06 January 2020

 

Mike Joseph Carroll

Irish-American Traveller

1205 Edgefield Road

North Augusta, S.C. 29860

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mikej.carrollauthor@gmail.com

 

The Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, Inc.
National Office
PO Box 539
West Caldwell, NJ 07007

 

Ancient Order of Hibernians

Florida State Board

 

The narrative of your article, entitled “Irish Travellers in the United States,” includes many deceptive assertions about our ethnic minority. Irish American Travellers have retained the social customs and traditions, passed down by their forefathers. When our people arrived in America, they faced many difficulties. Employment was impossible to find, and this forced our people to travel the Atlantic seaboard in pursuit of simple day labor jobs to support their families. We continue to struggle to retain our ethnic identity. As a minority, we suffer the indignity of racism daily. Less than 10,000 Irish Travellers live in the U.S. today.  Contrary to popular belief, our people are not widely dispersed. We occupy only three encampments, one in Tennessee, one in Texas, and one in South Carolina.

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Researchers have published theories in their quest to allocate a history to our ethnic minority. These published assumptions incorporate fragments of truth deliberately manipulated to fit a predetermined narrative. Many put forth the belief that our people separated from the settled Irish centuries before our forced upheaval following the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-51). Pictures of women and children smiling standing next to colorful covered wagons depicting a lifestyle filled with contentment and freedom.  Photographs that mask the difficulty of life on the road, and the constant struggle to survive in a land filled with bigotry, intolerance, and racism.

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Our communities in America are safe havens during the short, southern winters, but the insinuation that our homes serve as military staging areas is an insult to our ethnic minority. Terms such as raid and scavenging impress on the reader visions of barbarians and outlaws whose sole purpose is to inflict pain and suffering.  Accusations complete with depictions of mafia tactics such as fake identities complete with counterfeit driver's license and social security cards. Examples of a carefully planned strategy whose purpose is to promote ethnic cleansing.

History provides examples of unjustified persecutions of innocent ethnic minorities by those who regard themselves as superior. Force, intimidation, and propaganda have been used throughout history to promote hatred. The African race stigmatized by the Europeans as being nothing more than sub-human objects that must be feared and loathed. Innocent men, women, and children chained like animals and sold into slavery. Nazi Germany methodically butchered six million Jews, two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The displacement of the Native-Americans through forced migrations such as the Trail of Tears undertaken by the American government following the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. An act in which the victims were called savages and the savages were called Christians. Not unlike these and other ethnic minorities, my people suffer the indignities of intolerance in their struggle to preserve our ethnic identity.

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The narrative of your publication is a collection of lies the purpose, is to condemn an entire ethnic minority indifferent to age or gender. Your organization makes it clear to the reader that Irish Traveller culture is "far too different from that of the dominant society," to be allowed to exist.  I urge the officers and members of your organization to refrain from rhetoric that promotes the expulsion of ethnic minorities and jeopardizes the economic prosperity and safety of innocent people. I encourage your organization's officers and members to read my book entitled, "Irish Travellers: An Undocumented Journey Through History" available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and many other booksellers. I would welcome the opportunity to debate an officer of your organization at a public forum.  I will be publishing this rebuttal on my books’ website: https://mikejcarrollauthor.wixsite.com/irishtravellers.

 

With Great Concern:

 

Sincerely,

 

Mike Joseph Carroll