“We're not dead yet!“: extreme energy and transport poverty, perpetual peripheralization, and spatial justice among Gypsies and Travellers in Northern Ireland

Even though a place to call home may be a fundamental human right, Gypsies and Travellers often confront some of the poorest health outcomes of any group in society, face almost constant accommodation insecurity, and reside in living environments with very poor conditions or high levels of social intolerance. Based on extensive original research with Gypsies and Travellers in Northern Ireland, this study explores their housing and energy needs, transport and mobility patterns, and challenges to their overall health and quality of life. Our investi- gation revolves around three core thematic areas. In exploring the theme of extreme and recurring poverty and vulnerability, we reveal not only problems but coping strategies and patterns of community resilience. In exploring the theme of perpetual peripheralization, we reveal troubling patterns of intolerance, discrimination, and cultural antagonism. In exploring our theme of spatial justice, we discuss mechanisms to improve the quality of life and energy and mobility outcomes for this marginalised group. “ There are no voiceless people, they are only unheard . ”


Introduction
Having a place to call home is perhaps one of the most basic human aspirations and rights in modern society [1][2][3]. Homes provide spaces to build families, safe locales to rest, opportunities to feel secure, and the ability to possess a multitude of basic amenities considered necessary to fully participate in modern life. And yet, this most fundamental right of having a place to live is perpetually under threat for one extremely marginalised group in contemporary society: Gypsies and Travellers.
Gypsies and Travellers confront some of the poorest health outcomes of any group in society; they face almost constant accommodation insecurity and often reside in living environments with very poor conditions that are literally killing them [4,5]. They are perhaps the most vulnerable minority within European society, given their exposure to a confluence of extreme poverty, ill-health, exclusion from civil and political rights, and constant discrimination and harassment [6]. As Cemlyn [[7]:154] writes, "Gypsy Travellers have long struggled for their human rights at personal, community, legal and political levels, resisting the hostile actions of authorities, individual bullying, direct discrimination, and eviction." O'Connell et al. [[8]:49] also write that "Travellers fare poorly on every indicator used to measure disadvantage: unemployment, poverty, social exclusion, health status, infant mortality, life expectancy, illiteracy, education and training levels, access to decision making and political representation, gender equality, access to credit, accommodation and living conditions." Gypsies and Travellers are frequently permanently displaced, perpetually disposed and almost always despised within many corners of society, a so-called minority of minorities. This leaves them truly with "no place to call home" [[9]:1].
Unfortunately, years of exclusion and dispossession have slowly pushed Gypsies and Travellers into a critical state where their way of life and even their survival is jeopardised by local authorities, communities, and even national planners [10,11]. Although facing recurrent acts of harassment and discrimination, Gypsies and Travellers have not been able to achieve in practice many of the protections that are afforded to other minority groups. Even recent progress on improving the status or living conditions of Gypsies and Travellers has been eroded over the past two decades due to both fiscal austerity and growing xenophobia within the English society [12]. As Smith and Greenfields [[13]:48] caution: "In a period of poor macroeconomic performance, welfare retrenchment and widespread financial uncertainty, it is low-paid and low-skilled workers [such as Travellers] who have been disproportionately affected by the events of recent years and for whom the future appears particularly bleak." Despite the stark challenges threatening the survival of Gypsies and Travellers, most policy research and documentation ignores them. There is almost a complete absence of laws or programs protecting Gypsies and Travellers in the United Kingdom, where they remain excluded from planning discussions, even those related to criminal law or the policing of their camps and communities [14]. Few programs exist to provide the minority group with employment or training, and a mismatch exists between local community programs and the specific needs of Gypsies and Travellers [13]. In some cases, Gypsies and Travellers are even exposed to repeated human rights violations and resulting cycles of exclusion and social disadvantage [7]. Even state-of-the-art reviews on energy and mobility poverty (the focus of this study) failed to identify Gypsies and Travellers as a vulnerable group (e.g. Refs. [15,16]), despite this group spending up to half of their monthly income on energy or transport services. Gypsies and Travellers are systematically excluded from most academic research and resulting policy due partly to the lack of reliable data on their daily practices, employment status, and living patterns.
Our study addresses this lacuna directly by exploring the housing, energy, mobility, health and wellbeing of Irish Gypsies and Travellers. This group is one of the most excluded and marginalised in Europe and the United Kingdom; the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights [17] found in a comparative survey that Ireland had the lowest percentage of Travellers in employment (only 13% of Traveller men and 17% of Traveller women) when compared across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Based on an original and intensive mixed methods research design involving expert interviews, community interviews with Gypsies and Travellers, extensive visits to Traveller's sites, and a literature review, the paper analyses their housing and energy needs, transport and mobility patterns, and quality of life. Our discussion revolves around three different themes of exceptional relevance for this journal: extreme and recurring poverty and vulnerability (including notions of coping and resilience); perpetual peripheralization (including intolerance, discrimination, and cultural antagonism); and spatial justice (including mechanisms to improve the quality of life and energy and mobility outcomes for this marginalised group).

