Jenna Carthy was unable to bring her baby, Timmy Lee, home from hospital last summer, such were the conditions she lives in.
"He picked up a viral infection and was three weeks in hospital in Portlaoise. Then the doctors said there was no way we could bring him home here.
"We had to bring him to my sister's for a few weeks to get strong. She has a house."
Jenna Carthy and her husband are one of the two Traveller families preparing to seek a judicial review against Kildare County Council and Athy Town Council, claiming they have failed to implement their own Traveller Accommodation Programme.
Standing outside the small family caravan pulled up on a bank of Royal Canal mud, she said the rats were "as big as puppies". Here she, her husband and four children aged between one and nine sleep - the parents in the one bedroom, Tommy (3) in a pull-out bed, Mary Ellen (7) and Chantelle (7) in bunks and Timmy Lee in a cot.
With no lavatory, Jenna and her husband are up as many as 10 times a night to bring the kids out to toilet by the canal bank. "There's that one light," she said, pointing to the street lamp over the caravan. "But it is bitter cold at night and if it's raining it's very difficult.
"We get up about 7 a.m. and get the kids washed and ready for school."
They get water in a basin from a local garage. Water can be heated on the gas cooker, for washing and tea, though without a fridge milk can go sour overnight in warm weather. They have an oil fire for heating.
The older children go to school while the younger two go to a crèche in the Athy Travellers' Club.
"We have been here about a month," she said, gesturing at the quiet side road. People keep telling us they don't want us near them, so we move on. When we first pulled up here an oul fella told us if we weren't gone by the morning he'd call the guards.
"Our generator was thrown in the canal the day after. People will call the guards but they won't call the council to tell them to open up sites. Where are we supposed to go?"
About one mile outside the town, off a main road, Jenna's sister-in-law, Winnie Carthy - who is also involved in the judicial review process - is living in similarly cramped conditions, with her husband and three boys - John (7), William (3) and Edward (2). She is also four months pregnant.
"The table is a bed at night and the other two sleep up here," she said, showing what seems little more than a ledge. "They sleep end to end. We have nowhere to go to the toilet either so we go to the garage if they let us, or into that field," she shrugs at an overgrown patch.
Both families wash the children either at the Travellers' club or in the town's swimming pool showers, though it costs €3 a head to wash there.
The women are both studying community development at NUI Maynooth. They are anxious to improve their living conditions for the sake of their children's education.
"The council keeps saying they are going to do this and do that but then they keep coming up with excuses. I think Travellers must be the most hated people in this country," said Winnie.
