There's an Egg in My Soup (20 page)

‘Well, the rest of the paper
is
an Irish paper.'

‘Irish language, I'm talking about.'

‘I suppose there's no real demand for it. I mean, what exactly is your problem with the
Polski Herald?
It's only twelve pages.'

‘They should get their own paper and leave our paper alone.'

‘Well, it would be too expensive just to print a separate twelve-page paper.'

‘Charge them then. Charge them twelve pence!'

Dear, oh dear. Apparently, the guys on the front desk frequently get calls of that nature. And in one sense, you can understand it. It's not that it's hard to tear out this offensive supplement, it's the fact that it is there in the first place. It's like seeing a thistle one morning in your bed of daffodils. How did it get there? You can dig it up, but the damage has been done. The scene has been spoiled, the memory has been trounced upon and nothing will ever be the same again.

It leads you to wonder that while on the whole, the reception for Poles in Ireland has been good, at what point will the picture begin to change? Shops, papers, hairdressers and bars. That's allowed. They can work as waiters, construction workers and kitchen porters. That's allowed. We can continue to treat them as a market and tell each other how great it is. But what about when the real success stories begin to happen? What about successful Polish businesses? What happens when the Irish begin working for the Poles? What happens when the Irish have to pay rent to a Polish landlord? And what happens when more and more jobs are lost as factories and multi-nationals head off to Polska, while the Poles are cleaning up over here?

I met two Polish students in Warsaw who had spent time in Ireland, with mixed experiences. They were treated well in work – they both worked as waitresses and bar staff and were paid up to €12 an hour, almost twice the minimum wage. And they were very fond of the Irish people who they socialised and worked with.

They had met with some intimidating situations on the street, however, and one recalled that friends had been turned away from a central-Dublin pub with the remark that they had ‘fucking Polish faces'. They had horror stories of living ten to a room and of encountering Polish criminals on the streets who now had a free run from East to West. We have already had plenty of instances of Poles committing crimes here. I
know the type, Poles know the type, and they are not the type we want. But who knows the difference when there are no checks?

These two students had a story about friends being beaten up by guys with golf clubs, and they had stories about girls being beaten up by Irish girls, who were more ferocious than the Irish guys, in their estimation.

They complained about life in Poland, how tough it was to make ends meet and to buy an apartment, and how their parents, who held very good jobs, were only earning €200 a month. They despaired at the amount of Irish swooping in and scooping up properties with both fists. As regards the foreseeable future in Poland, they couldn't see one.

Other than those with wanderlust, most of the Poles in this country, if people had occasion to hear their stories, don't really want to be here at all. While they are, most just want to keep their heads down and get on with life, the same as the rest of us.

It is easy for the media to lump the Poles into one large slice of the immigrant pie chart. Commentators in newspapers have differing opinions on the whole ‘immigrant question', some taking the view that Ireland is such a dull old place that it's great for new cultures to come in and brighten it up a bit.

That attitude is a reasonably noble one, but neglects the fact that probably the majority of immigrants – Polish or otherwise – aren't interested in
integrating or mixing with the natives either. They are here to fulfil a purpose and are, just like so many Irish in England, Australia and the US, happy to live, work and hang out with their own kind. The new shops that sell those mad-looking sausages are not there to benefit the Irish, but the Poles. And judging by the amount of these shops, hairdressers and so on, many of them couldn't be arsed with integration.

Ask any teacher in a primary school what it's like trying to cope with a class of kids with mixed nationalities, and they'll probably say that as well as having familiarity classes for teachers to understand the sensitivities of others, the kids and the parents of these kids should be learning about Irish culture and the English language before they arrive, and for a period while they settle. It works both ways or it doesn't work at all.

Personally, I like having so many Poles over here. It reminds me of home.