This article is from page 15 of the 2012-04-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
THE majority of Clare’s 847 travellers are living in permanent housing units, while the number of people who describe themselves as Travellers has risen.
According to the 2011 census the travelling community makes up 7.3 of every 1,000 people in the Clare population, a figure that is two per thousand higher than the national average.
In fact the number of travellers now living in Clare has increased by 187 since the last census in 2006 when 660 Clare people registered as members of the travelling community.
In 2006 travellers made up 5.9 per thousand of the Clare population.
According to the 2011 census, as many as 794 members of the travelling community in Clare are resident in permanent homes.
A further 23 are living in caravans or in temporary housing units while a further 30 did not state the type of accommodation they lived in.
There are more women than men from the community registered as living in Clare, with 438 traveller women registered as living in the county and 317 men.
The number of people enumerated as Irish Travellers in Census 2011 increased by 32 per cent from 22,435 to 29, 573, with all counties apart from Limerick and
Waterford showing increases greater than the increase in the general population.
There were 97.8 males for every 100 females within the Irish Traveller population. The equivalent sex ratio for the general population was 98.1.
Irish Traveller numbers increased in every county with the exception of Waterford where the numbers declined by over 7 per cent.
Only 12 per cent of Irish Travellers nationally lived in caravans and mobile homes in 2011. This was a big fall from 2006 when one in four Irish Travellers lived in temporary accommodation.
Almost 84 per cent of the Traveller population live in permanent housing.