'It's the call of the road, I suppose'

Brigid McDonagh (29) wishes there were more halting sites like the one at which she and her family stayed last week in Co Donegal…

Brigid McDonagh (29) wishes there were more halting sites like the one at which she and her family stayed last week in Co Donegal.

"This one is great. You can relax a bit and let the kids out. You don't be worried that they are going to run in front of a car, and it's a bit private."

The dark-haired young woman had just finished hanging washing over the bars of the gate into the site at Ballintra, about five miles south of Donegal town. It is one of the two transient sites in the State, the other being at Lisfannon near Buncrana in northern Co Donegal.

The families can arrive, stay for a few nights and move on again.

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Any motorist passing the site at Ballintra, off the main Donegal to Ballyshannon road, would be unaware the site was there, unless specifically seeking it.

Down a short side track, it is a tar-covered plot, its amenities three Portaloos, a skip and a cold-water tap, which, when The Irish Times visited, was spewing water and couldn't be turned off.

There is no charge to stop at either site and, according to the Donegal Travellers Project, both are "very well used" all year round.

The Ballintra facility is basic, but "much better than the side of the road", according to Brigid.

Most of the year she lives with her husband and three children - aged six, 10 and 11 - in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, and they "take to the road" every year between March and September.

Her husband lays tarmacadam and plies the trade all over the country through the summer. Asked why they up and go each year, she half shrugs, smiles and says she doesn't really know.

"You'd miss out on the Traveller life if you didn't - the call of the road I suppose. And we meet up with family."

So far this year she and her young family have been around the Border counties, as well as counties Sligo, Dublin and Wicklow.

"In the other places we pull up at the side of the road. In Arklow and Shankill [Co Dublin] it's very bad.

"You'd be afraid to let the children play in case they get hit by a car.

"We do get hassle from the police. They tell us it's private property and we have to go. It is very stressful because you have to move again."

Her parents and those of her husband were Travellers, and she remembers moving throughout the country all year, in vans and tents.