A Film Review, and Reflection on similarities with First Nations People in Australia, by Frances Devlin-Glass
Mincéir, Directed by Teresa Lavina, Nova Productions Ireland, 2022. This documentary is part of the Irish Film Festival and is available online. Bookings available here.
The documentary Mincéir offers a rich mix of archival images and living people’s commentary on the culture and lives of the Traveller community. Starting with claims of discrimination, racist outcast-ing and marginalisation of this community, it then moves onto strenuous defence of the community against charges of lack of hygiene, of unwillingness to modernise and of neglecting their children – common complaints of the settler nationals about Australian Indigenous. One gets the sense that the very articulate spokespeople in Mincéir, though outside their comfort zone, are well-equipped to speak for themselves and to critique the effects of colonialism on a group that define themselves in terms of their different ethnicity. They are immensely proud of their customary lifestyle and like Indigenous Australians, they have concerns about whether the young will willingly embrace their difference from the settler mainstream. We get some insight into their horse-training activities, tin-smithing, moving-home creation and nomadism, marriage traditions, social customs (e.g., fosterage), religiosity (Catholic), beliefs and superstitions, patterns and holy wells, and the defensive uses of their language (Shelta or Gamin) in dealing with outsiders.
The images tell their own story of a proud and resilient culture. There are first-hand stories of kids who feel shame about living in a trailer-home, but the film exists to expose such myths and to make a proudly partisan case for the difference, vitality and viability of their cultural practices in the modern world. One woman lives in a conventional settler home, having arrived there with her children after the premature death of her husband. The point seems to be that Traveller culture can be maintained outside nomadism, though it’s clear that those who choose nomadism see it as an expression of their distinctive ethnic identity.
One sequence that moved me was of a very handsome young man and his mother (Martin and Theresa Mahon) who eloquently expound on the kinds of discrimination that have become normalised in the mainstream. As the son indignantly alleges entrenched Irish racism towards his people, the mother nods sadly and non-verbally expresses agreement. This footage is quickly succeeded by images of a woman feistily recommending documenting instances of discrimination with a view to legal redress, one imagines. She too has experienced racism and has no truck with it. One has the sense that the documentary is pitched at this community’s younger generation, who might be inclined to see the Traveller culture as a liability rather than a rich inheritance.
In passing, there is mention of those Travellers who have graduated as doctors and left the community. While there is pride taken in their achievement, there’s alarm too that none of them to date have devoted their new skills to Traveller communities and a sense that this should be a way in which they give back.
If theological justification for the lifestyle is required, then one is provided by one of the poets of the community: Jesus and Mary were travellers. No better genealogy. Interestingly, Travellers have to resist welfare attempts to remove children and instead advocate for kinship care. The film does important political work in relation to building the case for keeping children within the community: certainly, all of the children looked well-nourished. Indeed, they often paraded in their best clothes, with elaborate smocking of a sort one might have seen in an early twentieth-century upper-class nursery. One assumes that these fine dresses are made by community members. Like Australian First Nations people, they worry about the dilution of culture and the loss of language inevitably involved in adopting children out.
There is a role in the community for matchmakers and dispute resolution gurus, designated Kings, who can mediate quarrels, resolve disputes, with a view to avoiding court. The cultural practice of avoiding winning and losing scenarios to save the face of all parties was explained, and seems an effective way to dissipate teenage tensions, especially among men. The film underlines the community’s determination to sort out internal issues in culturally sanctioned ways. This, of course, was a much-desired outcome of the recent failed Australian Referendum on the Voice.
History is at a discount in this film and the community film-maker’s rationale is to defend and explicate the culture rather than talk up the origins and persistence of it. Although one of the participants refutes the notion that Travellers were people displaced by the Great Famine (the linguistic and DNA evidence points to much earlier, perhaps 1000 years ago), there is an historical vagueness about the origins of the community in this film.
The cinematographers focus on interiors of trailers and their furnishing and decoration. The image created is of surprisingly modern and comfortable living quarters, featuring soft leather couches, widescreen TVs, and much in the way of religious paraphernalia, clocks and china ornaments. Joe Casey, a wagon maker, talks about how the wagons are used and how decorative customised brushwork unique to each vehicle adds to their value and interest at fairs and markets. There was a disconnect: although interiors of mobile homes looked modern, the featured exteriors were of an older era and were horse-drawn, when many are probably drawn by modern cars. The film is undoubtedly guilty of some romanticisation of the lifestyle.
Traveller professional activities (tin-smithery, elaborate paper flower-making, their recycling and renovation practices and aversion to waste, horse-breaking and working) are also shown, as is the symbiosis between and interdependence of settler and nomadic cultures. An astonishing example of this is the nun who provided food for more than one family for months.
In a nod to the possible air-brushing of Traveller life-styles, there is a postscript which airs in a light-hearted and genial way some of the dissident views of participants.
This film was of interest to me because of the parallels with what I know of one Australian culture (Yanyuwa culture in the remote Carpentaria area of the Northern Territory) who have very successfully commandeered film-making and powerful ethnography. Some of the issues are very similar, and it is a revelation that such systemic discrimination can occur without very obvious physical markers of racial or even religious difference from the mainstream. Like our First Nations people, these Irish travelling people have to work hard to have their culture valued by an often-unfriendly wider culture. To enjoy cultural appreciation is undoubtedly in the interests of both ethnicities and their mental health and well-being. Minceir is an enlightening political cooption of ethnography and cinema to defend an embattled community. I sometimes wished it was less air-brushed but also understand the imperative of building up the confidence of the younger generation and especially those entering adulthood.
Frances Devlin-Glass
Frances is a member of the Tinteán collective, and was drawn to view this film because of her long engagement with Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria (Northern Territory).
Tinteán 