The ostentatious villa-style mansions in Rathkeale boast pillars, balconies, marble staircases and state-of-the art security systems.

Many were paid for in hard cash and built without permission and stand empty most of the year.

Rathkeale, the spiritual home of Crays Hill's Sheridan Clan, has a population of 2,000, 45 per cent of them travellers.

Reports of travellers drawing as much as £100,000 cash at a time from the local bank are common.

Travellers have developed an estate of fortress-like mansions over 30 years. Travellers' are believed to often desert their homes, for nine months at a time, leaving empty estates with boarded-up windows, iron grilles, gates and grim "enter at your own risk" signs.

Settled parents at the local primary school threatened a boycott in 2001 because of poor attendance. Many believe the travellers leave the village to go to Crays Hill, Cottenham or continental Europe Even when they are in Rathkeale, many travellers live in caravans in the grounds of their antique-packed mansions, which appear to be status symbols first and foremost.