Contemporary ‘Outsiders’ in Narratives of Belonging in Cork’s Cemeteries: Reflections on Experiences of Irish Travellers and Recent Polish Migrants

Abstract

This chapter explores how cemeteries function as spaces of inclusion or exclusion for recent migrants and longstanding ‘outsiders’. It does so by focusing on experiences of the Polish and Irish Traveller communities, the most recent and longstanding minorities in Cork, Ireland. As such it highlights the many ways mobilities intersect with identity and belonging within the contemporary Irish context.

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Chapter 8
Contemporary ‘Outsiders’ inNarratives
ofBelonging inCork’s Cemeteries:
Reections onExperiences ofIrish
Travellers andRecent Polish Migrants
KatieMcClymont andDanielleHouse
8.1 Introduction
In contemporary cities, cemeteries and associated practices of memorialisation rep-
resent important spaces for the expression of belonging and identity, mediating per-
sonal, place-based and historical factors. They illustrate the changing histories of a
given place through the lives and deaths of the individuals memorialised inside their
walls, fences or hedges, often reecting life-journeys by noting places of birth as
well as death in memorials (Maddrell, 2011; McClymont, 2018). This therefore
gives cemeteries a particularly important role in documenting the migrations and
mobilities of the place in which they are located. Exploring these, and the associated
inclusions and exclusions in policy and practice which bring about their current
form, offers a way to understand migration and belonging which is currently under-
researched. Practices around death and remembrance are expressions of fundamental
human experience, but are culturally and geographically particular, and the ability
for minority groups to ensure appropriate and timely actions can be undertaken with
regards to the death of a relative or community member is, as we have seen across
this volume, of the utmost importance for a sense of belonging and acceptance.
This chapter draws upon experiences and views of the Traveller and Polish com-
munities in the city of Cork, Ireland to offer new insights into these issues. Irish
Travellers are nomadic people who were only ofcially recognised as a distinct
K. McClymont (*)
Department of Geography and Environmental Management,
University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
e-mail: katie.mcclymont@uwe.ac.uk
D. House
School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
e-mail: danielle.house@bristol.ac.uk
© The Author(s) 2023
A. Maddrell etal. (eds.), Mobilities in Life and Death, IMISCOE Research
Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28284-3_8

148
ethnic group in Ireland in 2017,1 and who are also ethnically distinct from English
gypsies or European Roma despite being often classied together through the
sedentist gaze of nation states. They lack a written history of their own and are
largely ignored by recorded Irish history, so clear understandings of origins and
evolution of traditions are absent (Gmelch & Gmelch, 2014). Discrimination against
Travellers is commonplace, which, although similar across European contexts, is
notable here because, as discussed below, the Irish national context is more pro-
migrant than many other countries discussed in this volume. On the other hand,
widespread migration to Ireland is a recent phenomenon, only emerging on a visible
scale since the late 1990s as Ireland’s economy boomed, but especially since the
accession of eight eastern European countries to the EU in 2004, including Poland.
Both Travellers and Polish communities are traditionally Roman Catholic (within
Ireland as a Catholic country) and are also considered white, if ‘white other,’ as
discussed at greater depth below. This therefore presents an interesting opportunity
to explore the similarities and differences experienced between these groups with
regard to their sense of belonging as mediated by and expressed in cemeteries and
death rituals. It explores how acceptance granted via whiteness is conditional and
does not necessarily relate to time spent in a context or place of birth– to relative
mobility or immobility– and that such lines of differentiation and discrimination
impact on feelings of belonging and the possibility of honouring the dead in a
culturally appropriate manner.
The chapter rst explores migration in the Irish context, both in terms of num-
bers and policy direction, and literature about Polish migration to Ireland and
Traveller communities in Ireland. The chapter then turns to theories of whiteness to
frame the discussion of belonging and exclusions in the Cork case, noting the
importance of both self-identication and acceptance from state structures in this. It
then draws on ndings from interviews and presents images of both Traveller and
Polish graves in Cork cemeteries to illustrate areas where these framings of white-
ness/belonging intersect with practices around death and remembrance. It concludes
by reecting on the role of cemeteries to show ways into these debates about migra-
tion and mobility, both in practical terms, but also in more symbolic and spiri-
tual ways.
8.2 Mobilities inIreland: Irish Travellers
andPolish Migrants
Traditionally, Ireland has been perceived as a nation of outmigration, with “the
highest and most sustained per capita rates of emigration in Europe” (Mac Éinrí &
White, 2008, p.153) in the 1960s and continuing to remain high into the 1980s. It
1 This was a victory for campaigners, although it did not grant Travellers any additional rights. See
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2017-06-01/48/ for detailed reporting.
K. McClymont and D. House

149
is not until the mid-1990s that this trend begins to be reversed with the period
1995–2004 seeing net immigration of over 200,000 (ibid., p.154) with large num-
bers of native Irish people returning to Ireland making up a large proportion of this,
but also an increase in people seeking asylum in Ireland, notably from Nigeria,
Congo, Algeria and Romania. Unlike its near neighbour, Britain, Ireland’s national
policy discourse on migration has been largely, at least in general statements of
intent, positive and accepting: “(p)olitical leaders attempt to demonstrate that wel-
coming migrants is part of Irish national identity, and that hosting migrants rein-
forces rather than threatens Irish identity” (Elliott, 2019, p.566). Although racist
sentiments are expressed within political debate, they are not seen as doorstep issues
at election time, or have mainstream party-political support (ibid.). The Brexit
debate, and role of Irish/British/EU relations in this, has only strengthened this posi-
tion of Ireland as a tolerant nation, expressing migration issues in terms of human
rights and compassion rather than a ‘hostile environment’ (Grierson, 2018; Grifths
& Yeo, 2021).
