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Tag: anti-Gypsy racism
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When You Grow Gills: The Fight We Inherit
Community Voices and Stories · Education and Young People · Research, Policy and Systems Change · Rights, Racism and JusticeAt 47, I finally understand why my mam was tired. A personal reflection on the reports, the repeated fights, and what we pass from one generation to the next.
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Rainey the Romany, Ringlets of Red and the Cost of Hiding
I thought I was buying my daughter a book. Rainey the Romany was signed by the author, with a little illustration drawn inside for her. I was excited because there, right in the middle of a children’s story, was a Romany little girl. Not a stereotype. Not somebody else’s idea of a Gypsy. Not a…
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The Day My Six-Year-Old Didn’t Want Them to Know She Was Romany
My daughter likes books. More specifically, when she gets a new book she usually wants everybody to know about it. School included. So when I bought her Rainey the Romany, I expected exactly the same thing. This one was particularly special. I had got it from the author. It was signed for her, with a…
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Ringlets of Red — Six Years On
I published Ringlets of Red on this website on 5 June 2020. I had actually written it much earlier. That poem came from my own childhood experience of being identified as Gypsy in a classroom, and the shame, isolation and racism that followed. Six years after publishing it, another little girl with ringlets of red…
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“You’re Lucky – You Can Hide It”
When invisibility becomes the price of acceptance I have been told something several times in my life that has started to bother me more, rather than less, as I have got older. Sometimes it has come from professionals. Sometimes from perfectly well-meaning people. It has even come from other people who understand racism and discrimination…
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No Monuments, No Anthem, No Book? Who Gets to Decide What Counts as Gypsy History?
I came across a quote that I haven’t been able to leave alone. its one of those that keeps swirling around in my head It is from Isabel Fonseca, whose Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey was published in the mid-1990s. She writes: “The Gypsies have no heroes. There are no myths of…
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Not Just a Strategy: The Courage to Make It Real
On 2 July 2026, I attended the launch of the Council of Europe Strategy for Roma and Traveller Inclusion 2026–2030, hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma at Portcullis House in Parliament. The event was chaired by Mary Foy MP, and brought together parliamentarians, Council of Europe representatives, civil society organisations,…
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The Last Acceptable Racism?
What Kemi Badenoch’s comments reveal about Britain’s treatment of Gypsy and Traveller communities Today, I listened to comments from Kemi Badenoch regarding Gypsy and Traveller communities and policing. I should have been shocked. Instead, I found myself feeling something closer to disappointment. Not because the comments were new. Sadly, they were not. They simply repeated…
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We Don’t Need Platitudes, We Need Actions
There comes a point where “we understand your concerns” stops sounding compassionate and starts sounding rehearsed. For years, Gypsy and Traveller communities have been accused of “weaponising” bank holiday weekends. The narrative is familiar. If an unauthorised development appears over a long weekend, headlines and social media commentary quickly follow. We are painted as manipulative.…