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Dr Sindy Joyce, the first Traveller woman to obtain a PHD and become a lecturer in the University of Limerick, pictured above with her partner David Cunningham. Picture: Sean Curtin/True Media. Dr Sindy Joyce, the first Traveller woman to obtain a PHD and become a lecturer in the University of Limerick, pictured above with her partner David Cunningham. Picture: Sean Curtin/True Media.

Education

Dr Sindy Joyce becomes the first Traveller woman to become a lecturer in an Irish University

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Dr Sindy Joyce, the first Traveller woman to obtain a PHD and become a lecturer in the University of Limerick, pictured above with her partner David Cunningham. Picture: Sean Curtin/True Media.

Sindy Joyce Graduated with a PhD this January from the University of Limerick

By I Love Limerick correspondent Caoimhe Siochru

Dr Sindy Joyce is a human rights activist, and doctoral graduate of the department of sociology at University of Limerick. Picture: Sean Curtin/True Media.
Dr Sindy Joyce is a human rights activist, and doctoral graduate of the department of sociology at University of Limerick. Picture: Sean Curtin/True Media.

County Limerick woman, Sindy Joyce, graduated with a PHD from the University of Limerick in January. She is the first woman from the travelling community who has obtained a doctorate in an Irish University. She is making history by becoming the first lecturer in an Irish university from the Travelling community.


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Dr Sindy Joyce is a human rights activist, and doctoral graduate of the department of sociology at University of Limerick. She was one of 67 graduates’ students conferred with a PhD from University of Limerick in January 2022 and her doctoral thesis was funded by the Irish Research Council. It studied the interaction of young travellers with the settled community and the Gardaí in Galway city. She chose Galway due to its large mixed ethnic population. Dr Sindy Joyce interviewed a group of 40 young Travellers from Galway city about their experiences with the settled community. Those interviewed expressed how they felt they were treated negatively by the settled community and the Gardaí in Galway city due to their Traveller ethnicity.

She observed high levels of racism and discrimination in the way the Gardaí in Galway city treated young Travellers, which resulted in the young Travellers she worked with going to lengths to try avoiding conflict with the Gardaí and those in the settled community.

University of Limerick appointed Dr Joyce into their lecturing staff as their newest Sociology lecture in March 2022, making her the first member of the Travelling community to work as a lecturer in an Irish university. University of Limerick have launched a plan to become the first Irish institute to offer a Traveller Studies research and teaching position.

In 2014 Dr Joyce received a Traveller Pride Award for Education. On April 4, 2019, she was appointed to the Michael D Higgins Council of State. Congrats to Dr Joyce on all her amazing achievements. She is a credit to Limerick.

For more stories on Education, go HERE 

For more information on Dr Sindy Joyce go HERE

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