IT’S 8am, and mum-of-seven Margaret Cash leaves the B&B she’s living in ahead of the two-hour round journey she makes every day to drop her four oldest kids at school.
The 28-year-old traveller – who hit headlines last year when she shared pictures of her children sleeping in a police station after she was made homeless – is living in emergency housing and has to take three separate buses to get her kids to school every day.
Then she has to do the entire arduous journey again in the afternoon to pick them up.
The single mum – who was forced to leave her rented flat two years ago after it was repossessed and has been living in emergency housing in Dublin ever since – appears in the next episode of The Gypsies Next Door, airing this Thursday at 9pm on Channel 5.
“It takes almost two hours and three different buses in the morning and three different buses back,” she says.
“People just say, ‘just change school’, but why should I put my children out of somewhere where they’re happy and they’re accepted there. You begin to think, why is this happening to me?”
Margaret is now campaigning for better rights for homeless people after she became the subject of online abuse – with trolls accusing her of using her children in order to get a home when she posted viral pictures of them sleeping on plastic chairs last year.
Margaret didn’t help her case when she had to appear in court in October 2018 for shoplifting over 300 Euros worth of clothes from Penneys in Dublin.
She avoided jail but was put on probation for a year, telling the Irish Sun: “The clothes were for the kids. I feel like I am being targeted. It is letting the Government off the hook.”
In the show, we see Margaret speaking at a protest in the Irish capital about the desperation of homelessness.
At one point, she is filmed receiving a phone call from the council about news of a possible house but, just a few weeks later, her hopes are dashed as the offer of housing fails to materialise – the council is unable to guarantee accommodation for a family as big as hers.
Her devastation is apparent, but she remains hopeful and speaks on the show about dreaming of living in a house where her “children can go out and play with children in the road, and I can put on their pot of dinner and wash their clothes in a washing machine – stupid little things that mean nothing but mean everything when you haven’t got it”.
The programme moves on to traveller Tony, the ex-husband of glamour model Danielle Mason –who is opening a tanning salon with his millionaire pal and neighbour, Colin.
But Tony’s dreams of having a successful business are postponed when he receives a 10-month prison sentence for offences of driving without a licence, dangerous driving and failure to stop for the police.
His ex Danielle describes his unpredictable nature, saying: “He craves the family life but then he never calms down, he’s out of control – that’s why I can’t be with him.
“Tony’s his own worst enemy. He really tries to pull it together and do the right things by everyone but then he’s always got that other side to him which is really wild.”
The programme also covers the funeral of 32 year-old Mikey Connors – a legend in the traveller community who was killed in a car accident while racing his horse-trap.
Organised by his devastated 21-year-old brother Simey, we witness “the biggest traveller funeral ever” that includes a parade of 17 white Rolls-Royces, thousands of mourners and horse-trap races that cause chaos on the roads of Ashtead in Surrey.
As Paul Brown, the chief undertaker, says: “The amount of money that has been spent is immense. It’s their funeral and they’re not bothered what they do, who they upset, that’s how it is.”
But other residents aren’t so happy, with one saying: “Wonder if the police would close the road for my funeral. Doubt it very much.”
The Gypsies Next Door airs on Channel 5, Thursdays at 9pm
