Community centred

The longest established members of Ireland's Polish community, which now numbers about 100, came mainly through England after second World War. They included many former servicemen or POWs and a few students. Most later returned to England, some because they were unable to get visas to stay, but some remained.

Among them was Jan Kaminski, first president of the Irish-Polish Society, who arrived in Ireland in 1954 with a scholarship to study economics and politics at Trinity College, Dublin, and who later successfully applied for Irish citizenship. He maintains his ties with Poland through his travel agency Concorde Travel which specialises in travel to central and eastern Europe.

Later arrivals came in several waves since the 1960s, many of them married to Irish people. Grzegorz Jarocki, current president of the Irish-Polish Society, notes that there have been only a small number of recent arrivals, usually here on a temporary basis. They include students and employees of Irish companies based in Poland who are on training schemes in Ireland.

Iwona Rossochacka Kenny, a graphic designer working at Gateway, is married to an Irishman and has been living here for two years. She says that the Irish-Polish Society is a focal point for the Polish community although it is difficult to meet younger Polish people as most stay only for a short time. The establishment of the Irish-Polish Society coincided with the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979. It was the brainchild of a Jesuit, Fr Klaus Cieszynski, who found members for the society by going through the phone book and contacting anyone with a Polish surname. Currently, the society has between 100 and 120 active members, of whom 30 to 40 are Irish.

In 1988 the Society acquired premises at Fitzwilliam Place and provides Polish classes including weekly classes for Polish children. It organises cultural meetings every month and guests have included Seamus Heaney and the pianist Krzysztof Jablonski.

In contrast to their Polish counterparts in Ireland, the Irish community in Poland, approximately 250 strong, is a more recent phenomenon, most of its members having arrived since the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. They are mainly business people and their families, teachers of English as a foreign language and a few students, generally in Poland on a short-term basis. They do not have a formal organisation but the Irish Trade Board organises monthly get-togethers of the Irish business community and Irish pubs, such as Ollie's in Warsaw, are popular with Irish and Poles alike.

John Webb, AIB's first full-time employee at their Polish subsidiary WBK which currently has 15 Irish staff based at Poznan in western Poland, has observed rapid change in Polish society since he arrived in 1996. New amenities regularly arrive in Poznan, for example a UCI multiplex cinema opened recently.

Mary O'Gorman came to Warsaw in January 1998 with her three daughters to join her husband John who is in charge of Statoil in Poland. She says that Irish families meet through the schools, most children attending either the British or the American schools, and finds living in Poland is like a "walking history lesson" for the children as they are surrounded by so many physical reminders of Poland's recent history.

Language plays an important role in how the expatriate communities integrate in their new country. English is the main language of communication between Poles and Irish in both countries. Many of the Irish find Polish a difficult language to learn and until recently there were few opportunities to learn it in Ireland, although once in Poland most acquire some basic Polish.

John Webb finds that a growing number of Polish people are learning English. Mary O'Gorman says language problems make communication difficult - for example, many businessmen speak English but their wives do not. Barry Kehoe has been living in Warsaw for over two years, initially working with APSO and now writing his PhD on 20th century Polish poetry. As he speaks Polish fluently he finds it easier to integrate into Polish society than most Irish people. He contributes a poetry column to the English-language newspaper The Warsaw Voice.

Jan Kaminski has observed an increasing number of Irish people travelling to Poland for business or holidays. Ewa Sadowska, who has been teaching Polish at TCD since she first arrived in Ireland in 1990, reports a growing interest and awareness among Irish people about Poland. Beginning with three students, she now teaches 15 undergraduates and has 20 students in her evening classes which started last year. These links between Irish and Polish people are likely to increase as Poland prepares for accession to the European Union.

The Irish-Polish Society can be contacted at 20 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin. Tel: (01) 676 2515.

Orla Mc Breen Article on Polish/Irish Expatriate communities