Colin Murphy: Hostility has always followed Travellers

Hundreds of years of not ‘dealing with’ Travellers has created a situation where the Carrickmines tragedy was almost an inevitability

The remains of the Connors family are removed from the church in Balally, Co Dublin last week Picture: Collins

We watched the five hearses leave the church, carrying the two adult coffins and the three white child-sized coffins, and then the person beside me, a Traveller, said, “A car park! Even the animals in the zoo get better than that.”

Thomas and Sylvia Connors and three of their five children - Jim, Christy and Mary - were buried in Wexford on Friday. Tara Gilbert and Willie Lynch, their children Kelsey and Jodie, ...