Conceptualising the Gypsies and Travellers community
Before explaining our research design and conceptual approach, it is useful to offer general background and context. Gypsies and Travellers have resided in Europe for thousands of years. In the United Kingdom, for at least 500 years. The term "Gypsies" refers to the ethnic groups generated by the diaspora of commercial and nomadic groups from India from the tenth century, subsequently mixing with European and other groups [7]. The term "Travellers" refers predominantly to indigenous European ethnic groups, and the term "Roma" refers to broadly European Romani-speaking groups [7]. In the United Kingdom, the Gypsy and Traveller community is composed of English Romani Gypsies, Irish Travellers (the focus of this study), groups of Roma from Central/-Eastern Europe (also a focus of our research) and "New Travellers", often in their third or fourth generation [18]. The United Kingdom legally defines Gypsies in non-ethnic terms, classifying them as "persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin", but excluding showmen or people engaged in travelling circuses or travelling for their occupation [ [18]: 150]. Gypsy and Travellers are recognised as an ethnic group (Roma) or racial group protected by the Equality Act e. g S9c 9 (4). Surveys have suggested that the travelling community across the United Kingdom is probably not less than 100,000 or more than 250, 000 [18], with about 1,500 Gypsies and Travellers in Northern Ireland spread across approximately 500 households [5].
While generalisations about the group do not always hold true in every situation, broadly agreed themes exist concerning employment, nomadism, family, and social space [7]. Traveller communities frequently centre on economic activity derived from family-based self-employment. They are often nomadic, with even those occupying sedentary lifestyles still travelling periodically, and many are frequently travelling (more than once a month). Family and extended family play a significant role in Gypsy and Traveller life, with children occupying a central role (in terms of large numbers of children per family) and strong extended family (grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins) offering a primary social support system. Finally, most Gypsies and Travellers face precarious social, political or housing conditions, with their use of space highly contested and their social and cultural activities often marginalised and poorly appreciated in English or Irish society.
This marginalisation is rooted in centuries of exclusion and discrimination, with Gypsies and Travellers facing "waves of persecution and aggressive assimilation", including attempted genocide (during the Holocaust), enforced settlement, and even the targeting of systematic child abduction [ [7]:160]. Even today, stereotypes persist about the community that regard them as criminals, thieves, backward, homeless or antisocial, and hostility towards Gypsies and Travellers is more socially acceptable than other groups and supported by the mass media [7]. Gypsies and Travellers also experience a more systematic denial of human rights across Europe (compared to other groups), as they are often denied any status as a minority ethnic group; are neglected by racial or minority equality policies; are not represented as an ethnic category in censuses or the ethnic monitoring systems of public bodies; and are still treated as "highly visible" objects of hostility whenever an encampment upsets local communities [7]. There is also a long history in the educational system of Gypsy and Traveller children not being admitted or welcomed in school or validated and respected in educational curricula [7].
One particularly troubling element of modern Gypsy lifestyles is their exposure to environmental hazards-a theme we will explore further when the study examines peripheralization. In Eastern Europe, the Roma have been displaced from many countries and cities and have been forced to reside in settlements akin to "environmental time bombs" [19]. For example, Roma communities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia reside in flats located above abandoned mines where they are prone to flooding and susceptible to breathing methane gas. Others live in abandoned factory sites surrounded by mining waste where children are fully exposed to toxins and suffer long-term effects on health. Walker [20] termed this the "triple jeopardy" of being more exposed to higher levels of pollution, being more vulnerable and more likely to suffer health impacts, and being least responsible for generating air quality problems in the first place.
In parts of the United Kingdom (the focus of our study is Northern Ireland), these trends hold true as well. The state has sought to exert control over curtailing nomadic lifestyles since at least the Tudor period (1485-1603), with Gypsy travelling even outlawed and criminalised as vagrancy. Consequently, this pushed many communities to live on the periphery of society, in tents or wagons, where they supported themselves by trading, repairing, providing entertainment, or offering seasonal agricultural work [13]. Over the past century, substantial changes in social and economic structure following World War II rendered many itinerant or seasonal jobs redundant or obsolete, and government legislation further made nomadic lives harder to maintain. These factors include increasing demand for land, a decline in safe spaces for Gypsies and Travellers, and planning laws that still seek to outlaw nomadism and forcibly settle the travelling population or assimilate them into existing social groups [13]. Accommodation remains a key facet of ethnic discrimination, with many local authorities around the United Kingdom removing safe sites for Gypsies and Travellers or failing to meet their duty to provide sites; increased rates of eviction or criminalisation of "unauthorised camping;" and systematic discrimination in the planning system with some 90% of planning applications on behalf of Gypsies and Travellers refused or rejected [7].

Research design and conceptual approach
To better understand the lived experiences of Irish Gypsies and Travellers, in this section, we explain our mixed-methods research design and our conceptual approach. Based on our findings, as well as the institutional affiliation of the authors, we focused explicitly on the Gypsy and Traveller community in Northern Ireland.

Mixed-methods research design
Given no existing datasets existed to depict the energy and mobility dynamics of Gypsies and Travellers, we had to generate our own and utilised a research design consisting of (i) original expert research interviews, (ii) community and household interviews, (iii) site visits and naturalistic observation, and (iv) a targeted literature review.
To both provide background and also understand the needs of Gypsies and Travellers from a research and policy standpoint, we conducted five expert interviews (over the course of August and September 2021) with those either studying the topic for their professional research or those involved in delivering social services to the community (e.g., within government or local authority departments). These lasted between 30 and 180 min. We refer to these expert interviews as ER1-ER5 throughout the paper.
Given the systematic discrimination within the planning and educational system documented in Section 2, we figured it extremely important to conduct direct interviews with Gypsies and Travellers themselves. We conducted 41 household and community interviews summarised in Table 1 throughout September and October 2021. These lasted between 15 and 60 min. Roughly half of our respondents identified as Irish travellers, the other half-Roman or Romani-Gypsies. Some of our respondents were static or sedentary and living in housing, whereas others were nomadic, travelling at least half of the time each year. Our corpus also included a mix of residency types and living conditions (including formal Traveller's sites and informal trailer parks, caravan parks, or halting sites). Some lived in caravans (a trailer), some tents, some in more fixed houses called block houses or chalets. Most interviews were recorded, and all interviews were fully transcribed, cleaned, analysed and coded. Our techniques of data analysis were inductive; all interviews were undertaken only by the two co-authors; there was no need for inter-coder agreement (given transcripts were not that long or exhaustive); and we adopted an entirely empirical or grounded approach that was not guided by any specific conceptual framework, to avoid potentially biasing the results. Our interview questions and guidebook are shown in Annex I.
To complement the expert and community interviews, avoid some pitfalls of stated preference techniques, and improve triangulation, the research team also conducted seven site visits, where we performed naturalistic observation. This included: 1. Londonderry (Daisyfield Park and Ballyarnett); 2. Belfast (Glen Road, Glen Site and Glen Site Road); 3. Craigavon (Acorn Grove and Legahory Close).
As Fig. 1 indicates, our visits included a mix of serviced, unauthorised, and abandoned sites; a mix of ethnic groups (some Roma or Romanian descent, others from Irish or English descent); a mix of static/ fixed units and nomadic mobile caravans; and a mix of rural to urban areas. This enabled us to further observe living conditions and energy and mobility practices and facilitated the collection of visual evidence (photographs) that we use throughout the manuscript.
Throughout the study, we rely on a large number of original photographs collected during the site visits and field research, including some that reveal the faces of Gypsies and Travellers, including their children. Explicit permission was granted to use these images by the respondents themselves, or in the instance of their children, by their parents. Our study did receive formal ethics approval from the Social Table 1 Overview of community and household interviews by location, respondent number, and general description (N ¼ 41). Source: Authors. *All interviews are anonymised to protect respondents (who constitute a vulnerable group) and to fully adhere to institutional ethics requirements.

