Poles in Ireland: ‘You’re always going to be a blow-in, no matter how long you live in a place’

On May 1st, 2004, European leaders from across the Continent gathered on the lawn outside Áras an Uachtaráin and watched as a flag was raised to mark the enlargement of the European Union to include 10 new member states.

Less than 24 hours later, Anna Siewierska, a Polish nurse, stepped off the plane at Dublin Airport and jumped on a bus into the city centre, ready to begin a new life as an EU citizen. Three months later her two daughters, Joanna and Katarzyna, followed her to their new Irish home.

“I think for that first wave of Polish migrants, they were really searching for a better life,” says Joanna Siewierska, now a 27-year-old legal executive. Siewierska did not speak a word of English when she arrived in Ireland and was the first Polish student, along with her sister, in the small national school they attended in Artane.

“I was so young but I don’t recall being particularly scared or fazed by it. I don’t think the move was ever fully explained but I understood it was permanent.”

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By secondary school, Siewierska was involved in student politics and joined the Irish Second Level Students’ Union. Four years later she was elected the first non-Irish born UCD student union president. Growing up in Dublin, she had a strong connection to her north Dublin home in Coolock. It was only at university that she started reconnecting with her Polish identity.

“Being from Coolock was always a big part of my identity in Ireland. To this day I introduce myself as a Polish woman from Coolock.”

“Staying in touch with Polish links takes a bit more work but it’s important too. Everybody makes their own decision about how much they lean into their Polish roots.”

[ Why is Ireland’s Polish community returning home? ]

This identity, both as an Irish-Pole and as a woman from Coolock, has “taken on a new meaning” since the November 2023 Dublin riots, she adds. “With my accent and my skin colour, I fit in. But I have a Polish passport, a big Polish surname and I speak the Polish language.

“Maybe the people who write ‘Foreigners out’ on the walls aren’t thinking of the daughter of a nurse who’s worked in the Irish healthcare system for 20 years. But we’re receiving that message too, and it makes all of us uncomfortable.”

She still holds a Polish passport. She is one of the 93,680 Poles living in Ireland today, according to census figures. Another 17,152 Irish-Polish dual nationals are registered as living in Ireland.

The number of Poles living in Ireland has dropped in recent years, down from 122,515 in 2016. Poles were once the largest foreign national group in Ireland but are now outnumbered by the more 106,200 Ukrainians who have moved here since 2022.

However, more than 123,900 people in Ireland still speak Polish, and small numbers continue to relocate here – 5,441 Polish nationals moved to Ireland between January 2023 and March 2024, according to Department of Social Protection data.

‘There’s a struggle getting work you are qualified for. I fully considered leaving Ireland last year’

Dr Agnieszka Piwowarczyk, an environmental scientist and soil expert, moved to Ireland in July 2004, having previously visited Galway as a non-EU citizen in 2003.

“I remember walking down Shop Street when I moved over, and I couldn’t believe my ears. In 2003 you could hear lots of Spanish and Italian but this was overtaken by the Polish community very quickly.”

Piwowarczyk, who has lived in Donegal, Cork and Dublin but is now based in Sligo, says that even after two decades here, it remains difficult to fully integrate. “Even though Poles and Irish are culturally very similar in terms of history, religion and occupation, you’re always going to be a blow-in, no matter how long you live in a place.”

She loves living on the west coast but says people’s reaction when they discover she is Polish has changed in recent years. “When I arrived people knew very little about Poland. It was nice to share information about our culture, food, nature. But now, certain groups make you feel like you’re threatening them. Not necessarily to your face, but you can feel it behind your back.”

Many highly educated Poles are unable to develop their careers in Ireland, she says. “I work hard, I have amazing experience and I’m an expert in many fields. But there’s a struggle getting work you are qualified for and being paid the same as Irish people for the same work. And because of this, I fully considered leaving Ireland last year.”

[ Losing its religion: Catholic Poland looks to Irish example as it moves towards secularism ]

‘There’s a noticeable lack of engagement in Irish politics among us’

Barnaba Dorda, Siptu Workers’ Rights Centre advocate and head of the Polish-Irish advocacy group Forum Polonia, agrees Poles who have lived here for years “rarely get to climb the career ladder up to managerial roles in the professional sector”.

Last year the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found eastern European workers earned, on average, 40 per cent less than Irish workers.

“We are not visible as role models for society. Instead, most of us end up in lower-paying jobs.” The housing crisis and precarious rental situation makes it difficult for many Poles to feel “fully settled and part of the broader community”, he adds.

When he moved to Ireland in 2005, he planned on staying three months. However, he found a job with Siptu and, two decades on, has two children and owns a house in Dublin.

Dorda, a lawyer, considered returning to Poland during the recession, when he was offered a job in his home country. However, he liked working with Irish trade unions and chose to stay.

Some of his friends have returned in recent years. “Some went back and secured very good jobs with their English-language skills. Others left Ireland because of the housing crisis and high rents.”