Despite this overall positive attitude to migration in the Irish political main-
stream, there remain questions about the assumption of belonging and acceptance
of minority practices with Mac Éinrí and White claiming that “[b]ehind a policy
of vague respect for multicultural ideas there lurks a de facto assimilationism”
(Mac Éinrí & White, 2008, pp.161–162) and that this is particularly relevant with
regards to the exclusion of long standing minorities, which is echoed in this paper
with regards to the feelings of exclusion and discrimination held by Traveller
communities. Lentin (2007) and Lentin and McVeigh (2006) examine how racial-
isation and diaspora play roles in the construction of Irish identity, and how this
has played out in recent political events, including the 2004 citizenship referen-
dum, the result of which granted Irish citizenship to people of Irish descent who
do not and have not lived in Ireland more readily than to those born in Ireland of
migrant parents. The boundaries dening insiders and outsiders are therefore not
simple to navigate nor xed permanently, but politically and individually con-
structed, reconstructed and challenged. This making and remaking of boundaries
also intersects with debates around ‘whiteness’ and identity hierarchy in European
context.
Polish migration to Ireland and the historical treatment of Traveller communities
tell two very different stories about minority identity and acceptance in Ireland.
Polish migrants, as white Christians (and specically Roman Catholics), are seen as
‘tting’ with the host country; their religious identity not perceived as threatening
(Gallagher & Trzebiatowska, 2017). Moreover, Polish Catholicism has been easily
accepted into the structure of the Catholic Church in Ireland with Polish masses
being delivered in the majority of parishes across the country. Here the shared
Catholic identity is seen as mitigating against a need for further integration. Roman
Catholicism is an international identity (see Eade & Garbin, 2007 on Polish Roman
Catholic pilgrimage in diaspora), and it is therefore acceptable to remain ‘Polish’
rather than necessarily becoming ‘Irish’ to integrate. However, migration to Ireland
has also allowed for individual responses to the maintenance of religious identity,
rather than being something essential to acceptance:
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150
The existence of Polish masses and the efforts invested in the formation of Polish congrega-
tions all perform a vital role in maintaining faith for those committed to institutionalised
Catholicism. For others, the host country serves as a catalyst for questioning what has been
taken for granted in Poland. (Gallagher & Trzebiatowska, 2017, p.437)
This shared basis for identity offers grounds for acceptance and belonging in an
open way, with personal choice and agency playing a role in decisions about life,
and about death, as explored below.
This contrasts strongly with the history of Travellers within Ireland. Throughout
their presence in recorded history in Ireland, Travellers have been seen as problem-
atic (Helleiner, 2001) and discrimination against Travellers remains widespread
today across social groups and all political leanings (Fetzer, 2017). Social attitudes
surveys reveal that “Travellers are the least-liked ethnic group in the country”
(Fetzer, 2017, p.196). It was not until 2017 that Travellers were recognised as an
ofcial ethnic group in Ireland, emerging out of long political campaigns against a
policy arena which previously viewed nomadic lifestyles as “aimless wandering
carried out by individuals, rather than as a cultural norm of the Traveller commu-
nity” (Boyle etal., 2018, p. 6) reecting, in part, conceptual troubles with the
mobility of nomadism within sedentist culture (Sutherland, 2014). However,
Travellers view the idea of nomadism as central to their identity, whether living in
‘bricks-and-mortar’ or caravans (Delaney, 2003) with links to extended family
being critical. In this sense, nomadism suggests more than an itinerant lifestyle:
[Nomadism] signies a way of thinking about the world, as much as a way of living through
it. Indeed, many Travellers are at pains to point out that nomadism is not restricted to those
who live in caravans or on halting sites—it is not dependent upon acts of physical movement,
they argue, but, rather, it is suggestive of a certain mindset and an approach to life. (Delaney,
2003, pp.85-86)
Even with changes in policy moving towards greater acceptance of the cultural value
of Traveller ways of life from the mid-1990s onwards (Boyle etal., 2018), Travellers
and Traveller culture remains under-represented and mis-understood in Ireland (Pavee
Point, 2015). Moreover, debates emerging from issues about Traveller ‘integration’ or
assimilation raise interesting points about issues of mobility and (national) identity
for this chapter’s focus. Travellers have not been written in as part of ‘the nation’
within Irish history and are seen as outside of the struggle for Irish independence:
“Such readings have also been used to deny Travellers a place in Irish society and to
see them, rather, as an irritant and an anachronism in the modern nation state”
(Delaney, 2003, p.82). This labelling of Travellers as anachronistic relates to the
different perceptions of nomadism held by Travellers and the Irish authorities.
Nomadism has been seen as a problem to be solved by the authorities; the cause of
Traveller deprivation and exclusion and something to be remedied by a settled life.
As such, Travellers present different issues to modern nation states than migrants
from other countries do, because their concept of nation is at odds with the way
territory and movement are conceived in sedentist cultures or the ‘settled’
community. This is particularly important in Ireland as a country conceived in a
history of struggle for independence founded on “the primacy of a territorialised
identity and the importance of rootedness and kinship with the land” (Delaney,
2003, p.87). Polish migrants, with shared Roman Catholic identity and heritage as
K. McClymont and D. House

151
well as European citizenship, arguably present a less problematic presence in Irish
society than a Traveller population who have spatially co-existed for hundreds of
years with the settled Irish population. Polish migration to Ireland is understood
within the sedentist lens of (xed) nation states– moving from a dened ‘here’ to
an equally dened ‘there’– rather than the nomadic mobility of Travellers which
undermines such a bounded understanding of place. In turn, this weave of
nationalism(s) and sedentism raises interesting issues about belonging, identity and
whiteness, which in turn have practical implications for decisions about burial and
memorialisation.
