The Irish Travellers are a source of unknown for most. Misinterpretated. Feared. I wanted to understand. One of the aspects that struck a chord - as a mother - were the children. Searching how to express the duality of an Irish Traveller’s childhood is where this series began.

Their endearing lightness of being and poetic freedom, so intricately meshed with the spitfire attitudes as if prepared for the rough future ahead, create a sense of melancholy. Freckled faces, adorned with disheveled red or blond hair, often in ill-fitted hand-me-downs. Little pouty lips spitting out words too big for them. Little hands holding toy guns. Pudgy bare feet running in a nearby sandlot.

Without speaking of high infant mortality rate, low access to higher education, social isolation or the impact of governmental forced assimilation on their trades, there is an undeniable beautiful sadness. In the margin of Irish society, the itinerant community lives by tradition or by rejection. The Travellers remain as they have for centuries, and the children play as the sweetmeats and sourbreads that they are.