He has been a guest of President Michael D Higgins, introduced to King Charles and just last week he was in Leinster House to tell an Oireachtas committee of his experiences.
But 22-year-old Ian McDonagh still gets a knot in his stomach every time he socializes with friends as he dreads the embarrassment of being turned away from pubs and late-night venues.
The Galway native was just 12 when he embraced politics, lobbying successfully on issues such as the need for speed ramps and action on illegal dumping in his neighbourhood.
The only reason he is not running in next month’s local elections is that just four weeks ago he and his wife, Ciara, became parents when Martin Joe was born. But he is adamant that in time he will contest not only local and general elections but he will also run for the Áras.
The first member of the Traveler community to become a funeral director and embalmer, McDonagh is hoping other Travelers and members of ethnic minorities will follow him into an industry which he believes is undergoing a big shake-up.
“I think we are moving away from the local auctioneer or the local republican being the local funeral director. There is new blood coming into the industry and I think it is a welcome because the newer generation is educating themselves in the field of embalming and funeral directing,” he says.
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His own interest was sparked when he worked in a nursing home during the Covid pandemic and, aged 18, was helping to lay out the deceased, often people who he had got to know well as a healthcare assistant.
“I didn’t mind. I took them on their last journey,” he says.
He enrolled on an embalming course at the Co Sligo-based Irish College of Funeral Directing and Embalming, founded by David McGowan, the undertaker who in 2016 made international headlines when he transported a Boeing 767 to a glamping site in Enniscrone.
McDonagh, who is also doing a funeral directing course with the Irish Funeral Directors Association, is proud that in 2020 he got his Leaving Cert. I have implored the Oireachtas Committee on Key Issues affecting Travelers to examine why only 13 per cent of Traveler children complete second-level education, compared with 92 per cent among the general population, and why only 1 per cent go on to college.
He believes discrimination is a factor, with many parents slow to encourage their children to persevere at school because they are so aware of the high suicide rates.
“Suicide is seven times higher in my community than in the general population,” he says.
Ian McDonagh: ‘Within the Traveler community, when death occurs within a family, we gather like bees to a beehive.’ Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy
“We are all painted with the same brush. Even though I am educated and I am in college and I work and I pay my taxes, because I am a member of the Traveling community I am judged for someone else’s actions. Somebody could do something in a different county [someone] that I may not know and I am still held accountable for their actions because the view is ‘they are all the same’.”
McDonagh, who has set up his own company, Grá Funeral Care, is all too aware of the controversy when it comes to the size of some Traveler headstones and monuments, perceived as “monstrosities” by some in the settled community.
“Within our community death is an event but a sad event. We have glamorous weddings and we don’t treat death any differently. “We have glamorous funerals,” he says. “Within the Traveler community, when death occurs within a family, we gather like bees to a beehive.”
Given the suicide rates among Travelers and the shorter lifespan for both men and women, he says people should be cautious about criticizing those who are grieving.
“The last thing people need when news breaks that their loved one has passed – whether by natural death or by suicide – is the racist comments that come with it from the public,” he says. “When we suffer a loss and it is put on Facebook, the comments under it are a disgrace from people who know nothing about the person. “Some people think it is okay to sit behind a keyboard and type what they want, but that one comment could make another person commit suicide.”
I might be just finished a funeral and pop into a shop in my full suit and you would see staff members following you around. I never robbed in my life. Until you question it, it will keep happening
His view is that if a person erects a big headstone, as long as it is not invading another family’s space, it should be permitted.
“The way I look at it, people build small houses and other people build big houses and it is the same with headstones,” he says.
Within the Traveling community, the entire community rallies when there is a death, he says. “No one person is left with the bill. The bill is split among the family. These people start planning the minute they lay their loved one on the ground. “They have a year to save for this headstone.”
He believes the figures quoted when people question how the monuments are paid for are “massively exaggerated”, with estimates such as €100,000 being common.
“People say that but they actually don’t know how much they cost,” he says.
The young funeral director accepts that there may be competition when it comes to the size of headstones. “But there is competition in all walks of life,” he says.
[ ‘Careless racism’ about Travellers in Ireland needs to be confronted, rights chief says ]
McDonagh has been fortunate enough to have encountered inspiring teachers along the way who made him believe he could achieve anything. He cites Galway Independent councilor Colette Connolly, sister of the TD Catherine Connolly; and Ruth Sheridan, who was at Merlin College when as a student there he became the first Traveler to enter and win a prize at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition.
President Higgins wrote to him and his new wife congratulating them on their wedding last year – and he received a letter from Buckingham Palace after meeting Charles and Camilla, but in his day-to-day life McDonagh is always on the alert for discrimination.
“I see it every day. I might be just finished a funeral and pop into a shop in my full suit and you would see staff members following you around,” he says. “I never robbed in my life. Until you question it, it will keep happening.”
He has encountered bouncers on nights out with settled friends or workmates who single him out and won’t allow him in.
“I would have a pain in my stomach going to the door, thinking I would be refused. They won’t say it is because you are a Traveler because they are smart and they know the law,” he says. “I won’t cause a scene. “I will ask the question and if they don’t answer, I will walk away.”