According to 2016 statistics, 14% of Cork’s population is non-Irish (17,183), and
moreover, Cork has seen the largest non-Irish population increase in Ireland (Cork
City Prole, 2018). This is comprised mainly of EU/UK migrants with Polish being
largest non-Irish nationality population (2.6%) followed by British/Northern Irish:
1.5%, Lithuanian: 0.4%, Other EU: 5.3%, Asian/Asian Irish: 2.8% and Irish
Travellers: 0.7% (ibid). In this chapter we explore how this relates to practices
around death and memorialisation in Cork, but rst turn to the idea of whiteness to
frame some of the discussions around differentiated belonging.
8.3 Whiteness, Identity andPatterns ofExclusion
The conceptual debate on whiteness provides greater depth in looking at patterns of
inclusion/exclusion for the Polish and Irish Traveller communities in Cork. It offers
critique of white as ‘normal’ and looks for how its privilege is maintained or devi-
ated from, seeing it as “a set of values and practices rather than simply a skin colour”
(Webb, 2019, p.4). As a theoretical perspective, its roots can be traced back to the
work of W.B.Du Bois, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, with academic scholarship
growing rapidly in the past three decades (Botterill & Burrell, 2019, p.24). Both
Travellers and Polish migrants (in Ireland, but also elsewhere in Western Europe)
are not visually marked as non-white, but both groups remain viewed as different
from mainstream national/Irish identities as ‘others’ or ‘outsiders.’ We use these
terms in inverted commas to highlight the subjectivity of these boundaries, and
highlight patterns of differentiation rather than accepting these denitions as natural
or in some way accurate reections of citizenship or identity. By identifying this
position, rather than allowing whiteness to appear as unproblematic or to conate
the experiences of all migrant/minority groups, we are able to see how this is consti-
tuted by different patterns of mobility and subsequently identify patterns of privi-
lege, acceptance and belonging within practices of death and memorialisation and in
turn see how death and memorialisation practices make and remake these claims.
In writing about Polish migration to the UK, Botterill and Burrell state,
“[h]owever inected the whiteness of Polish migrants has been, as Garner (2007,
p.66) points out, ‘not being white, and being black are two very different things’”
(Botterill & Burrell, 2019, p.26). Webb points out how problematic this status of
‘white but not quite’ is for Gypsy-Traveller communities in the UK, seeing them as
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152
“simultaneously disinherited from the concept of minorityhood and the protection
of multiculturalism” (Webb, 2019, p.7) as well as being ‘othered’ from the white
majority culture. This chimes with wider research into ‘white’ identities in Europe,
and the way material cultures such as dress play a role in these (Krivonos & Diatlova,
2020). Migration between European countries, and the attitudes towards ‘outsiders’
in a new context reects hierarchies of European space, and a lack of evenness or
access to the same privileges of whiteness. Mobilities themselves, therefore, further
complicate any unitary sense of white identity.
Issues of belonging intersect with debates on whiteness, identity, class and
boundaries. There is not scope within this chapter to provide a comprehensive
overview of this research, but a brief outline brings forward issues which are relevant
for this discussion. As Kuurne and Vieno state, belonging is forged in “the
intersection of personal experience, social processes and materiality” (Kuurne &
Vieno, 2022, p.283). The idea of whiteness can be part of all three. Within European
mobilities, it is an important part of the way in which “actors manage to gain access
to various social and material goods that are distributed on the basis of belonging”
(ibid., p.285). Claims to belong can be founded in shared ‘whiteness,’ or hierarchies
of whiteness can be used to further differentiate between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders.’
Literature specic to Ireland is limited, but some parallels can be drawn with
work from the UK.Notions of belonging and acceptance are complex and positioned
within ill-dened spaces of colour and cultural markers of normative nationhood
(Clarke, 2020, p.102). The concept of whiteness unevenly governs processes of
inclusion and exclusion. As well as being a barrier to differentiate against people of
colour, it also governs norms of acceptability within the category of ‘white’ as is
seen in the following discussions. Whiteness may be an initial boundary marker of
inclusion/exclusion but is not automatic grounds for inclusion into a white national
space. As Clarke explains:
Thinking not only about boundaries but also about hierarchies of belonging draws further
attention to the complexity of belonging but is also vital in plural societies where those
marginalised within hierarchies often include formal citizens who, in other spaces and
times, are constructed as belonging. (Clarke, 2020, p.97)
These debates echo those of racialisation, and the means of exclusion employed
against ‘others’ who are not seen to t in a given location both historically and
contemporarily (Garner, 2013; Holloway, 2003; Krivonos & Diatlova, 2020). So,
whiteness may lead to acceptance and privilege in certain scenarios, but its internal
hierarchies and patterns of exclusion along intersectional identities such as class,
add complexity to this. This is important to note, as shared Catholic (white) identity
between the Traveller and Polish communities and mainstream Irish society does
not lead to equal levels of acceptance for practices around death and memorialisation,
as is explored below in the discussion of our research. The shared whiteness (and
here religious/cultural Roman Catholicism) can operate as a smokescreen to
discrimination within this category (Clarke, 2020; Webb, 2019) making it harder to
apprehend and understand. Moreover, and importantly for research into death
practices and memorialisation, belonging is not a unidirectional phenomenon. For
K. McClymont and D. House

153
someone to belong to a nation, they need to identify as belonging to that community
themselves and be recognised as part of it: it is as “much about being recognised as
belonging as it is about self-identication, a substantive sense of belonging requiring
recognition– if not acceptance– in the eyes of existing members” (Clarke, 2020,
p.96) or as Kuurne and Vieno put it: “People are often positioned between multiple
settings of belonging, which may produce conicting expectations” (Kuurne &
Vieno, 2022, p.285). This hints at notions of boundaries and the acceptability or
hybridity of co-located identities, in life and in death, and the complex social and
political issues which underpin the everyday implementation of policy, planning,
maintenance and rules governing spaces of burial and remembrance.
