Home »

"Travellers on the Move"

Phoenix 92.5 FM - Community Radio for Dublin 15 is proud to present “Travellers on the Move”, a collaborative series of three programmes produced by Phoenix FM and the Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group, a community development organisation set up to address the inequalities faced by Travellers living in the Dublin area. The project is supported by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland under the Sound and Vision Scheme.

Alan Connolly, chairman of Phoenix FM, explaining how the collaboration came about, said: “Phoenix FM is a Community Radio station and part of our remit is to provide access for minorities and marginalised groups who are not given a voice elsewhere. So when Tom Toner of the Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group approached us to discuss making a programme about different aspects of traveller life, we said instead of us producing a programme, we would train Travellers to produce and broadcast their own programmes.”

The majority of the women who participated in the programmes were training to be Community Health Care Workers. The programmes follow their progress on their three-year FETAC/FAS accredited course until their graduation in the final programme. The group selected subjects they wanted to cover, such as local and national issues affecting travellers, traveller culture, healthcare and education.

The series will also feature rehearsals for “The Trailer of Brigid Dinnegan” - an adaptation of Frederico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba by Dylan Tighe and Catherine Joyce, which had its premiere in the Project Arts Centre in June. The programmes also contain songs and poems written by Travellers. “It was a pleasure working with the group and through the making of the programme learning about Traveller culture. There is a wealth of songs, stories and poems in the Traveller community and the series highlights but a few of them”, - said the series producer Susan King.  

The first programme goes on air on Saturday 11th of July at 5:30pm on 92.5 Phoenix FM (repeats on Sundays 7:30 pm).

Notes for Editors 

Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group is a local Traveller community development organisation founded in 1992 and was granted charitable status in 1998. The BTDG has a number of programmes, such as Womens Training, Primary Health Care Programme, Youth Work, Accomadation/Education/Discrimination Work and many others. The BTDG Project is supported by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht affairs, FAS, HSE, VEC and the Primary Health Care Programme is funded by the Traveller Health Unit.

Broadcasting Authority of Ireland official website – www.bai.ie