Irish Travellers - Depictions and Documentaries

Depictions and Documentaries

Further information: List of Irish Traveller-related depictions and documentaries

Irish Travellers have been depicted, usually negatively but sometimes with some care and sympathy in film, radio, and print. Shows like The Riches, (US TV featuring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver) take a deeper look into the Traveller lifestyle. More recently, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings has been commercially successful in the United Kingdom, with descriptions of traveller life set around real-life weddings.

Irish Travellers are also depicted in the films Into the West (1992) and Snatch (2000), the latter featuring Brad Pitt as a Traveller bare-knuckle boxer, and loveable rogue. He is portrayed as having a deep love of his mother and family, in keeping with true life traveller traditions, which place great emphasis upon family.

In 2010, a documentary by Ian Palmer was released titled Knuckle. A 'fly on the wall' record of Irish Traveler bare-knuckle fighting, it was filmed in Ireland and England over a twelve year period.

In January 2012, the two-part documentary When Paddy Met Sally on Channel 5 in the UK charted the adventures of Speaker's wife Sally Bercow as she became the first outsider to stay on Paddy Doherty's traveller site in north Wales.

The movie Pavee Lackeen depicts Irish Traveller lifestyle centered on a young girl and her struggles in life.

Gypsy Blood a 2012 observational documentary follows two Pavee families noted for their bare-knuckle fighting passed on from father to son.

In the novel Falling Glass by Adrian McKinty, the main character is a Pavee, and there is much discussion of Pavee lifestyle.