8.4 Background toResearch
The research discussed in this chapter is a small part of a wider European funded
project looking at the cemeteries as public spaces of belonging (CeMi; see
introduction of this volume). Cork is the second largest City in Ireland, with a
population of 210,000. As noted earlier, Ireland has only recently become a country
of immigration rather than emigration and, as stated earlier, Cork has the most
notable increase in migrant populations in Ireland. There are thirteen cemeteries in
the Cork City Council area and one nearby crematorium. Cremation makes up only
19.61% of bodily disposal in Ireland (The Cremation Society, 2021), and the Island
Crematorium in Cork is one of only ve in all of Ireland. Grave rights in all the
cemeteries are leased in perpetuity.
This paper is based on twelve semi-structured stakeholder interviews with peo-
ple in the burial service, wider funeral service provision, Polish community and
Traveller community in Cork, one biographical interview, and one email
conversation, as well as visits to the cemeteries and crematorium.2 The majority of
this research was undertaken in September 2019 as, due to COVID-19, much further
planned eldwork was cancelled, while a small number of interviews took place
virtually. Topic guides were used for the stakeholder and biographical interviews.
We asked stakeholders to discuss their background and their role, then moved to
understandings of migrant and minority communities and their specic needs, and
the usages of cemeteries and crematoria as a form of public space. Any interviews
after the COVID-19 pandemic began also included questions on how this had
affected their work and community. The biographical interviews covered questions
about the respondents life, their experiences related to death remembrance, and
2 These semi-structured interviews consisted of: six interviews with ve members of staff from the
burial service (a second interview with one person during the COVID-19 lockdowns); two inter-
views with representatives from a Polish advocacy organisation; two interviews with representa-
tives of a Traveller advocacy organisation; an interview with a stonemason; and an interview with
a member of crematorium staff. The biographical interview was with a Traveller woman, and the
email conversation with a Cork-based Polish priest.
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154
their usage and perceptions of cemeteries and crematoria. The interviews were
transcribed verbatim by the researchers and then coded inductively using Atlas.ti.
These codes were then developed in dialogue with the team of CeMi project research
associates. All transcripts in the CeMi project were additionally coded for
comparative analysis. In this chapter we only use transcripts from Cork that
specically mention Polish, Traveller, or migration issues and needs. Due to the
COVID-19 disruptions to eldwork, and that the Traveller and Polish experience in
Cork is just one part of the larger CeMi project and not its central focus, the sample
size for this chapter is limited. The eldwork is therefore presented as snapshots of
experience to begin to develop insights into the relationships between mobilities,
whiteness and death/remembrance in contemporary Ireland rather than a large-scale
empirical account of practice. Through both a limited number of interviews, and
also observations of cemeteries, it opens questions for further research about
‘whiteness’ and the ‘work’ of belonging in this context.
There is limited academic research into practices of death and remembrance in
Irish Traveller communities in Ireland. We next set out some background information
to contextualise the ndings we go on to present, but these should be seen as
generalisations for context and will not accurately reect the whole experience for all
groups or families. The Traveller community generally follow the traditions of the
majority Irish Catholic community in death and remembrance, but in distinctive
ways. Burial is practiced, and each part of a funeral– the ‘lay out,’ the Mass, the
funeral, prayers at the graveside, a graveside Mass 1month after burial and a graveside
Mass 1 year after burial and erecting the headstone – are seen as essential to a
respectful and dignied burial (interviews with Mary, a Traveller woman in her 50s;
and Carole, a representative of Traveller advocacy organisation, also in her 50s).3
These are all large events, with an expectation that the wider community will attend
and travel far to do so. Again, large numbers of people attending a funeral is common
among the Irish ‘settled’ communities too, but Traveller funerals tend to be larger
(interviews with Mary and Carole). Cemeteries and family plots are very important
places for memorialisation and connection to ancestors and family, and despite
aspects of nomadism in life, a specic cemetery is used for families across many
generations. Traveller communities in Ireland experience higher levels of traumatic
death (suicide and other sudden death) than the general population (Tobin etal., 2020)
and ethnographic research suggests that memorial practices of Traveller communities
have become more elaborate and larger in scale in the last few decades, which can be
problematic in terms of the cost incurred for families of the deceased (Gmelch &
Gmelch, 2014). Due to this limited body of work, when reecting on the practices
observed and discussed in our research, we also draw on literature discussing death
practices of Travellers in England but wish to highlight that we understand there are
marked contextual, historical and cultural differences. Rather, this is a question of
drawing on what academic literature there is to help understand these issues in Ireland.
3 For reasons of condentiality, interviewees and other research participants have been given
pseudonyms, unless there is a specic agreed reason to name a participant.
K. McClymont and D. House

155
Unsurprisingly, Polish funerals in Ireland also remain an under-researched topic,
but it is useful here to highlight some of the funerary traditions from a Polish context
to see how practices are accommodated or have changed. Polish traditions have
developed out of Slavic culture, inuenced by the Christian church from the Middle
Ages onwards (Kubiak, 2016). Burial is the main means of bodily disposal with
cremation rates reaching 15% in 2012in Poland (ibid.) and attitudes to cremation
vary by age, education and region (urban/rural). In the post-war era, funeral practices
were dominated by state undertakers, but remained inuenced by Catholic cultural
practices which also supports the low uptake of cremation. From the 1990s onwards,
funerals and memorials have become more lavish and expensive although there is
variation amongst groups of people. However, 95% of funerals in Poland are currently
Catholic ceremonies, linking to family expectations even if individuals are
non-believers.
