We asked Emma to reflect on her experiences of writing to date and how she had benefitted from participating in Creative Gateways which was supported by Kilkenny’s Creative Communities programme.

From a young age people always saw me either reading or writing, I loved making up stories about mystery and I would attempt to write stories about things I found funny. I never shared them with anyone because writing those stories provided me with a distraction while I attended hospitals when I was younger.

When I got to my Leaving Cert year and the conversations about what people wanted to study in college, I had no clue about what I wanted to do because I had no experience with college but I knew I was alright with writing and wanted to do something along the lines of that. With a little help from my SNA (Special Needs Assistant) I found Journalism and when I read about it I felt like it was what I was meant to do in life.

The first “professional” writing piece I did was a review of Assistive Technology for Enable Ireland in 2020. Looking back, it wasn’t the best thing I wrote but it taught me a little and because the people enjoyed reading it, it gave me confidence to write even more. After this I started college and joined the first and only Irish Traveller college society (Mincéirs Whiden). I became the PRO for them and started writing a few stories, I enjoyed doing that for a while because it gave me a couple connections into the media world. It wasn’t until I left that and decided I wanted to write a story that separated me from the society that I got a real taste of journalism. I wrote a story about my Nana (Kathleen Ward) and her life and what it was like for her as an Irish Traveller woman in the 1950’s. It was published in two papers and the pride I felt when I saw it printed in the Galway Advertiser newspaper is something I will always remember.

This motivated me to keep writing so I did, but I felt I wasn’t progressing as much as I would have liked so I started doing a little bit on social media talking about my goals and why I wanted to be a content creator. Then Martin Beanz Warde got in touch with me and asked if I would be interested in a project he was doing with Naoise Nunn, the project aimed at getting Irish Travellers into events and I decided to join because for me it would help my activism and journalistic ambitions. Not long after that I was matched up with my now mentor Patrick Freyne and I have genuinely enjoyed my mentorship, he has taught me so much about the journalistic world that I wouldn’t have been able to learn about without this opportunity.

With his guidance, I got my first national story published; it was about getting a power wheelchair and what I wish I had known beforehand. That was a big achievement for me because I had worked so hard in writing that story and I proved to myself that even though I had no proper connections into the media world, I could get a story published in the Irish Times.

Now a couple months later I am working on other stories, and I hope they will be published. Part of this project with Martin and Naoise is getting to speak at events and that’s still mind boggling to me (because who would want to listen to me) but I am very grateful for it.

In June I went to my first ever writers’ festival where I spoke with Martin and Naoise about my journey into media and activism and I really enjoyed it. What I enjoyed the most was that people showed up to listen to Martin and I talk within any of the presumptions that Irish Travellers get, they just listened to two people talk about their own journeys without any judgement.

I have many more plans because I want to make a name for myself in both the Irish media world and in the human rights world. I also want to give people who deserve to have their voice heard a platform to do so, and I plan to do that within my journalism career.

Thank you for reading

Emma Ward