The Sheridans are a family of Irish Travellers living on an illegal site in England, from which they will be evicted this year. They are a very large family, all related through marriage or blood, and live closely in their caravans and mobile homes, with the generations always on hand to help each other with their large Catholic families. Travellers suffer constant racism in the UK; they are stereotyped as wild, dirty and immoral, where in truth they are caring, generous people devoted to and dependent on their families who choose simply to live freely and differently to the majority.
Irish Travellers are a minority community who have travelled around the UK and Ireland in caravans, stopping on roadsides, for generations. Over the last 20 years new laws banning this practise, have made this way of life increasingly difficult to maintain and most Travellers are being forced to move into settled homes, which they describe as being like a prison.
These photographs are of The Sheridan family who live on an illegal Travellers’ caravan site in Essex, England, under the constant threat of eviction. For The Sheridans, family life is at the core of everything in their world; it is the thing that keeps them together despite the difficulties they face.
The branches of the Sheridan family are all related through marriage or blood, as they are only allowed to ‘marry in’ and they live side by side in their caravans and mobile homes, with the many generations always on hand to help out. It is for this reason in particular that the Sheridans fear so deeply the separation from each other that is almost inevitable in the face of eviction.
In the UK there is no place where Travellers do not suffer persistent racism and intolerance of their culture and way of life, They are stereotyped as wild, dirty and immoral, where in truth they are caring, generous people devoted to and dependent on their traditions and families in a way that is fast disappearing in the settled world.