8.5 Experiences andUnderstandings
ofthePolish Community
The paper now turns to present ndings from research with the Polish community in
Cork. Three tentative themes emerge from this. The rst is the sense of choice in
bodily disposal and remembrance, and how this relates to wider decisions about
mobility in the life course of those related to the deceased. This relates closely to the
second theme: the importance of maintaining cultural heritage and identity within a
new nation; in death as well as in life. Finally, the chapter reects on what this means
about the identity of the public space of the cemetery and of Cork/Irish identity.
If they think about Ireland as their home country they want to bury members of his family
here; if not, they go to crematorium and keep an urn in his houses or in special places in the
cemetery. (Father Andrzej, Polish priest based in Cork)
The above quote expresses the overall strategy and decisions for Polish people and
families faced with a death in Ireland: it is based on personal choice and means and
is not curbed by limitations imposed by Irish regulations. Choices around burial and
cremation spring from personal perspectives on belonging and assumptions about
where ‘home’ is (see McClymont etal., 2023), both for the deceased and for their
family, mediated through the differing costs for burial, cremation, and repatriation
of bodies or cremated remains. Therefore, Polish community members may choose
to be buried in Ireland, or cremated in Ireland and either then send remains back to
Poland or to keep in a special place, be this in a house or cemetery, in Ireland or in
Poland. The scope for mobility or mooring is wide here. This is assisted by the
structural support of the Roman Catholic church. As Jozef, a Polish community
support worker in his 40s, notes: “Well, the Polish priests are actually set in the
Irish dioceses and are able to assist in the burial process.” This institutional support
is important both for recent migrants to be able to access and understand the system
and their choices, but also for Irish burial authorities in understanding needs and
wishes of the Polish community.
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156
For some in the Polish community memorialisation appears to be less problem-
atic in contrast with the Traveller community as discussed below. There are also
instances where it appears to reect a wish to be part of Irish society, as Jozef
expressed: “We are here to get integrated but we don’t want to lose our heritage.”
John, a stonemason we spoke to commented that of the few Polish headstones he
has worked on, most do not choose to have them inscribed in Polish: “There’s not
many. They keep it English most of them.” These comments are reected in the
experience of visiting cemeteries in Cork, where many graves with Polish names or
other identity markers can be found with inscriptions in English. In these cemeteries,
it is not uncommon to nd Irish graves marked in both English and Irish (see
Fig.8.1), so dual language memorials do not therefore cross boundaries of accep-
tance in ways that they might do in other settings. This raises interesting challenges
for notions of belonging– of accepting and acceptance (Clarke, 2020); becoming
part of Irish society does not necessitate a total loss of Polish identity: dual belong-
ing appears to be manageable in this situation. From our research, the balance of
integration and heritage retention for Polish migrants does not appear problematic
in death and memorialisation, linking to the expressed attitudes of pro-migrant and
pro-EU policy discussed above. Irish identity, and the recent experiences of moving
from a society of emigration to immigration, appears open to of the idea of diaspora
and distant or dual belonging and offers more varied and diverse possibilities as
acceptable national identities (although this is not always the case as noted by
Lentin, 2007).
Fig. 8.1 Similarities between Irish and Polish graves in terms of style and layout, St James’ cem-
etery, Chetwynd. (Photograph by Danielle House)
K. McClymont and D. House

157
On the columbarium in Cork, we observed Polish plaques (see Fig.8.2) marking
cremated remains interred there. This resonated with Gallagher and Trzebiatowska’s
(2017) comments about how migration allows individuals to revisit what is important
about their faith and identity in the freedoms of a new context. The ability to choose
cremation (rather than the traditional practice of burial) and mark remains in this
way appears to demonstrate this, and may indicate the security in an identity which
must accept changes in practice rather than hold tight to traditions, as well as factors
such as economics or uncertainty about the duration of migration to Cork. The
outworkings of individual identity and its marking on gravestones and memorials
have wider signicance than that just pertaining to individual mourners. Cemeteries
are important public spaces in any city (McClymont, 2016; Skår etal., 2018) and
those who are memorialised there reect certain aspects of the history of that place.
The increase in migration to Cork and subsequent migrant graves will change the
landscape of the city. This was noted by Jozef:
Ireland as a country is based on the clans. They’ve been for years here, you have O’Driscoll’s
here, McCarthy’s there, kind of, we are newcomers! We are all different. And this country
has been isolated for years, there was no such immigration. So something new for them as
well. We’re changing the focus, the scope.
It will be interesting to see whether this remains as seemingly uncontentious in the
future and is likely to map out in tandem with wider political, social and economic
changes in Cork and in Ireland.
Fig. 8.2 Polish Cremated remains, translated as ‘Forever in our hearts. Rest in peace,’ St James’
cemetery, Chetwynd. (Photograph by Danielle House)
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158
8.6 Experiences andUnderstanding
oftheTraveller Community
As expected from the literature and policy reviews, and the history of Travellers in
Ireland, the experience of Traveller communities in Cork’s cemeteries was much
more problematic than that of Polish migrants. In this section, four themes are also
drawn from the ndings, which in part parallel the discussion above. It rst outlines
issues of discrimination, both explicit and implicit. It then looks at how identity
maintenance is experienced and managed very differently from that of the Polish
community, and then what role Traveller graves have in Irish and Corkonian public
space. Finally, it reects on what these ndings reveal about mobility, place
attachment and family from the perspective of a nomadic culture, and how this is
still so contrary to mainstream or settled understandings of space.
