Irish Travellers have lived nomadically in the UK for hundreds of years but their tradition of moving around the countryside in caravans has now to come to end. It is no longer legal or practical for them to continue this way of life and many are now trying to settle, but it is a difficult transition.

Dale Farm, was the largest Gypsy or Traveller site in the UK, with 86 families living side by side on the site in Basildon, Essex. The residents fought for nine years to get permission from the local government to stay on the converted scrapyard that they had made their home, but the neighbouring settled community did not want Travellers living beside them, and they were refused permission to stay.
Irish Travellers are an insular and little understood community, whose desire to live on sites in caravans, closely with friends and family members, is alien to the settled people in nearby communities who fear and disapprove of them and their lifestyle. Over three years I photographed and became friends with families in these photographs. They would speak to me of their desire to protect their heritage and community by living on sites together and their fears of the isolation and claustrophobia of being forced to live separately in bricks and mortar homes, when a caravan has always determined the parameters of your world.
Their are relatively few sites however, and the UK government refuses to provide more. The result is that Travellers, such as those at Dale Farm, live in a constant cycle of evictions and moving on to new sites, refugees in their own land.
In October 2011, the families at Dale Farm lost their battle and were evicted. Although they had promised to stay and fight to stay, and were joined by activists and protestors supporting them, when the bailiffs finally came and their temporary homes were destroyed, most residents simply stood by and watched, knowing that once again they had no option but to pack up, move on and try to look for a new piece of land in their own, hostile, country where they might, next time, be allowed to stay.