Site/location Respondent number
General description*

GRR1
Adult male, father of six children. Unemployed GRR2 Adult female, mother of four. Housewife. GRR3 Adult female, mother of three, also taking care of her parents. Housewife. GRR4 Adult male, single, living with parents. Selfemployed.

GRR5
Adult male, married, four children, works as a landscaper GRR6 Adult female, five children, married, housewife, was previously homeless. GRR7 Adult female, six children, housewife, previously homeless. GRR8 Adult male, five children, self-employed. GRR9 Elderly man, retired and unemployed. GRR10 Adult identify research gaps. We utilised both Scopus and Google Scholar and searched for studies using the terms "Gypsy," "Traveller," "Roman" and "Romani" published in the past twenty years alongside the terms "Irish," "Northern Ireland" and "United Kingdom." We cite most of these studies throughout the study, showing where they confirm our findings.

Conceptual approach
Although we set the goal of grounding our study in strong empirical data, we also sought to make a conceptual contribution by engaging with three sets of related themes and kinds of literature.
The first are debates over energy and transport poverty, sometimes called fuel poverty or mobility injustice [15,16]. Energy poverty is meant to capture the inability of homes or small commercial enterprises to afford adequate energy services and supplies of heat or electricity. Energy poverty often results in poorly heated homes, with a wide range of associated health impacts, including increased risk of respiratory and circulatory disease in adults, premature heart attacks in adults, asthma in children, thousands of excess winter deaths among the elderly, and increased risk of mental health illness and social isolation [21,22]. The groups deemed most susceptible to energy poverty are often low-income households, households with large numbers of children, elderly households, those with disabilities, or those with ill health [23]. Transport poverty generally refers to the lack of mobility services necessary for participation in society, resulting from the inaccessibility, and or unaffordability, and or unavailability of transport [24][25][26][27]. Connections between transport poverty and health are also negative and stark and include increased vulnerability to pollution, increased illness rates, and social exclusion [28]. As we will see, energy and transport poverty can cooccur and reinforce each other, leading to a "double energy vulnerability" [29].
The second concerns the process of peripheralization arising from the environmental politics and social justice literature [30]. Peripheralization describes the marginalisation of some communities and how they often have environmental harms imposed on them (at times even without their consent). Blowers and Leroy [31] note that the process offers a way to reveal how political power (or lack of it), politics and democracy (or lack of it), and patterns of environmental inequality interconnect. They argue that peripheralization often has five interconnecting drivers: (i) marginal groups often have limited political power with decisions made from outside the community affecting it; (ii) they are economically marginalised with little control over employment or community revenue; (iii) they are culturally marginalised either by becoming ambivalent about their status or having strong feelings of isolation and powerlessness; (iv) they are environmentally degraded and face significant environmental threats (e.g. from pollution); and (v) they are geographically marginalised and forced or incentivised to occupy remote or peripheral spaces in society. Given the trends discussed in Section 2, this concept seemed to capture the status of Gypsies and Travellers acutely. However, given their extreme marginalisation, we have added the descriptor of "perpetual" peripheralization to better capture how for this particular community, these patterns are recurring, systemic and persistent.
The third concern calls for spatial justice, apt here because this stream of literature points the way towards remedies and coping strategies for addressing injustice [32]. Soja's [33] conception of spatial justice is relevant, for it calls on researchers to better comprehend how social hierarchies can become entrenched in geographic or spatial patterns that can result in "unjust geographies". Soja [33] identifies various methods by which one can challenge spatial injustice, such as reimagining the city (or, in this case, treatment of a marginalised group) not as neutral, but instead as an active struggle over resources and thus competing interests. The second is to change geographies and recognise our innate ability to shape, influence, and direct future outcomes. The third is participatory democracy and a call for more inclusive, representative forms of decision-making that better reflect the interests of local communities or marginalised groups. The fourth is sustainability, that cities (and those in our a marginalised group) orient themselves towards long-term holistic sustainability with improvements in both community wellbeing and health.
We will indeed return to all three of these themes (poverty, peripheralization, and justice) in Section 4 of the paper.

Results: energy, transport, and health in the Irish Traveller's lifestyle
This section presents our core results organised along the three dimensions of housing, electricity, and heating needs; transport and mobility patterns; and health and wellbeing.

Housing, electricity and heating needs
Given their nomadic lifestyle and insecurity in finding accommodation, safe and affordable housing emerges as perhaps the first and most significant issue facing Irish Gypsies and Travellers. Gypsies and Travellers can actually reside in a surprising variety of arrangements, including pitches on local authority sites, pitches on privately owned commercial sites, family owned sites (seen as the ideal and most preferred within the community), Gypsy owned land without planning permission, or unauthorised encampments. Confusingly, each of these types of sites can be serviced/permanent (provided with basic amenities) or un-serviced/temporary (provided with no amenities). Niner [18], however, noted a paradox between culture and housing: culturally-specific accommodation for Travellers (e.g., residential Gypsy sites) were inadequate to accommodate their desired nomadism or mobility, requiring unauthorised encampments. But those encampments often failed to provide adequate services (i.e. water, energy) and perpetuated the community's social exclusion.
Moreover, most Travellers face a shocking inadequacy in terms of the quality of housing they can achieve. For instance, Travellers are eight times more likely to live in overcrowded conditions when compared to the general population, and 68% of Travellers lack appropriate accommodation with no access to basic facilities such as water, sanitation, electricity, or rubbish collection in Northern Ireland [5]. Across all of England, some 20% of Gypsies and Travellers are homeless and have no place to live, and in some counties, it can be close to 50% [12]. ER4 noted this explicitly stating that: The Traveller's life is not one I would want for myself. It often involves living on the side of a road, or being constantly on the move. It is sometimes a hard life of domestic abuse, drugs, alcohol and poverty, but the flip side is that the group is really seen as outcasts. They feel they cannot trust anyone else, nobody else understands them, feel comfortable only with family, and feel safe only when living in Gypsy camps or sites. The number of those sites, however, is shrinking every year.
We found a lack of amenities and accommodation insecurity prominent and recurrent during our site visits and our interviews. All 41 of our community respondents lived in older caravans or homes not built for cold weather. Table 2 shows a sample of interview quotes, with respondents noting living with "rotten" walls, freezing temperatures ("frostbite" on hands), suffering "paper thin walls," and having to confront "rats as big as cats" or "thousands of flies" that even "sleep with us" and living like "refugees in camps" (among other hazards like annoying beeps or the smell of human excrement or sewage) or even having "children playing on top of rubbish." These forms of material deprivation and impoverishment can perpetuate and intertwine, with psychological feelings of "imprisonment" on rented sites and the loss of freedom to travel, "coerced" into a lifestyle by stress or circumstance [6].
Expenditures on electricity services were particularly noted as very important to maintaining living standards but also contributing towards poverty. As Table 3 summarises, almost all Travellers we spoke with were on pre-pay, higher tariff arrangements for electricity with suits of pre-pay boxes (see Fig. 2). However, almost all of them also struggled to pay their electricity bills, with them on "high rates" and "top ups" which require getting charged "extortion" for electricity, with expenditures as high as £90 per week or up to £400 per month for some caravans ("I buy electricity for my mother, need to keep things warm, the electric going" or "it's not even a joke how expensive it is", or "we're getting robbed"). Wet weather (leading to "damp," "rot" or "freezing pipes") was seen as particularly bad for bills, as well as major holidays like Christmas (where they put up Christmas lights).
Expenditures on electricity relate mostly to electric appliances (washing machines, toasters) along with mobile phone charging and television. Some electric heating is utilised, but most Travellers reported heating with fossil fuels, especially oil or canisters of natural gas. As Table 4 illustrates, monthly heating costs can also become substantial, with respondents noting that "we have no other choice" to keep the heat on and "we can't turn them off" without falling sick. Costs could be as high as £10 a day or £100 a week during cold, damp days. Others heat their caravans or homes with gas bottles or have oil tanks for the community to use and store, options shown in Fig. 3. Heating expenditures can be substantial, with some respondents estimating they spend half of their monthly income on heat along during winter months (a number likely true given many Travellers pay no rent). Earlier studies confirmed these high costs, one noted that Travellers in Belfast spent as much as £10 per day for heat from a diesel generator [5].