Many Poles who moved to Ireland and started families are hopeful that life will be easier for their Irish-born children, who “are more immersed in Irish culture and language”, he adds. “However, there’s a real concern that the problems their parents face could affect them too, limiting their opportunities for true integration.”

As director of Forum Polonia, Dorda has run campaigns encouraging Poles to engage with Irish politics. He remembers thousands of Poles queuing outside the embassy on Ailesbury Road in Dublin waiting to vote in Poland’s 2007 elections. This prompted Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to hire Polish-speaking officers to reach out and find local election candidates. Nine Polish candidates ran in the 2009 and 2014 local elections, but just three took part in 2019, and only one woman has registered as a candidate in the upcoming vote in June.

“Politically, our voices are largely unheard,” says Dorda. “There’s a noticeable lack of engagement in Irish politics among us, perhaps because we don’t see how it could benefit us, or maybe we don’t feel welcome in those spaces.”

‘The whole experience of going through the health system was actually very positive’

Renata Koronkiewicz, who moved to Ireland in 2007, does not keep up with any politics, Irish or Polish. “It’s not that I’m not interested. If I lived in Poland I’d probably make myself go and vote. But that’s because we have such bad politics in Poland and also maybe because I know more about Polish politics and history.”

Koronkiewicz, a social care worker specialising in supports for adults with intellectual disabilities, lives in Arklow with her husband and two daughters. She never planned on staying here long term. But she ended up going through two rounds of cancer treatment in Irish hospitals.

“It was a huge shock, to be honest. I had breast cancer twice. In 2015 I found a lump on my breast – I was diagnosed the first time in 2018 and the second time two years ago. But the whole experience of going through the health system was actually very positive.”

Koronkiewicz says the care she has received, both from her oncologist but also post treatment, as she goes through premature menopause as a result of the chemotherapy, has been brilliant. “Here I didn’t have to pay for the medication, and all my chemotherapy happened on time.”

She likes to joke that when the family win the Euromillions lottery, they will “buy a B&B in the Polish mountains with horses. But my daughters say they don’t want to leave, this is their home”.

“For me it’s more in-between – when I visit Poland it doesn’t feel like home any more, but Ireland isn’t 100 per cent home either.”

‘There’s still an underlying xenophobia in Ireland, so we stick together subconsciously’

Irish born, 15-year-old Kalina Kubas, who lives in Ballyfermot with her Polish parents, feels Irish, but find she shares a deeper connection with second-generation immigrants rather than peers with Irish backgrounds.

Kalina was born in 2008, three years after her mother, Aneta, left her career in journalism in Poland and moved to Ireland. Growing up in Ballyfermot, she recalls feeling “embarrassed that I wasn’t Irish”. Classmates poked fun at the pierogi she sometimes brought to school in her lunchbox and told her Polish food was “f***ing disgusting”, she says.

“I felt like being Polish was something I should be ashamed of. But as I grew older, I started to form my own opinions and that’s when I started being proud of my heritage.”

“I’m very proud that she came to this realisation by herself,” says her mother, who runs the Polish library in Inchicore and works for a charity supporting homeless central and eastern Europeans. “I never pushed her to learn Polish, but it’s a big asset to have two cultures, two languages.”

Kalina loves hanging out around Moore Street, where she meets other young people of mixed heritage. “I feel like I’m part of that community. Because there’s still an underlying xenophobia in Ireland, so we stick together subconsciously.

“I was raised in a Polish household and go to Poland a lot but I’m integrated into Irish culture at school. I’m basically a mix of both.”

‘Losing all my achievements from my life in Poland and starting from scratch, that was tough’

Olga Anacka, who moved here in 2006, also speaks of the “otherness” migrants feel in this country. While acknowledging she had an easier experience as a white, European migrant, she recalls being treated differently because of her accent and lack of spoken English.

“When you do not speak a language fluently, who you are as a person is gone. Initially, when I could not express myself properly, I think some people thought I had nothing to say. It was like losing my voice.”

A visual artist, Anacka was one of those chosen at random as a recipient of the Government’s basic income for the arts pilot scheme in 2022. This additional financial support has allowed her to reignite the artistic career she buried when she moved to Ireland nearly two decades ago.

For years, she pushed aside this passion for art while she worked shifts at a Co Wicklow factory so she could care for her children and pay the bills. “The factory experience taught me not to be so proud. You think your identity is clear, but when you’re forced to move outside your area, that identity is questioned. Losing all my achievements from my life in Poland and starting from scratch, that was tough.”

‘I think it’s important to realise this is your new home’

Marcin Jezewski, now head of operations for the Rehab Group, also started from zero when he arrived in Ireland from the UK in 2008, leaving behind a role as an operations manger to “throw meat on a lorry”.

“I was basically looking for a better life. That’s why I went to the UK first, where I worked in the construction industry. But that was hit badly by the financial crisis, so I came here.”

Unlike others interviewed in this article, Jezewski has never experienced “any animosity for being Polish” and believes if any migrant works hard, “you can achieve whatever you want”.

He also believes many Poles in Ireland struggle to integrate because they continue telling themselves they will move home some day. “I think it’s important to realise this is your new home. The moment I realised I was never going back, things really changed for me.”

At the time of this interview, his wife, Srijita, is just days away from giving birth to their first child. The son of a Polish-immigrant father and Indian immigrant mother who live in Ireland, this little boy will grow up with “three cultures”.

“We want that mix of cultures to be an integral part of our child’s life. We want him to speak Polish, Bengali and English. And then he’ll learn Irish at school.

“From my perspective, exposure to all those cultures will be a huge advantage to him through his life.”

Poles who returned home from Ireland: ‘I’ve learned to enjoy the chat and appreciate common connections’

Architect Szymon Krawczewski’s journey to Ireland and back to Poland sounds like a perfect European enlargement success story.

Two decades ago he and his girlfriend – now wife – heard how Celtic Tiger Ireland was crying out for people with architectural skills.

Seeking adventure and a chance to improve their English they arrived in July 2004. By August Krawczewski began with the architectural firm RKD, which operates worldwide and is perhaps best known in Ireland for the Guinness Gravity Bar.

Still with RKD 20 years later, Krawczewski returned to Poland in August 2023 to head RKD’s Kraków office. Of his two decades of life and work experience in Ireland, Krawczewski says the pragmatic Irish approach to addressing problems is what he values most.

“What I learned in Ireland is that my job is not to come to clients with issues but to advise them how to solve them,” Krawczewski says.

The pandemic remote working revolution means his wife has kept her Irish job, while being closer to their parents – now in their 70s – is a big bonus. Eight months back in Poland, they still notice the differences in daily life.

“The Irish look and sound cheerful with an open smile, when you go into a shop the lady calls you ‘love’,” says Krawczewski. “You don’t hear ‘love’ here. Ask Poles how they are, you get their full life story and full medical and financial history.”

Their Dublin-born teenage daughter is having a harder adjustment. “She complains the Polish teenagers are not as happy as Irish teenagers. She preferred the spontaneous, cheerful joy of living in Ireland,” Krawczewski says.

Joanna Augustyniak, a 40-year-old university lecturer from Koszalin in northern Poland, likes to tell her two children – aged six and 10 – that “I started my adult life in Ireland”.

She moved with her boyfriend in the summer of 2006 and stayed for four years in the Galway region. While working in factories there she also researched a doctorate on the challenges Polish children and teens face integrating into Irish society.

Augustyniak faced challenges of her own on her return home in 2010: learning the unwritten rules of Polish life from people who could not understand how an adult like her did not know them already.

Even now her husband still uses Irish words and phrases like “I need my bed” while Augustyniak has retained the more assertive approach towards employment she picked up in Ireland: work to live, don’t live to work.

“I really like this, I’ve made it my life motto,” she says. “I respect myself more and I care less what a boss says.”

Ask engineer Piotr Sokolowski what he learned from Ireland and he mentions people skills. He has spent the last 20 years commuting back and forth to Ireland, living there for extended periods to study at Dublin Institute of Technology, now TU Dublin, and work in the headquarters of his Irish employer, S3 Connected Health.

A digital health partner for pharmaceutical and medtech companies, S3 employs 170 people in Wroclaw. When it opened there 25 years ago, Sokolowski remembers the traditions brought over by the first generation of Irish managers – in particular after-work drinks on Friday.

“I used to think ‘Jesus, again’ but then I realised how much it contributed to building relationships and being able to work well together,” says Sokolowski. “That was nonexistent in Poland 20 years ago but now it has developed.”

Experiencing in Ireland first-hand what he calls the “positive and welcoming attitude” towards Polish arrivals like him means Sokolowski has a more positive attitude to recent arrivals in his homeland from neighbouring Ukraine.

Turning 50 in October, Sokolowski tries to retain in Poland what he calls his Irish “entry-level chattiness and curiosity” towards others.

“I’ve learned to not only enjoy the chat but to appreciate how the Irish look for common connections,” he says, already planning new connections of his own this summer with a plan to walk the Irish coastline.

All three Poles interviewed here agree that, for their generation at least, the promise of EU enlargement has paid off and enriched their lives.

“I’m old enough to remember communist times when we had no passports and were – physically and legally – unable to cross a border. Now I can work in Ireland or drive to Portugal without a check,” Sokolowski says.

Augustyniak adds: “We appreciate so much the time we spent in Ireland, it was so important for our future and we have thousands of photos we show our children.”

Back in Poland, Krawczewski of RKD now fields questions from curious Poles as an unofficial ambassador.

“Many still view Ireland as part of the wealthy west but, when people grumble about politics here, I tell them about Ireland’s social or housing problems,” he says. “I make sure they understand that Ireland is a similar, normal country with similar, normal issues.”

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