In 2024, the Cork Traveller Women’s Network worked with the Keenan family to document their heritage as a Traveller family. With help from genealogist Tony Hennessey and oral historian James Furey, we traced the Keenan family back eight generations. This page shares the story of the Keenans, including stories from their nomadic lives, focusing on parents Katie (born 1944) and Red John (born 1945), and their move to Mahon, first living on the roadside in trailers in the 1970s and then later in a house in the 1990s. We also look at the lives of their daughters: Winnie, Ann Marie, Mary, and Annmarie’s daughter-in-law, Nicole. We would like to thank the Heritage Council for supporting this project.

Katie and Red John were born traditional Irish Travellers, born and raised on road. They met in 1959 and were married soon after. They had eleven children, Mary, Kathleen, Maggie, Nanny (R.I.P). Winnie, Jim (R.I.P), Nellie, John, Michael, Anne Marie and Rose. They lived a life on the road, until their family was housed in Mahon in the mid 1990s.

Life on the Road

Irish Travellers are a distinct ethnic group with a unique nomadic history and culture, For centuries, the traveling way of life was part of the Keenan family story.  Life on the road was connected with work, trade and sometimes with being moved on and looking for better living conditions. Travellers lived and travelled in family groups staying in tents, wagons, or later in trailers (caravans) and stopping in traditional camps.  Life on the road helped families stay close with keep strong bonds, and pass down stories and traditions. Red John and Katie lived this tradition for most of their earlier lives.

“I came from Offaly. We left Offaly when I was very young and ended up in Ennis. We’d go around from Ennis to Gort to Galway, we used to travel around everyplace” – Katie Keenan

“You wouldn’t be left in one place longer than two or three days. Then on to another place eight mile away and get moved on again two days later. Any Traveller childer years back, they don’t know how to read. They were never got time to go to school, they were never left in the one place long enough” – John Keenan

Life on the road gave a great sense of freedom, but it wasn’t without its difficulties. Raising a family on the sides of roads in Ireland came with challenges.

“You’d have a bit of ol’ tent stuck in the ground. He’d have to go get a bit of straw and shape it in the tent. I’d light a fire at the door. Children would be running in and out of the tent. If it rained heavy and you were in the wrong place you’d get a flood, it would take the bed clothes and straw away” – Katie Keenan

John and Katie’s eldest daughter Mary describes how her father would make a tent.

Winnie Keenan takes up where her sister Mary leaves off, and describing more about the living conditions and sleeping arrangements of life on the road.

“If a family had bigger boys, well they would have to lie outside under the wagon. The father and mother would be in the bed with two or three childer and underneath the bed was two doors, there could be three or four more girls in there” – Winnie Keenan

Married in Kilrush

“I got married with a rug around me. No coat or anything. Just a skirt, a pair of wellingtons doubled-down and a rug around me, that was my rigout” – Katie Keenan

Katie and John met in the summer of 1959 and were married by that Christmas. Katie describes how different weddings were back then compared to what is expected these days.

If we compare that to the recent wedding of John and Katie’s grandson Jim, we can see how much things have changed. Listen to Jim’s wife Nicole speak about her wedding here.

Making a living

Katie and John, like many Travellers, worked hard to provide for their children, using their resourcefulness in a time when there was little social support. Katie, like many Traveller women, sold handmade goods and “swag” to farmers’ wives. When times were tough, she would go door to door in the local area, asking for charity to help feed her family.

John, a self-taught tinsmith, was just as adaptable. He made and sold items like tin buckets, and also collected scrap metal to turn into useful products, either selling the finished items or the raw materials. This skill in repurposing scraps helped ensure they always had enough to eat.

Together, Katie and John worked hard to support their family.

“I used to get sheets of galvanise, corrugated iron, straighten it out and make buckets out of it ” – John Keenan

Katie’s daughter Mary explains more about ‘swag, and has a fond memory of helping her father make buckets

Life for the Younger Siblings

From the 1960s onwards government policies aimed to force Travellers to settle and give up the travelling culture and way of life. Regulations made it harder to use traditional camps. Younger generations started moving into houses and away from the life on the road.

While the older Keenan siblings’ lives were similar to those of their parents’ generation, with travelling and life on the road, the younger siblings’ lives began to change, showing a shift from the past. Although they were still living in a trailer in the mid 1990s, they travelled less often. However, the desire to travel remained strong, as Ann Marie explains.

Halting sites and move to a house

Government laws restricting where Travellers could camp have had a devastating affect on Traveller culture and way of life. Traditionally Travellers lived as big extended families, with multiple generations living along side each other and supporting each other to raise the children together. By the 1990s, many Irish Travellers began to move into halting sites and sometimes houses (because staying on the road was no longer possible).

After generations travelling and trading on the road, stopping at traditional camps (including the Black Ash road, Kinsale Road and all around the Mahon area, as well as travelling in other counties), Katie and John Keenans with their children, first moved into the old Mahon Halting site and later into a house in Mahon.

They were familiar with the area, having camped there from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. John, Katie, Winnie, and Ann Marie all share their thoughts on what it was like to move into a house.

Life in a Trailer Becomes Impossible

John and Katie talked about how life on the road often faced hostility from the government. As more Travellers were forced to settle, people who stayed living in trailers still faced discrimination and hostility from both the authorities and the settled community.

Eight years later, saw the passing a law that essentially killed life on the road for Travellers. The Housing (Miscellaneous) Provisions Act 2002 or anti-trespass Act made nomadism illegal, allowing prosecution of Traveller’s who camped on the road.

Ann Marie, now married to Jason McDonagh, admits that she had very little knowledge of the law, but it didn’t take long for this new law to come and encroach on the newlyweds’ lives. An early morning visit saw their home being confiscated. Here Ann Marie describes the experience.

“the 2002 Trespass Act made it illegal to live on the roadside, causing Traveller families to feel like fugitives in their own homes, with the guards constantly hounding them. After I got married, I personally experienced this myself. My first home – a trailer –  was confiscated from us without warning, without explanation and without any other option for a place to live. We were parked in Ennis at the time, in an area of empty ground that was previously used by Travellers. It is still unused empty ground today, blocked off with boulder stones ever since, 22 years later” – AnnMarie McDonagh

Loved ones, Remembered.

While putting together the family tree and researching the Keenan’s oral history, loved ones who have passed on were remembered.

Katie fondly remembers her mother Peggy who was a strong woman.

Tragedy struck the Keenan family twice. The first was the death of their sister, Nanny, in 1972 when she was hit by a car while playing by the side of the road outside Dundalk. The second was the loss of their brother, Jim, who drowned while swimming with his cousin in the river at Mahon in 1988. Jim was eighteen. Both tragedies were devastating to the family, but they live on in their love and memories. The names Jim and Nanny have been given to many of children down through the generations.

The Next Generations

Ann Marie, a very proud mother, talks of how her daughters Diane and Elaine, who both suffer from muscular dystrophy have become a great example of resilience in the face of obstacles.

Ann Marie’s son Jim and his wife Nicole are now about to bring a new face to the extended Keenan family. Nicole talks of how she was accepted by the extended family and how she is excited to become a mother.