A key issue of contention is the acceptable size of memorials in Cork’s cemeter-
ies. Headstone height is limited to 1.2 meters (see Fig.8.3) and there is also a pro-
scription on plot boundaries and other adornments. This is for ease in the maintenance
of the lawn cemetery style, and regulations on headstone size are viewed as fair,
equalising and aesthetically pleasing by the authorities, with ofcials and stonema-
sons noting points such as “it’s only fair to everyone, if you have a plot and someone
puts up a big headstone, so it’s fair. And everyone’s the same […] It’s uniform, it’s
easier to maintain” (Mike, cemetery registrar, male, 50s).
Fig. 8.3 Signs regulating cemetery space, St Mary’s cemetery, Curraghkippane. (Photograph by
Danielle House)
K. McClymont and D. House

159
However, amongst the Traveller community and their representatives, the view is
that, as the only community which this policy adversely affects, this has been a
deliberate policy choice to limit their preferred memorialisations which are tradi-
tionally larger than those of the settled community (see Figs.8.4 and 8.5 for the
impact of these regulations). This is perceived by some within the community as
part of ongoing attempts to make Traveller communities assimilate and change life-
style and cultural practices to ‘t in’ with those of mainstream Ireland:
What came about for us is that we would have bigger monuments on our graves than settled
people. I don’t know why but it’s important for us. And each local authority passed a law
that they need to be a certain height, you know. So Settled [people] aren’t forced to build
higher, we were forced to build smaller ones without any explanation. Again, without
explicitly saying this is for Travellers but we are the ones that have bigger headstones.
(Carole, representative of a Traveller advocacy organisation)
For the Traveller community, maintaining identity, in death as well as in life, is
highly important. This has a very different dynamic to it than with the Polish com-
munity in Cork, due to different histories, and different perceptions of their power
or repression in Irish society. Dual belonging is not something as readily achievable:
working towards, or achieving one set of afliations requires the disavowal of
another one. This is explained well in Carole’s comments: “The thing is, margin-
alised groups, minorities, who’ve had so much change forced on them, tend to hold
on to traditional stuff much more. Whereas for Settled people traditional stuff, they
would have let it go.” Mary describes: “Over the years a lot of Settled people have
given out about [large Traveller memorials]. They say that Travellers’ tombstones
are overpowering the other graves.” Yet she goes on to explain how despite their
Fig. 8.4 Large-scale
memorial for a Traveller
family, St Catherine’s
cemetery, Kilcully.
(Photograph by Danielle
House)
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160
Fig. 8.5 Traveller memorials with height restriction in place, St James’ cemetery, Chetwynd.
(Photograph by Danielle House)
resistance to assimilation, they have to a large extent conformed. Due to the height
restrictions headstones have got smaller, and due to the prohibition on grave curbs
they no longer build small walls around the tombs: “In the past Travellers would
have those, they’d build little walls around the tombs, but they’re not allowed to do
that anymore. So that’s changed as well.”
The importance of memorialisation has a long history in Traveller communities
in England as is noted in Okely’s (1983) classic ethnography: “an inability to afford
an appropriate monument is seen to bring shame upon the family” (Okely, 1983,
p.195, cited in Parker & McVeigh, 2013, p.306). This is seen in more detail in the
following two comments from the same respondent:
It’s to show their love for the person that’s gone. If it’s a parent they show that those parents
was loved and the family can’t do enough for them. If it was a young person, they show the
grief of the loss of that young person. And the only way they have doing that now is by
getting these elaborate grave tombstones and that. They can’t do it in person anymore, but
they can do it in the elaborate tombstones. And it’s a sense of pride as well, to show the
country and show other Travellers we’re not going to let our loved ones down, we’re going
to give them the best tombstone that money can buy. (Mary)
This demonstrates the (unintentional) harm done by the universal regulations on
memorial height and other restrictions (see Maddrell etal., 2021). Elaborate and
large headstones are a very important part of Traveller culture and community, and
by disallowing them, Traveller communities feel they cannot honour the dead in the
ways they wish to. However, in maintaining their chosen memorial practices, they
continue not to ‘belong’ to (settled) Irish society. Another way this is manifest is
through the proscription on purchasing adjacent plots and plots in advance of a
death. Mary gave a story of her relative, who is concerned for her brother who is
buried alone, not in a family plot:
She’s so anxious that he’s not left on his own you know. In years to come if his wife or some
of his family are there with him it’s not such a thing. But for us, and I don’t know if this
comes from the exclusionary experience in life, that even in death we don’t want to be left
on our own do you know what I mean? (Mary)
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161
As discussed above, within the Polish community in Cork, there is a predominant
sense of choice guiding decisions about bodily disposal and remembrance: choice
for repatriation or burial in Ireland; choice about memorial practices which are
accepted inlocal cemeteries. This is notable in the adoption of cremation and use
of a columbarium in Cork. Changing from traditional burial does not appear to be
a threat to Polish diaspora identity, as inscriptions can still be in Polish. However,
this sense of acceptance and choice is not present within the Traveller community.
A history of policies of assimilation and denial of value in Traveller culture have
led to retrenchment of practices for fear of loss of identity. Moreover, there is not
a ‘homeland’ to be returned to as Travellers are indigenously Irish rather than
(recent) migrants. This makes ofcial practices which work to assimilate Traveller
traditions, in burial and memorialisation as well as in other aspects of life, even
more threatening because they are perceived as an attack on their identity and being.
Here, the role of Traveller graves in and as part of public space raises different
issues to those discussed in relation to the Polish community. Instead of Traveller
memorials being perceived as part of the civic history of a place, representing its
diversity and change, Traveller respondents viewed cemeteries as private places for
the families of the deceased, but shared spaces for both the Traveller and Settled
communities:
No, I think [a cemetery is] private. I think it’s private. When we go to a graveyard we go and
look at all Travellers in the graveyard, if we never knew the Travellers. But know there’s a
Travellers grave we’d go and look at their grave, and bless their grave. (Mary)
Carole commented:
For the graveyards, it’s probably the one leveller, you know. We’re all the same, in the
graveyard we’re all the same. In fact I suppose we’re more united in the graveyard than any
place else. There’s a man two plots down from my brother who was a big business man in
Cork. We talk to his family standing by the grave. In any other context we would never meet
or talk to each other. (Carole)
This rst comment differs from the wider debate in literature about the public vis-
à- vis private nature of graves in a public cemetery (Woodthorpe, 2010). Traveller
graves are held in high regard by the Traveller community, and seen as their com-
munity space, rather than only private spaces of mourning for a family. Traveller
graves connect the community to itself, giving memorials a different meaning and
importance. Yet as the second comment explains, cemeteries are a shared space
where the Traveller and Settled communities come together, despite potential con-
ict over memorial aesthetics and traditions.
The importance of proper memorialisation for Traveller communities demon-
strates the different understandings of community held by nomadic (even if not ‘on
the road’) communities as opposed to the sedentist majority/state. Their sense of
place and belonging is not bounded by xed notions of space be this at the city or
country scale (Cork or Poland for example) but by the sense of Traveller identity
and (extended) family pride. This reects the mindset of nomadism discussed by
8 Contemporary ‘Outsiders’ inNarratives ofBelonging inCork’s Cemeteries…

162
Delaney (2003) which sets Traveller identity apart from other national identities and
demonstrates its signicance for death, remembrance and memorialisation prac-
tices. The paper now reects further on the experiences of these two communities
for the ideas of identity and belonging discussed above.
8.7 Discussion: Identity andAcceptance intheCemetery
Our exploratory research into cemeteries, bodily disposal and remembrance prac-
tices in Polish and Traveller communities in Cork reveals the multi-layered and
hierarchical experience of having ritual and memorial traditions accepted in public
cemeteries. Further, it demonstrates how whiteness is a differentiated experience;
serving as routes into, or barriers to, acceptance and belonging. It also reveals the
importance and complexity of cemeteries as public spaces, civic spaces and private
emotional spaces.
Polish experience demonstrated how the institutional privileges of shared white
Roman Catholicism allowed for matters of burial, bodily disposal and remembrance
to be managed positively, and as a process in which those involved felt they had
informed choices which allowed for their personal wishes and cultural heritage to
be respected. Burial or cremation in Ireland is one choice, whereas repatriation, of
a body or of ashes is also possible and supported notwithstanding relevant concerns
about individuals’ nances. Polish migrant culture is exible enough to accommodate
pragmatic and personal choice around place of burial and dispersal. When living as
a migrant across two countries, place-based attachment could be expressed in either
or both, with the dispersal options in Ireland not excluding or denying Polish
heritage. Ireland’s cultural as well as religious Roman Catholicism provided a
general assumption of burial as preferred method of bodily disposal, and hence no
issues of inequitable costs as seen elsewhere (see Maddrell et al., 2021 for a
discussion of the impact of price rises on Muslim burial in Hudderseld) or fears of
land shortages (see McManus, 2015). This was compounded by the institutional
support of Polish priests as part of the Irish diocese. Further, there was a sense that
an increased Polish presence, in life and death, would be a positive attribute to Irish
cities, to increase their diversity and hence cosmopolitanism as new sites of
immigration rather than emigration, though it remains to be seen whether this
attitude will change over time. Here whiteness as a shared identity does not remove
all differences between the Polish migrant community and the majority Irish
community but our research also demonstrates the ease of accommodation of certain
practices at least at the level of policy-makers and community representatives.
Traveller experience revealed the converse: whiteness and Roman Catholicism
did not serve as privilege, or easy routes to acceptance, but instead can be seen as
masking the discrimination and prejudice faced by the Traveller community.
Institutional norms of memorialisation, codied in cemetery and memorial
regulations, are expressed by the authorities as fairness and equality for all. The aim
of cemetery managers in establishing these is to ensure that no-one is negatively
K. McClymont and D. House

163
impacted by the behaviour and choices of those with rights to a neighbouring grave.
In our research, these regulations have proved unproblematic for Polish migrants, as
well as for the small but increasing number of Muslim burials in Cork, so these
regulations are not necessarily to the detriment of accommodating the needs of all
other groups. However, Traveller culture, and the attendant expression of this in
wishes about memorialising deceased loved ones, are beyond the scope of acceptable
normality as dened by the Cork burial authorities. This resonates with Traveller
experience elsewhere, as Parker and McVeigh note: “Oversize memorials are also a
common feature [of Traveller graves in England]; some of the largest cover multiple
plots, while others contain vases, plaques and other graveside offerings that are
positioned outside kerb boundaries – in contravention of cemetery regulations”
(Parker & McVeigh, 2013, p.305). They go on to offer an interesting explanation
for this:
A further possibility is that the memorials have taken the place of expensive custom-built
caravans as a medium for the expression of understandings of ethnicity, wealth and status.
The growth in the size, expense and decoration of memorials with explicit expressions of
Gypsy-Traveller identity has occurred at the same time as restrictions have been placed
upon travelling, and the manufacture of custom-built caravans has ceased. The cemetery
has now become one of the primary areas of interaction between different Gypsy-Traveller
families, as well as between Gypsy-Travellers and non-Gypsies. As a consequence, its
importance in the negotiation of identity may have grown. (Parker & McVeigh, 2013,
p.305, emphasis added)
This is interesting for two reasons which relate to the themes of this chapter. The
rst is that due to their status as a ‘forgotten’ minority, the Traveller community are
often viewed as troublesome individuals rather than a group with distinct traditions
and needs which could be accommodated within a framework of multiculturalism:
their acceptance as an ethnic group as late as 2017in Ireland supports this claim.
