‘I find that Waterford is a place that’s very open to foreigners. I never came across any racism’

Justyna Traore has always felt welcome in Ireland, but it was when she began gardening as part of a local project in Waterford that she truly felt like she was becoming “part of the Irish community”.

Originally from Poland, Traore made a “spontaneous decision” to join a friend on a summer trip to Ireland in 2005, during which she fell “absolutely in love with the country”.

“I didn’t even plan going abroad really. My friend asked me if I could go with her. She was a student at the time and just wanted to get a summer job and practise English abroad. She rang me and asked me to go because her mother wouldn’t let her go alone, and my English was good enough. I didn’t even think twice,” Traore explains.

The pair of friends travelled to Galway for the summer, where Traore found a job in “a beautiful restaurant and B&B that I still remember and would love to visit again someday”.

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Her friend returned to Poland after the summer but Traore decided to stay.

“It wasn’t planned at all. I had a job in Poland and was still studying philosophy and economics. I dropped that and moved to Westport [Co Mayo],” she says.

That’s where Traore made friends, and then met the man who became her husband.

“My daughter was born there, and I lived there until 2009,” she says.

The garden kept us sane for a really long time. We created a small community without advertising

However, Traore began to feel like “something was missing” at that point in her life, and ultimately decided to return home to Poland to resume her studies.

“I worked in Tesco in the cash office in Westport. I really enjoyed the job, but I wanted more. I didn’t feel strong enough to study in English back then, so I decided to go back to Poland.”

Traore went back to Poland in 2010, where she remained for eight years, completing a master’s and postgraduate diploma in organic farming and garden design, a course which would “change life completely” for her later on.

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“I was raising my daughter in Poland while working and studying at the same time. I spent daily sometimes two hours, just travelling to work and back home. It was tiring, I missed the mellow climate in Ireland and the Irish mentality. My memories from Ireland were soothing,” Traore recalls of her time spent considering a second move to Ireland.

“I came back to Waterford because my daughter’s father lived here. It was an obvious choice. We’re divorced now, but it was important for me that he has contact with her,” she says.

That was in 2017. Fresh after graduating, Traore moved to Waterford and began searching for jobs.

She spent a while working at Aldi, and then the Covid-19 pandemic hit and “things got messy”.

“It was a difficult time and nobody knew what was going to happen, and the anxiety and uncertainty was overwhelming sometimes,” Traore says.

“I remember one day, I was off work and sent an email to the council proposing the transformation of a wasteland near my house to a garden. Surprisingly, I got a call the next day which was very unreal. I expected that to take weeks.”

When I came here I struggled a bit with the accent, but I spent a lot of time with Irish-born neighbours and after a while it became easy and the barrier disappeared

The local council very quickly allocated resources to Traore’s project proposal, and “that’s when the hard work started”, she says.

“I have to say I was busier over the lockdown and Covid time than ever. We were so excited at first that we got access to the land. Obviously it was really hard work because we had to remove piles of rubbish. There was a large skip at the gate filled with cans and bottles and old household rubbish like old nappies, pushers, all kinds of stuff,” she explains.

But Traore had “a goal and a purpose at a time when everything else was uncertain”.

“The garden kept us sane for a really long time. We created a small community without advertising. Suddenly others started to join in. It’s growing nicely and organically. Three years have passed and there’s about 40 people involved now,” she says.

Traore is now the chairwoman of the community group for the facility, called Top of the City Community Garden.

The group are “thinking of transforming it partially at some point into a social enterprise” because some of its members are from the Brothers of Charity and are being trained to become baristas.

“They will be selling coffee in the garden as professionals. We hope we’ll be able to create job opportunities for people with minor intellectual disabilities and disadvantaged families, which is important to us, because we’re in a designated disadvantaged area and it needs resources,” Traore says.

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“We’re trying to be an outlet for entrepreneurship. We had 300 chickens in the garden for about two years. Our neighbourhood was supplied with them. Kids absolutely loved taking pictures of them and feeding them too.”

Recently the group lost a piece of land they had kept the chickens on, “so lately we have only 14 chickens left”, Traore says.

She always had a passion for nature and design, but Ireland was a real source of inspiration over the years.

“When I was travelling around Ireland the first time I came here, I saw so many beautiful gardens that I never saw in Poland, and the climate is great for it. Plants get a lot of moisture and can really flourish,” she says.

Life in general is also “easier for me in Ireland than in Poland”, she says.

“Poland was usually a struggle, even though I have my family there. I think it’s caused by the fact that people in Ireland tend to rely on the community a lot.

“When I came here I struggled a bit with the accent, but I spent a lot of time with Irish-born neighbours and after a while it became easy and the barrier disappeared. It always felt very welcoming – whether I was here in Waterford or in Mayo,” Traore says.

In some ways, too, she feels Irish culture and Polish culture are similar.

I think the garden made us feel closer to each other. There’s a lot of foreigners involved in the garden and it’s strengthening our local identity

“In Ireland there’s a strong tradition of farming. My grandfather was a farmer. That’s a similarity I can see, or a familiarity I feel,” she says.

While moving back to Ireland again was a “real process of adjusting”, Traore now feels at home.

“My daughter was about three when we moved back to Poland, so she was just starting to speak languages and she couldn’t really speak Polish, so she had difficulty communicating with other kids. She was catching up very fast and fluent in a short time, but then when we came back to Ireland, she [had] forgot English,” she laughs.

“But the school we picked is very open and it was easy for her to adapt. Generally, I find that Waterford is a place that’s very open to foreigners. It’s a place where I never came across any racism or bullying. I consider it a very safe place to live.”

With her daughter settled in Waterford now, and Traore’s own involvement in the community garden, she now feels “like I’m part of the Irish community”.

“I think the garden made us feel closer to each other. There’s a lot of foreigners involved in the garden and it’s strengthening our local identity. It’s the fact we have this one place, and the only boss we really have is nature ... It’s one of the many reasons why gardening is so inclusive.”

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish