 Okay. Although Roma are the largest ethnic minority in Europe, they still experience high level of racism and have to deal with many societal issues. Additionally, Roma are being represented in a very stereotypical way in the media and art world. The Roma theater has more than a century long past with active professional theater groups in many European countries, but unfortunately they are partly known. The Roma Heroes Theater Festival initiated by the Independent Theater Hungary is the only international Roma theater encounter in the world which have been organized in every year since 2017. Some of the present artists and their work are introduced in our series. And today my guest is Michael Collins, the performer and author of the play called, is it a cultural thing or is it? Hi Michael, how are you? Yes. Hello, how are you keeping? Good, good. So, Mike, first question. Yeah. Sorry, what was the first question? Hey, I didn't say it. I thought you want to say something first, but then okay. So my question. No, no, no. Okay, my first question. Could you please summarize very briefly what the play is about, what inspired you when you were writing it and also how is it to perform it for you? Yeah, well, I was born in the mid 60s. And before that, travelers were nomadic people and used to travel around the countryside. There were 10 Smiths, horse dealers, and seasonal workers. And then in the mid 60s, the social welfare came in, the tinware died out and people stopped buying cars and getting rid of the horses and wagons and buying trailers and moving to Dublin. And then the social welfare came in. And in order to get the social welfare, you have to have a permanent address. In order to have a permanent address, they forced all the travelers to move into big towns and cities. The play is actually about the history of travelers from the 1960s up to date through the eyes of a child. So I start off as another character. And then I go into the child character, telling the story to my youngest son. Sounds interesting. Do you have a favorite part or a very challenging part of the play? There's a couple of very strong scenes in it. One is trying to get into school. There was a big boy school and a girl school. And because they had their quota of travelers, they wouldn't allow us into the boy school. So we have to go to the girl school. But when I say it was a girl school, you had the national girl school and then on the back of that school, there was a wooden horse for travelers only. So you had maybe 40 odd travelers, young boys and girls, all different ages, and the majority of them came out not being able to read or write. So that was one of the first stories I remember as a child. And then there was other stories around the discrimination when I came to trying to play sports with the local settled people. If you won a trophy and they had it in a hall or in a pub upstairs, they wouldn't allow the travelers in. They would give the travelers their trophies outside of the door. So there's a very strong scene. Like, you want me to take your trophies outside, outside, not being allowed into the boy school, outside, your dirty gypsy nacre bastards outside. My poor mother has to drink a cup of tea outside in the rain. And now you, sir, want me to take trophies outside. And then it just goes silenced and the light goes down. There are scenes like that in it, but it tells the story of the child grown up until the child becomes aware of who he is and becomes politicized about who he is and about the travel community and trying to challenge the institutions and people's attitudes towards him and his family and his extended family. You mentioned discrimination, I would, I would be really interested. How is the situation for Roma travelers, gypsies, or the Roma community and people in there? Like, what are the societal issues they are facing? Or is there something that you know, like, do you see a development in these regards? There are more travelers involved now in, in standing up. There's more activists out there to stand up for Traverse rights and Traverse issues. There's more travel women involved in women's issues and travel women's issues. But the basic discrimination racism still happens on a daily basis. It's like walking through a shop, you would be followed and trying to get a travel appropriate accommodation, education, employment, like there's an awful lot of young men and women who be, maybe some of them would be employed in the building trade or in shopping centers and they could not say that they were members of the traveling community because if they did, they would lose their job, they'd be afraid to actually say who they are. So to keep all that inside them, our status is not very good for any young people because one of our biggest problems now in our society is the suicide rate in the traveling community. Even though we're in around 35, 4000 in a whole, which is less than 1% of the population, the suicide rate is seven times higher in the traveling community than it is in the settled community. So even though you can't pinpoint the reasons why people commit suicide or die by suicide, discrimination would be clearly one of those reasons. In our society. So on a daily basis, it's still out there very much so, but it's done a lot different than it used to be years ago. Years ago, they were very upfront and very blatant, they would say, we don't serve your kind here. No travelers allowed, but these days it's no regulars, you know, you're not a regular. So they kind of use different language, but it's still quite prominent out in the community. And an example would be just less than maybe three weeks ago. There was a traveler home, a house allocated for a travel family. And the county council spent over 250,000 buying this house and doing it up. And when the local residents found out that was for a trap the traveling family, they burnt it to the ground. So that's what travelers have to face on a daily basis. It's horrible. Just, yeah, going coming back a bit to art and the creation of art. I would ask you what do you think about. Yes, because you know these are very hard topics and of course it's happening unfortunately everywhere with Roma discrimination. Yes. But let's come back to art and the creation of art. What do you think about the representation of Roma in art? And also, yeah, go for it. Yeah, I would say the thing even though I'm kind of explaining this play that I wrote a cultural thing it's actually one of the first plays of money I've wrote about five or six. Some of them are one man shows some of them are two handers. And even though I'm explaining that because of the questions you're asking me, it's actually very, very funny show. It's, it's fully humor. It's full of drama. It's full of music. And it's also, there's also issues in that people would say, yeah, even though the child is being fully on the stage to Irish he kind of wakes up and go maybe I shouldn't be laughing at that. So it is a very entertaining piece of work. And people who will look at it will see that for what it is. And I suppose it's, to me, the arts is a great platform. Let it be true drama, comedy, music, poetry, expression. You can do it in a way where you're not really baiting people over the head, the issues about traverse, and the way traverse get treated or the way that Roman a gypsies out through Europe get treated. You're doing it in a way that it's this comedy and it's singing and it's entertainment, but it's also a very strong message. So the platform is one of the most expressive ways and I've been doing it for the last 30 years. So it's a very strong platform. I would also ask you, what is your art creed? What are the principles that you follow when you are creating art or when you are performing? Well, one of the things that the reason why I write the way I write is to give people an insight into our community, but also give traverse themselves and insight into their own community. Because young travelers now, some of them wouldn't know as much about the travel community or the history of travelers or what travelers do actually contribute to society. And it's one way of expressing and writing in a certain way that people would enjoy the story, but also learn from the experience of the traveling community and seeing what it's like to be living as a member of the traveling community. And then that creates, you know, questions and people want to know what's going on and stuff like that. And what and who inspired or motivated you during your life and also in your career? Sorry, could you repeat? Yeah, of course. So what and who inspired you or motivated you during your life and also in your career? There would be an awful lot of people down through the years who would inspire me in different ways. I suppose that one of the people who would have inspired me would be traditional traveler storytellers because of the people who carried the stories around and they would tell stories. Some of the stories would be very funny, some would be very sad, but it was just around the whole idea of entertaining people and telling stories. So we had some members, all traditional members of the travel community. And then I had, I would have had an awful lot of professional actors in my life, like settle actors who would have been who I would have worked with. I mean, I'd done 12 years on a very high profile Irish television program, which was about rural Ireland and all those actors would have been huge names at the time. And they would have inspired me in certain ways. But I always trying to look to writers who rise about different communities like just said if there was a story about the Nigerian African group in Ireland, the Gypsy group in Ireland, or any kind of stories that were involved, said the Aborigines or the Native American Indians, I get inspired by all that type of stuff. So there would be a number of different people. Thank you. And what do you think about Roma theater in general? Do you think that Roma Gypsy travelers, do they need their own, is it necessary to have their own or our own institutions? Very much so. The very first time I heard about it in 2017. I was very, I was really excited about the idea. And it was such, it was such an inspiration for me as a Traveller actor and writer to me, other young Gypsy Roma and Traveller English Travellers, who are also in the entertainment business, and to do something like that and then share it with the rest of the world was very inspirational. And I think that it's an opportunity for a group of people to come together and get funding to encourage other young writers and actors who want to be writers and actors and entertainers. And I think there's many different platforms, as I said earlier on, like just poetry, singing, music and theater. So we need that. We need our own platform in order to tell our stories and get them out there for other people to listen to. Thank you. I would also ask, what's your future plan or goals now in your life and in your career? Well, I suppose the first thing to do is try and get back on stage with this COVID-19, as of, as it's all sitting at home. I suppose ambition is to get back on stage and to do the shows and to meet the audiences again. I'm releasing a film script, which is about a young Traveller woman who moves from Ireland to England and her life changes and that she has to come home to face her family because of a tragedy that happened in Ireland. So that's the main project I'm working on the moment. But I suppose my main ambition is to get back on stage and to entertain people and to keep telling the stories. Thank you. Is there anything else that you would add? I think those are my questions so far for you. I suppose, do you have anything I would like to say about young Gypsies and Travellers that there is an opportunity to get into the arts, if you want to get into the arts. Don't let little things stop you by not getting funding because there's always somebody out there who wants to hear your story. So get writing, get acting, get motivated, get back on stage. Thank you. Thank you also. Thank you very much for the conversation. You're more welcome. And now you can see the performance called is it a cultural thing or is it performed and written by Michael Collins. Enjoy the show. Thank you.