Transport and mobility patterns
Transport and mobility patterns also contributed to rates of poverty and/or reflected inequality in terms of access to automobiles, caravans, taxis, or buses. In terms of ownership of cars, only about one-third (N= 13) of our respondents said they owned cars, and only ten respondents owned their caravan. And for those that did, none of them were new, and some were approaching 30 years old. Table 5 shows how our respondents mentioned the expense of owning a car, with it "hard to buy motors" and some having cars that are "practically scrap" or "rusted floorboards." Others who didn't own cars spoke about having to "walk me whole life" or admitted to taking "really long walks," even in freezing weather, along "death roads" or when pushing young children in prams (see Table 6).
Ownership of cars and caravans was distinct from monthly mobility expenditures, often related to taxis or borrowing rides from family members (of which many Travellers still paid, up to £10 per trip) or up to £320 per month when travelling hundreds to thousands of kilometres, especially when in search of employment or driving into the city for daily boxing lessons. Others spoke about paying £5 per round trip to take the local bus to the shopping centre. We never feel safe. Many people just walk in and do their stuff, and they feel they have the right to do whatever they want because it is a Travellers' site. They will also throw us cans because they know we live down here. Housing, electricity, heating, transport and mobility patterns not only affect Gypsies and Travellers economically; they also can induce negative impacts on health, wellbeing, and perceived quality of life. Table 7 illustrates a broad spectrum of issues raised in our interviews, including feelings like they were "second class citizens" in a "second world country," with even children exposed to hazardous electrical wires or examples of young ones (or their pets) being run over by cars. Fig. 4 shows exposure to electricity meters and cables; other respondents spoke about recurring health problems (one said "I am a walking disease"), including living outdoors ("I lived by putting hay on the ground, maybe a tarp over my head") losing babies in the winter due to lack of heat, broken bones, burns, recurring pains, or cancer, arthritis, and asthma as well as winter deaths from pneumonia. Issues among the elderly and young children were especially sobering ("winter is terrible" and "my 4 week-old boy had to go to the hospital for weeks").
These interview statements from our sample are buttressed by myriad quantitative indicators and statistics showing alarming disparities and inequalities among Gypsies and Travellers. ER5 told us that: Gypsies and Travellers are a culture under siege. The suicide rate is seven times higher among Traveller men rather than settled men. Only 1% of travellers live to be 65 or older. Less than 5 Traveller kids in 10 years have completed education up to 17 years old, almost none of them finish formal education. The outcomes for Travellers are so much lower than any other community in Ireland or Northern Ireland. One-third of people we work with are still nomadic, which makes addressing these concerns difficult to impossible.
Coleman [34] confirms that only 1% of Travellers live to be more than 65 years of age; that infant mortality among Travellers is three times that of the general population; suicide rates are seven times higher; and that Traveller children have higher prevalence of mental illness, loss of hearing, eyesight problems, and other health problems compared to all children. In their assessment, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland [5] found that 92% of Travellers left school with no qualifications; that only 11% had paid employment; that the infant mortality rate is ten times the national average and life expectancy is considerably lower than for the non-Traveller population. Smith and Greenfields [[13]:51] also concluded that Gypsies and Travellers were "among the most deprived groups in the population," with "the worst health profile of any group, dying younger and experiencing higher levels of physical and mental illness." Travellers have very low adult literacy rates (21% of  men and 9% of women cannot read), and one-third of all Travellers can only write their name. These trends take a toll on the wellbeing and mental health of Gypsies and Travellers. Our expert interviews confirmed them as well, including frequent trips to National Health Service clinics or hospitals to treat arthritis or pneumonia, as well as social problems of depression or drug use. ER2 stated that: The Traveling lifestyle and culture is hard on humans. It can involve lots of drug use, lots of depression, lots of problems, many of them haven't found a home in the world we live in now. Traveller's only marry Traveller's. Marriages are even still arranged, arranged almost when the child is born. Women don't work outside the home, their function is to have children, bring them up as Travellers. Then that mother's job is to find their daughter a husband, marry them off at 17, maintain the culture, what family will marry up. It's a lifestyle that you wouldn't want it unless you grew up with it. Lots of "double first cousin" weddings, two brothers marry sisters, and their two children marry. One resulting impact is birth defects due to consanguineous marriages, a biological term that refers to incest and literally the mixing of blood with blood.
Multiple studies in the medical field have confirmed the deleterious effects that the Travellers' life has on health, as well as extreme disparities in access to healthcare. Parry et al. [35] found that compared to the general population, Gypsies and Travellers were "significantly more likely to have a long-term illness, health problem or disability" that limited their ability to work, as well as a greater frequency of problems with mobility, self-care, pain, discomfort, and depression, as well as a much higher incidence of chest pain, respiratory problems, arthritis, miscarriages and premature deaths of children. Goward et al. [36] found high rates of mental illness and depression and noted that many Gypsies and Travellers feel "low" and "stressed" about their life. Van Cleemput et al. [6] found that the recurring experience of poor health and daily encounters of ill health were very high among Gypsies and Travellers, but that rather than seek treatment, most merely accepted their fate, normalising illness-due in part to feelings of self-reliance but also desires to appear in control of their lifestyle. Most Gypsies and Travellers also do not realise how poor their health outcomes are compared to other minority groups. Moreover, the study concluded that "fears around death and dying were strongly associated with a dread of a diagnosis of cancer, which was seen as an inevitable 'death sentence' … People therefore avoided any possibility of hearing that diagnosis. The fatalistic attitude that 'nothing can be done'" was widely embedded [ [6]:208].
However, when asked about their lifestyle and whether they would abandon it, most of our respondents were steadfast about their cultural identity. GRR1 and GSR2 put it best in this regard when they mentioned: GRR5 added that they are trying to improve health outcomes within the community and also that there is a high degree of caring, sharing, and solidarity. As they said: We do try to eat healthy, and look after each other, we wouldn't see each other remain in need. When I am making soup, will pass it around to everyone. We are a very big sharing community, and that helps look after people. We even give drug addicts money, try to be kind, turn the corner, good to give back. CAG2 was even more emphatic about the importance of their culture, noting that even though they have not travelled for a long time (five years), that: Being a traveller is more than just traveling, it's a culture, it's a way of life, I can't take the Gypsy or Traveller out of me, just like you can't take  This pride and cultural distinction may further explain why so many Gypsies and Travellers suffer and accept their poor outcomes and fatalistically continue to live their lifestyle.

Discussion: poverty and vulnerability, perpetual peripheralization, and spatial justice
Our results depict troubling patterns of poor housing and inadequate energy services, expensive and dangerous mobility patterns, and degraded wellbeing and quality of life (see Fig. 5). However, these patterns are shaped by three broader themes of extreme poverty, perpetual peripheralization, and spatial injustice. We explore these broader topics in this section of the paper, each of which acts as cause or driver but also as a consequence or result (see Fig. 6).

Extreme energy and transport poverty
Gypsies and Travellers are prone to the "double vulnerability" of energy poverty and transport poverty, of paying an extremely large proportion of their income on energy and mobility services. Every single Traveller we spoke to spent more than 20% of household expenditure on electricity, heat, and petrol, and some paid more than half of their monthly income on such services, leaving little money left over for food, healthcare, or education (see Table 8.) Given many Travellers are selfemployed or work in transient jobs, paying these combined expenses is difficult, with many Travellers also forgoing adequate warmth or levels of mobility access, especially in the winter, when it is most expensive but also the most hazardous in terms of consequent impacts on health. All but one of our interviewee respondents spoke about trouble paying their energy or mobility expenses and bills, with respondents noting they had to "choose between bread and bills" or "choose between energy or groceries" and that "every day is a struggle." The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland [ [5]:34] found this to be the case as well, noting that "lack of facilities such as mains electricity is forcing some Traveller households into poverty, as they meet the high cost of fuel to power generators or for shower facilities." As previously noted, many Gypsies and Travellers cope by merely going without energy services or mobility. But our interviewees also spoke about a wide variety of other coping strategies, some of them illegal, including "staying with friends," "stealing" petrol or electricity, or "begging and borrowing" from family (See Table 9). ER1 spoke about how the theft of petrol and electricity does contribute to the stereotype that Gypsies are "gangsters", and that some of this stereotype is valid. As ER1 added: Like any community, some Gypsies and Travellers are criminals. Not all of them follow the law. We believe one of our families run the biggest criminal organisation in town, they just got caught defrauding elderly couples out of £100,000. So some do follow a criminal lifestyle. There is even a famous case of travellers from Craigavon selling fake diesel generators to rural communities in Sweden. This is true: they sold them generators with nothing inside and made hundreds of thousands of pounds. Or, some offer fake driver's tests, one can hire them to take tests for you for £500. For people who cannot read and write, they can still con you.