The Traveller populations are small– less than 1% of Cork’s population– and due
to their whiteness can be overlooked as a minority that needs support through
multicultural policies. Yet although overlooked in terms of supercially positive
multicultural policy, the Traveller community are certainly not forgotten by
authorities, who comment on and complain about Traveller behaviour.
Second, distinctions between the settled and Traveller communities may be
sharply drawn by members of both groups, but their shared whiteness leads these
differences to be framed differently than between a non-white racialised group. As
Delaney (2003) argues, Travellers, because of their nomadism, were not see as part
of the Irish nationalist project. Moreover, their practices remain outside of the
domestication of national space, and therefore are unacceptably alien (Hunter, 2016,
following Hage, 1996). However, as they are spatially (and historically) located
within Ireland, they do not have another national identity to claim. Instead, their
sameness, or lack of different and explicit national identity, makes their claims to
different needs for memorialisation less easy to dene and justify. Instead, they
could be classed as deviant individuals who will not follow codes which are set out
on generalised principles of fairness (as expressed by Matthew Parris in the UK
press, see Purdy-Moore, 2021). In turn, this accentuates feelings of fear and
8 Contemporary ‘Outsiders’ inNarratives ofBelonging inCork’s Cemeteries…

164
defensiveness in Traveller communities, for whom maintaining their cultural
identity becomes more important, and this is in turn again expressed through
practices of memorialisation as one of the few publicly visible and lasting material
edices of their identity.
The notion of belonging as reciprocal is useful here to think about the implica-
tions and meaning of this more fully. As Clarke (2020) discussed (explored above),
to belong you need to want to be part of the community in question, and it needs to
want you as part of it. With the Polish community in Cork, this reciprocity of belong-
ing appears to be evident; acceptance and integration are facilitated and welcomed,
but not at the expense of loss of cultural heritage, reinforced in events such as the
Polska Eire Festival which describes itself as “a nationwide celebration of Irish-
Polish friendship and culture” (Polska Eire Festival, 2019). Being buried in Ireland
with an epitaph in English, with Polish symbolism or noting of country of origin on
the grave, appears to be a positive choice for those who wish it, and there are other
options for those who do not. Traveller identity, on the other hand, stands rmly
outside of such patterns of belonging. Traveller practices, although in so many ways
the same Roman Catholic traditions, do not readily t with ofcial practices, and
Travellers feel their identity threatened by calls to comply with regulations; seeing
these as part of a legacy of assimilation rather than an opportunity to ‘belong’ and
therefore even and fair policy for all cemetery users. This difference in experience
of exibility around death practices is shaped by Ireland as a country and its institu-
tions, but very much about the communities themselves. The Polish community
does not need to be defensive it its identity expression, as the advocacy organisation
representative explained, they want to be integrated while not losing their heritage.
Within the Traveller community there is a strong social pressure to conform to com-
munity tradition, even if this means nancial debt. Therefore, some of the restriction
of cultural hybridity comes from settled communities (regulations), some from
Traveller communities (social pressure), and some comes from the interface of the
two where their culture feels threatened and must be defended and strengthened.
These differing views are reected in the way cemetery space is perceived by both
groups. Polish representatives see the emergence of more Polish memorials as a
positive, diversifying claim on the public space of the cemetery and part of a process
of settling, whilst Travellers see their memorials as deeply connected to identity,
ancestry and place– a place to defend and celebrate their culture.
8.8 Conclusions
To conclude, we turn to questions of ‘deathscapes’ and of mobility and reect on what
our ndings say to these wider debates and questions of belonging and exclusion.
Within Cork’s cemeteries, whiteness operates in different ways, or the differentiated
privileges of whiteness are revealed as patterns of inclusion and exclusion within this.
Both accepted practices (burial in perpetuity, with marked graves) and established
restrictions (heights of memorials, kerb marking) allow for the inclusion of diverse
K. McClymont and D. House

165
peoples and practices, but remain based on cultural assumptions of ‘normality’ and
attendant exclusions of deviant practice. These assumptions lie within sedentist
notions of national identity and place-based belonging which in turn frame the impor-
tance of burial and the marking of graves in ways which are different to the views of
Traveller communities. As Parker and McVeigh (2013) note in relation to experience
in England, the cemetery therefore becomes one of the few places where the settled
community and Traveller community encounter each other, and one of the few spaces
where this differential identity can be performed or presented. It therefore becomes an
arena of contested practices and contested belonging, unlike the Polish community
whose diaspora identity seems to be managed and positively contained within Irish
cemeteries, both accepting of and being accepted within majority practice (Parker &
McVeigh, 2013, following Clarke, 2020).
Our research ndings raise interesting points for reection on the idea of mobili-
ties and migrations, and how ‘deathscapes’ offer a unique and important lens in the
understanding of these issues. The contrast between the Polish and Traveller com-
munities in Cork reveal complexities around notions of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders,’
woven together by Roman Catholicism, whiteness and ideas of national and inter-
nationalism. Moreover, it reveals the opportunities for and limits to the notion of
belonging. Polish needs are framed within positive individual choices: ones where
past and future, or hybrid identities can co-exist and their presence in cemeteries as
public spaces are seen positively, reecting Ireland’s European and Internationalist
status. The nomadism of the Traveller community, whether practiced in terms of
caravan dwelling on the road or not, unsettles these notions of mobility. For
Travellers, identity is not marked through language and national symbols but
through a sense of respect for the deceased expressed by the scale of a memorial;
something meaningful within the cultural expectations of this community, and nec-
essarily different from that of the settled community. Ways of managing this are
challenging, and call for deeper and different understandings of how identity is
mediated through and by mobilities.
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8 Contemporary ‘Outsiders’ inNarratives ofBelonging inCork’s Cemeteries…