By the way Richard - throughout the time we worked with Travellers there was no opposition to literacy - students supporting them actually hired old buses and set up schools which were well attended until the Councils closed them down.
Travellers, certainly over here, have now set up their own literacy, art and education programmes, often unfunded.
Travellers who have nowhere permanent to stop are at an immediate disadvantage as far as general education is concerned and the persecutiuon that goes on in schools, both from pupils and in some sad cases, by teachers, is considerable.
As far as literacy being a disadvantage - my experiences in the building trade have shown literacy never to have been a issue -ever - office work maybe, but not the type of work Travellers tend to take up.
Employers are reluctant to take on people who can't provide an address, not because they can't read and write.
Jim Carroll