The Outsiders claims Dale Farm is more of a transit site than a permanent base for travellers with nowhere else to go, as its residents have asserted at public inquiries.

It says Rathkeale travellers set up an almost identical unauthorised site at Monasterevin, Co Kildare, Ireland, in August, 2002.

Such "come-and-go" bases quickly develop into a commercial hub for regular deliveries from foreign furniture trucks - something borne out by past Echo stories about Oak Lane.

The book states: "A massive traveller site, where many of the Rathkeale families regularly stay, also exists at Crays Hill, Basildon.

"It was described to this author by one of the Limerick travellers as worse than the Wild West'. The Rathkealers were also the first traveller traders to use financial clout to set up unofficial private halting sites."

This tactic developed from their need to sidestep tough laws in Ireland, the book explains. Dillon contends traveller traders set up off-road camps where they could come and go as a way round the laws.

It explains: "The solution was to buy their own land and by 2002, cash-rich from the booming Irish economy, traders from Rathkeale had both the money to buy the land and the motivation to spend it.

"Wealthy traveller traders can buy up a patch of agricultural land and turn it into a fully-fledged, serviced halting site overnight.

"It is soon obvious that the only way they will ever be shifted is through long, costly planning and legal procedures that will possibly take years."