Traveller properties left secured on the edge of Rathkeale (Image: Google)
With its high street dotted with colourful buildings, shops and a few pubs as well as a nearby church, Rathkeale, at first glance, looks like any country town you might find in the UK or Ireland.
But, upon a closer inspection of the town, which lies 18 miles southwest of Limerick, visitors may soon notice that something is missing.
That being hundreds of the around 1,500 inhabitants of the town, who at any given time of the year, are likely to be in the UK, Europe or even further-flung corners of the globe.
Situated on the River Deel in the west of County Limerick, Rathkeale, or Ráth Caola in Irish which means the “Fort of Caoli”, dates back to at least 1289 and has a strong history with members of the Irish traveller community, many of whom see it as their “spiritual home.”
In years gone by, it was a major market town for the surrounding area, holding up to seven fairs a year, which is one of the reasons why travelling families were attracted to the area hundreds of years ago.
Some settled and over several decades the size of the traveller community grew, buying up homes and businesses as they went.
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Rathkeale’s pretty high street (Image: Google)
By 1995, it was estimated the split between settled residents and those from the traveller community was 50/50, with a similar split for property ownership across the town.
More recent estimates suggest a traveller population of around 25 percent, but it is difficult to judge, as so many of the property owners are not there for much of the year, leaving many streets with shuttered or boarded-up homes, often as symbols of wealth.
In some cases officials believe some of the house purchaes have been used for the laundering of illicit cash. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has carried out a number of raids on some of the town’s properties since 2015.
In 2021 Rathkeale councillor Stephen Keary called on the CAB to investigate further saying: “Huge expenditure has taken place in the town in the last 12 months in properties that would have a normal value of maybe €100,000 making up to €400,000.”
He also said many of the properties had never been registered with the Land Registry after being sold up to 15 years ago, raisng tax issues.
There are also business premises, often purchased by travellers, that sit empty and even ghost estates of housing developments, either completed and empty, or unfinished.
The town’s population roughly doubles in the run-up to Christmas when hundreds of travelling families return to the empty properties, to show off their spoils of the year, including new sports cars.
Ornate traveller graves in St Joseph’s Cemetery Rathkeale (Image: Google)
In 2011 a local newspaper connected homes in Rathkeale to families fighting eviction from Dale Farm (Image: Google)
Most of the travellers are from a large family made up of around 12 to 15 surnames, including Sheridan, Flynn, O’Brien, McCarthy, Qulligan, Heggarty, Gammel and Culligan, to name some of them.
Some members who originate from Rathkeale were responsible for the unauthorised expansion of the Dale Farm traveller sites at Crays Hill, near Basildon, Essex, and Smithy Fen, at Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, from 2000.
Many bought cheap green belt land to develop in the UK after the economy in Ireland was affected by taking the Euro currency in 1999.
The number of boarded homes in the town is surprising (Image: Google)
At both sites, residents complained of large deliveries by HGVs of non-fire retardant three-piece suits, that, in some cases, were found to be stuffed with cigarettes.
The illegal section of the Dale Farm site was famously cleared of occupants in a huge eviction operation that gained headlines across the world in October 2011.
By this time, some members of the community had branched into the illegal rhino horn trade, either by obtaining items made from the material to sell to China, or by organising burglaries of museums across Europe and the UK.
Richard Sheridan, 55, the main spokesman for the Dale Farm community, had two major tobacco smuggling convictions when he took on the role.
After the eviction, in April 2016, he was jailed for five and a half years for his role with several other men in arranging museum burglaries across the UK that netted rhino horns and other artefacts worth £57 million.
In October 2019 he was jailed for 14 months in the USA after he admitted to smuggling rhino horn products out of the country after being extradited.
The criminal element among the gang has been dubbed the Rathkeale Rovers, with many of their properties under the spotlight from the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau over the years.
Europol announced a major investigation dubbed Operation Oakleaf, which targeted the organised crime groups with links to the Rathkeale, who were active across Europe, from 2010.
It is not unknown for rival smaller clans within the community to engage in feuds with each other.
In March this year, the Sunday World reported that Gardai suspected an arson at a home was linked to a feud between rival factions who had been operating in the UK and Germany.
The same newspaper reported: “In December 2020 there was a three-way fight for dominance between criminal gangs leading to serious violence in the town.
“A 4×4 was used to ram at least six other SUVs and 4x4s in a shocking incident that saw armed gardaí flood the Co Limerick town.
Richard Sheridan (left) with the late Corin Redgrave and sister Vanessa (Image: Grattan Puxon)
“It came just hours after a wild brawl between rivals at a venue in the area, according to Sunday World sources at the time.”
Last December, Limerick City and County Council provided €200,000 in funding for an extra triage health clinic in the town to cater for the expected influx of traveller families.
Four extra gardaí officers were also deployed to the town to keep the peace over the festive period.
The Limerick Post reported that over Christmas 2022 that a garda car was rammed and weapons were recovered by officers at a local property, while a mobile home was broken up by men wearing balaclavas and armed with slash hooks, as part of another suspected feud.
Fine Gael councillor Adam Teskey said at the time: “We need to make sure calm is maintained this year – but the town is open for business and we have a thriving community and people should not feel afraid to come in and do their day to day business, we are a very welcoming community.”
John Sheridan, aged in his 50s, is a traveller from the community, who spends much of the year across Europe trading cars and antiques but returns to Rathkeale for short periods.
A woman walks past empty traveller homes in Ballywilliam, Rathkeale (Image: Google)
He said: “I love waking up in one place for a few days and then moving on. I couldn’t live like a gorja (traveller name for settled people) in the same house all the time.
“Some of the older people don’t leave Rathkeale, but most of us keep travelling – it’s in our blood. Not everyone is rich, like they put on the newspaper, but there are a few who know how to make a few quid and like to show it off.
“They might avoid a bit of tax just like anyone else, but most of it is legitimate business. Like all communities we have a few bad apples who give us a bad name and that is what you read about, but Rathkeale is a beautiful place and we get on with everyone.”
A man, 72, from the Rathkeale settled community, who would not be named, said: “I know some of the settled travellers in Rathkeale and they are lovely people, but it is the one’s that buy up the property and don’t live here that cause the problems.
“When they come back there are so many and they don’t care because they don’t really live here, so it is just party time.”
“When they go it’s half empty and they have sucked the life out of the town. Most of the new property sales now are to the traveller community, so one day, long after I’m gone, I think this will be close to 100 percent a traveller town.”