ER4 agreed and noted that:
Travellers do have a reputation in Northern Ireland for being smugglers and shrewd con artists. When they cannot pay their bills, they will often beg for money, siphon petrol from cars, of just find plugs at shops or open spaces and plug into them, "stealing" the electricity, or worse, connect straight to the distribution grid to steal without paying, or breaking into other shops or non-Traveller caravans for gas bottles. Although you or I may judge them for this, what else are they to do? If I was forced to decide between freezing my family to death or stealing, smuggling and scamming, I might do the same thing.

Perpetual peripheralization
Gypsies and Travellers reside at the perpetual social, economic, political, and spatial peripheralization of Irish society. Table 10 depicts intolerable patterns of discrimination and racism reported by our respondents. This includes recurring acts of discrimination, including getting kicked off buses, refused service at shops, or having people "pick fights" with them at restaurants and pubs or being "bullied" at school. Some acts of extreme violence and death were even reported, such as being attacked (and having bones broken or being burned with a fryer) at shops, getting hit by cars while they walk, having things thrown at them, or being run over while on bikes. Respondents spoke about always feeling "judged" or "violated and anxious," even to the point where they identify as "second class citizens." Petrol stations, restaurants, and hotels, rather than offering safe havens for the community are "unmerciful" and "segregate" against the community. "Wherever we go," noted one respondent, "we are not wanted." The Equality Commission of Northern Ireland [5] noted this trend of widespread hostility and discrimination as well, with a survey indicating that 40% of the public did not believe the nomadic way of life traditionally followed by Travellers was a valid one that should be protected by the government.
Coleman [34] provides confirmatory evidence for many of these claims, noting frequent cases in Northern Ireland of Travellers being prevented from moving into standard social housing allocated to them. There are cases of houses being graffitied with "no Gypsies allowed" and the insides of houses being "wrecked, destroyed to keep them out". Some Traveller parents report being afraid to let their children outdoors, leading to fear and depression. Travellers speak about feelings of hatred and negativity being frequently and prominently directed towards them in community meetings. Coleman [34] lastly warns that these incidences are likely to be underreported, given many Travellers fear reporting acts of intimidation or harassment due to fear of repercussion.
These patterns of exclusion and discrimination are deeply rooted in a continuous push to evict them from Eastern Europe and out of Roman settlements, across Europe and eventually to the United Kingdom. Ryser [ [37]: ix] warns that "despite protections enshrined in European Union law, most European states have still excluded them from society, cut their benefits, restricted their access to affordable or appropriate housing." Yet in the United Kingdom, the group is also "one of the most excluded" minority communities [ [13]: 63]. Patterns amount to structural or "institutional racism," which is defined as "the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racial stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people" [38].
Tellingly, not one of our more than 40 Gypsy and Traveller respondents reported adopting, using, owning, or wanting to own a lowcarbon source of energy (such as a solar panel, electric boiler, battery, or heat pump) or a low-carbon source of mobility (such as an electric vehicle or e-bike). The group is essentially composed entirely of nonadopters, which serves to lock them into the very fossil fuelled and expensive energy and mobility systems contributing to their poverty and peripheralization. More strikingly, not one in the community even had any awareness about these options or how they might help address some of the problems the community faces. In fact, within our sample of respondents, almost none had any savings or credit, and many reported being formerly homeless, lacking in schooling, and not being able to read. ER3 confirmed this, noting that: 99% of children in the Gypsy and Traveller community are out of school by the time they are 13. This trend has been made even worse by the Covid pandemic. The Education Authority reports that this past year has been the worst year ever for keeping Traveller children in school.
The lack of skills such as education and literacy certainly prevent them from knowing about alternatives such as renewable energy or lowcarbon mobility.
The social (and educational) peripheralization of Gypsies and Travellers does generate strong feelings of resentment and despair within the community. ER1 explained a "paradox" in terms of Gypsies not getting The price of the electric is rocket high, specially for old people, they freeze to death in the winter. Table 9 Gypsy and Traveller mechanisms for coping with extreme energy and transport poverty. Source: Authors.

Respondent
Confirmatory statement

GRR3
When we cannot afford petrol, we collect scrap cars and get petrol in drums, or siphon it off from cars in the street.

GRR7
When our heat ran out, we stayed with friends, they couldn't take us in, 6 of us. Got a loan for the money, had to pay it back.

GRR9
Sometimes, when we can't afford electricity or petrol, we need to get loans to pay them, pay back following week. Like steps and stairs, we're always owing somebody something.

CAG1
We have to lend, borrow, and beg.

GR17
If I cannot pay, I just get some petrol from somewhere else to feed the generator.

CAG4
When I cannot pay for my energy bills, I beg for money or I ask my sisters for money. Indeed, in their own interviews with Travellers, Van Cleemput et al. [ [6]: 208] noted that one of the biggest perceived benefits to a Travelling lifestyle was proximity to extended family members in an otherwise hostile world-proximity was believed to be practical, to offer psychological support, and to provide physical security and protection.
Not all of our respondents, however, expressed support for the Travellers lifestyle and culture. GRR6 noted that: These divisions within the community and the uncertainty about the future of their culture may demonstrate that some members have even internalised the patterns of peripheralization affecting them.

