable, but that's rather more to do with culture and religion than ethnicity, no?
