MTU celebrates culture of Irish Travellers

Munster Technological University (MTU) held its first Traveller Living History event last week, with the aim of bringing greater awareness to the Traveller culture.

The event, hosted by MTU’s access service Cork office, in partnership with MTU’s equality, diversity, and inclusion office, honoured and showcased the culture and history of the Traveller community through a live display, celebrating their legacy and way of life.

The event was designed to enable staff, students, and visitors to learn about Irish Travellers, which are recognised as an indigenous minority in Ireland, and to engage with personal stories, and foster greater awareness of the complexities of Traveller culture.

The aim of the event was to promote diversity within higher education institutions, which remains crucial to expanding perspectives and nurturing a more inclusive environment. Despite incremental progress, recent statistics from the Central Statistics Office underline the importance of continued support, as the number of Travellers sitting the Leaving Certificate remains low at 31.4%, compared to 91.7% of the total cohort.

The figures further show that while the percentage of Travellers with a third-level qualification is on the rise, only 4.7% currently complete third-level education, in comparison to 47.7% of the general population.

MTU president, professor Maggie Cusack, said that it is a priority of the university to increase Traveller representation within higher education institutions.

“MTU is fully committed to advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion across all our campuses,” said Ms Cusack.

“This includes equality of opportunity so that we can create the best possible academic and working environment based on mutual respect and dignity.

“MTU [was] proud to host this Traveller Living History event, which [celebrated] our university’s work with the Traveller community and adds to MTU’s rich diversity and spirit of inclusion.

“We are honoured to exhibit the unique culture and history of Irish Travellers and hope to continue raising the profile of this community through other initiatives like our Traveller culture awareness training.”