Spatial justice and policy implications
Admittedly, previous policies have been partly to blame for the current predicaments facing Gypsies and Travellers. For instance, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission [39] identified thirteen concerns around Traveller accommodation, including the inadequacy of sites, and outright racial discrimination. It also warned that policy has often been as much a part of the problem as a solution to it, stating that "The inexorable impact of public policy has been to leave many Travellers with an unpalatable choice of retaining their culture while living in poor housing conditions or move into social housing." Approximately one year later, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission [40] reported that of the 45 recommendations made in the report, only three had been implemented effectively.
Nevertheless, policies can also be a lever to help address some of the injustices and inequities highlighted in this study. This final section of our discussion points the way towards achieving some degree of spatial justice for Gypsies and Travellers, with six sets of recommendations for future policy at the local and national level (see Table 11 for a summary). Most of these recommendations deal with housing and accommodation, given that "accommodation is central to tackling the deep-seated social exclusion experienced by this diverse group" and since "adequate provision is imperative in facilitating access to employment opportunities, formal education, healthcare and other key services" [ [5]: 7].
The first suggestion is for policy inclusion to broaden norms of procedural justice and community consultation to include Gypsies and Travellers in discussing the rules and regulations affecting them. CAG1 noted that: I feel that Travellers are always excluded from policy. Let us talk, listen to us. Nobody has ever come to ask us what we need, we are perpetually ignored, we are invisible, nobody cares about our problems and struggles.

GR14 added:
In Belfast, there are no support groups due to lack of funding, so even if the government would like to contact us there is no way of getting to speak to us in the first place because we do not have a voice or a representation through a support group.
Niner [18] notes that these feelings of exclusion are often justified given existing policies relating to land ownership and land use planning are inimical to accommodating Gypsies and Travellers and a nomadic way of life. Smith and Greenfields [13] add that most policy responses to improving employment opportunities for the community (such as welfare-to-work efforts) also fail because they only focus on the formal  job market and do not permit self-employed and iterant forms of activity. Coleman [34] adds that "Travellers and their representatives effectively have no voice at the Racial Equality Sub-Group and no mechanisation has been developed to ensure engagement or participation." A part of this solution also involves better data collection and monitoring. On paper, Gypsies and Travellers are legally recognised as an ethnic group (or racial group), they are therefore protected against discrimination (e.g race) within the Equality Act because of their ethnic origin. Moreover, Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 places a statutory duty on public authorities to assess any equality and good relations impacts, usually by conducting equality assessments (screenings and EQIAs), of policies being reviewed or developed. This includes assessing any adverse impacts and seeking opportunities to better promote equality of opportunity and good relations before the policy is implemented. The government is also required to monitor any negative impacts of policies adopted and publish this information as per equality scheme commitments. However, a lack of mandatory ethnic monitoring combined with minimal efforts to evidence both the need and the impact of public policy on Travellers is a greater problem. Without robust evidence, government departments cannot determine needs, demonstrate a clear understanding of where and why inequalities exist, target resources where they are needed most or inform good policy and practice. As Coleman [34] notes: "without ethnically disaggregated data, it is not possible to evidence racial inequalities and develop subsequent interventions." The second is for more sites (including serviced and un-serviced) where Gypsies and Travellers can legally reside. GRR7 articulated this clearly, noting: You want to help us? Build more sites, have more common ground for travellers.

GRR8 added:
It's simple, we need more sites. There is a lack of sites. What they need in Northern Ireland is more facilities for travellers. Multiple ones still on the roadside, want to be facilitated but cannot be, there is no room for them.
CA3 picked up on this theme as well: Stop discriminating against us within the planning system. We need more sites around the country. There are only two here in Craigavon, but no more. They would prefer us in houses rather than sites. If they made us more sites we would move into them, there are plenty of fields in Craigavon.
The recommendation for more sites is not entirely novel and has been made before (but to no avail). Johnson and Wilers [ [41]: 3] noted that "it is clear that the lack of provision of suitable sites for Gypsies and Travellers is the root cause of most, if not all, of the difficulties that they face." Niner [ [18]: 155] also concluded that "a network of transit sites and stopping places is needed to accommodate travelling." Even the medical literature suggests that travelling is often so detrimental to health and wellbeing only because of "the diminishing choice of safe stopping places" [ [6]:208]. The needs of Gypsies and Travellers are also mentioned in the Accommodation Needs Strategy as a priority strategic action item for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. However, ER1 termed this "pointless" in the past and cautioned that such policy pronouncements "rarely improve the quality or quantity of provision for Travellers." A third recommendation is better inspection and maintenance for the sites that currently exist. ER3 stated that: By law, the Housing Executive in Northern Ireland is supposed to visit all formal serviced sites once a week for an inspection, and also provide maintenance and repairs. However, in the almost ten years I have been doing this job, I have never seen them show up once.
This lack of proper maintenance was confirmed in multiple community interviews as well, at all different sites, with GRR3, GR13 and GR15 noting respectively at the Glen Road site: The housing authority used to come around years ago, but they've stopped. Even when we report cabins or homes as broken, or roofs caved in, they don't come. Even when we write to them about lack of fire hoses, they won't come out and fix it.
No one comes up and fixes any electric and heating for us. That is why our pipes are freezing up. They do some things. I think they do cosmetics sometimes, like a put up a fence, so no one sees us from the road. I put the pipes myself, I put the sewage system myself. Here it's everyman for itself, you have to look after yourself, nobody comes and see if you are dead or alive.
At the Craigavon Site, CAG2 said that: The Housing Executive owns this site, but they never come down, never inspect, do not come once a week as they are supposed to. The site could do some good maintenance. The paddock has rubbish in it, nobody will clean it. Look around, you can see rubbish and rats everywhere (see Fig. 7). Fig. 8 does show a significant need for repairs (and large amounts of rubbish) throughout the Craigavon site. This suggestion for improved maintenance has been previously endorsed by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission [39], especially for maintenance issues that impinge on health and safety.
A fourth recommendation is more radical, and it would involve transforming housing policy to better recognise the cultural needs of Gypsies and Travellers. ER3 explained it as follows: On paper, race relations legislation in Northern Ireland says you have to respect the right of a Traveller to want to live like one, and have a caravan. But the unwritten policy is to put them into homes and to get them to conform like the rest of us. The solution they should be implementing is culturally appropriate housing for Travellers, like a new and properly weatherised caravan, bought and maintained the same way the Housing Authority maintains social housing blocks and flats.
The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland [5] recommended something similar when noting that "detailed minimum standards" should be met for both permanent and temporary forms of accommodation, including caravans. This would mandate that the housing authority guarantee the provision of water, electricity, sewerage, lighting, and safety at all standing/parking zones for the community. ER1 mentioned that "minimum standards to protect Gypsies and Travellers do exist, e.g. the Model Licence Conditions 2019 for Caravan Sites from the Infrastructure Consultation and the Design Guide for Travellers' sites in Northern Ireland from the Department for Communities, but many sites just operate without a license and older sites do not meet the minimum standards." Efforts could even go beyond minimum standards to include efforts to subsidize the high rates or tariffs that Gypsies and Travellers pay for electricity and heat, or petrol; conversely, they could be given very steep discounts or free travel vouchers or passes for things like buses, public transport, rail, or even taxis, which would enable them to meet their mobility needs without serving as a financial burden for households.
A fifth recommendation was to improve education and literacy within the community. This could include not only efforts to keep Traveller children in school but attempts to put teachers into Travelling sites (so Travellers wouldn't be forced to conform or face harassment and bullying). ER5 noted that such an education could include: Teaching them about poverty and how to escape it, especially energy poverty and what they can do to adopt new technologies to solve it. ER1 commented on the complex reasons behind poor educational outcomes in the Gypsy and Traveller community, stating that: In relation to education, the vast majority of children leave formal education by the time they are 13 years old citing a range of reasons, including bullying, not wishing to mix the sexes in schools and importantly, the belief that formal education has no bearing on their future lives and work (boys will generally be expected to enter the same economic activities as the other male members of their households and girls generally marry young, have large families and rarely work outside the home) so I am often told a GCSE in French is of no benefit to Travellers! However, the problem is much more complex and does require buyin from Travellers as well as a reform of education policies to reflect the community needs as well as the enforcing the right to education. ER1 concluded that "existing policies have not been fully implemented" and even schools that receive additional payments to support Travellers (such as £1000 per year for Traveller) are not well accounted for or connected to actual improvements in educational outcomes. Nevertheless, Goward et al. [[36]:323] noted medical benefits to improved education, concluding that "education, information and training are required to reduce discrimination and increase existing support to meet the mental health needs of Gypsies and Travellers." Education and training need not be limited to Travellers alone; cultural sensitivity training among council members and police officers would also address some of the patterns of discrimination and peripheralization mentioned above.
The sixth and final recommendation was to better protect the human rights of Gypsies and Travellers. CAG2 said this succinctly: We have our human rights, but they're often shat on. We demand our rights be protected like any other group.
CA3 echoed this statement, declaring that: I just want everyone to treat us as equal, speak to us the same way speak to others.
Niner [18] notes that, unlike most other minority groups, there are no explicit policies in the United Kingdom protecting them, nor is there a nationally comprehensive policy for accommodation. ER1 mentioned how civil rights and human rights groups in Northern Ireland have called for a government led-cross departmental Travellers Strategy, emphasizing that other devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales have them, as does the Republic of Ireland.

Conclusion
Gypsies and Travellers constitute one of the most vulnerable minority groups in modern society. Our study has shown, through extensive field research, how housing, energy and transport needs are central to their lifestyle but also a primary source of their most significant social struggles and cultural problems. Many Gypsies and Travellers spend up to half of their monthly income on energy or mobility services but also expose themselves to inadequate housing and heating conditions, with deleterious effects on health and wellbeing. They have exceptionally high awareness about some things like the cost of electricity (almost always on prepaid tariffs) or petrol, but no awareness about energy efficiency tools or options for renewable energy. Some cope with energy and transport poverty by choosing energy or mobility services over food and healthcare; others cope by stealing, begging, borrowing, or hustling for petrol or electricity. Gypsies and Travellers face chronic and systematic exclusion from policy and significant patterns of racism, hostility, bullying, physical violence, and discrimination, trends that perpetually push them to the periphery of modern society.
The drivers and causes of these patterns are complex but interlinked. Extreme energy and transport poverty reduce the earning capacity and resilience of Gypsies and Travellers, making them more susceptible to peripheralization and patterns of spatial injustice. Peripheralization contributes towards locking in patterns of poverty and shaping coping strategies; it also blunts the community's ability to recognise any degree of spatial justice. Achieving spatial justice would only occur with comprehensive reforms and policy changes that would begin to address poverty and reduce peripheralization. These could begin with better enforcement of the Equality Act of 2010 in the United Kingdom and the Northern Ireland Act of 1998 in Northern Ireland.
The perpetual peripheralization of Gypsies and Travellers reminds us, uncomfortably, that even affluent and industrialised societies (such as the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland) that seek to recognise poverty and racial equality in their national legislation can still marginalise very specific minorities in their approaches. Moreover, such energy and transport issues likely affect other members of the Gypsies and Travellers diaspora, from the Roma in Eastern Europe to those within the favelas in Brazil and the servant caste in India. The future vitality and even cultural existence of Gypsies and Travellers is uncertain, with our respondents mentioning daily struggles to subsist, acts of abuse and violence against them, and a confluence of policy pressures all seeking to exclude them from society further. Although their future is uncertain, we felt the earnest words of CAG2 approximated the community's thinking on the topic, capturing both their exposure to recurring vulnerability and their steadfast resilience: "we may be slowly dying, but they have been trying to kill us off for centuries, and we're not dead yet!"