When a Cuban engineer alighted from an aircraft at Shannon Airport and asked for political asylum in 1994, little did he realise he would end up working in a bar called Cuba in Galway five years later.
It is just one of the strange twists of fate in the life of Miguel Posse Acosta, who knew very little about his adopted homeland when he approached an airport policeman after leaving the Aeroflot flight which was bound for Moscow.
Miguel considered he had to leave Cuba for the sake of his Russian wife and two children, who all live in Galway today. He has become something of an ambassador for his native land, as any Galway person heading for the Caribbean island invariably calls into the bar at Eyre Square to ask him for advice and directions.
As the son of a Cuban war hero, Miguel felt like a traitor to his country when he disembarked at Shannon. At the time, though, he considered he had no choice and since then has come to love life in the west of Ireland.
"I took a ticket to Moscow, because it was the only way I could leave the country without a visa," he said. "I knew that if you apply for political asylum you have to do it in the first country you arrive in."
Miguel had no English when he and his then 11-year-old son, Miguel jnr, approached the airport policeman that afternoon. It was simply because Aeroflot used to refuel in Ireland that they landed in Shannon. He had to endure two weeks of anxiety before his wife, Alla, and daughter, Natella, were allowed out of Cuba to join them in Ireland, as their permits to leave had been cancelled for 15 days after he left his native land.
"If the plane had stopped off in any country I would not have had a choice," he says. "It was a big gamble. I thought I was going to a war zone! All I had ever heard of Ireland was about the conflict in the North, but if I was going to live in a war zone at least I would have my family with me. I just had to get out of Cuba.
"The decision to leave Cuba was the hardest of my life. I felt like a traitor, like it was anti-patriotic and that it was the worst thing I could do. I didn't know if I would ever see my mother and sister again. It is hard on them, but at least we keep in touch by telephone."
The decision to leave was particularly hard on Miguel because his father, Bernard, was a hero of the Cuban revolution.
Miguel was only four months old when his father, a member of the National Revolutionary Militia, was killed by anti-revolutionary forces during the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961.
His father, who was from Havana, had seen his son for only five days before he was killed in action. There is a memorial to Bernard, and the other revolutionaries who died, in a war museum at the Bay of Pigs. And Che Guevara remains one of Miguel's all-time heroes.
Miguel has never seen his niece or nephew, and has not met his mother, Rosa, in five years. This seems to have struck a chord with his many friends in the west of Ireland, well aware of their own family histories of American wakes and enforced emigration.
"One of the closest contacts I have had with my mother has been through the number of Galway people who have visited her when they go to Cuba on holiday," he says. "It touches me when somebody goes to Cuba and they go out of their way to visit her. I love talking to people before and after they go."
Miguel and his family lived in Ennis, where they stayed with the very hospitable Carr family, for the first few months after their arrival in Ireland. They moved to Galway in February 1995 and received work permits last year.
"Galway was like a magnet, or something magic. As soon as we saw the city we wanted to live here," he says. "I went to Dublin for just two days to see what it was like, because I come from a capital, Havana, myself. I thought that Dublin was exciting.
"But then I came to Galway and I thought that after all the stress with my children it would be better for them to live in a nice, more quiet place, so that they would settle down with not too many worries."
The family certainly have settled in Ireland. Miguel jnr speaks with a strong Galway city accent and currently plays underage soccer for Galway United. The sport may barely exist in Cuba, but he is a soccer fanatic.
Alla, who met Miguel when he was training to be a naval chemical engineer in Azerbaijan, has recently completed a course at the Limerick Institute of Massage and Sports Therapy. A qualified hydro-geologist, she hopes to specialise in the treatment of sports injuries.
Natella is pursuing a qualification in the hotel and catering industry, and Miguel occasionally acts as MC whenever a Cuban or salsa band comes to play a concert at the club.
"The first barrier was to learn the enemy language," he quips. "We have settled down here completely. I feel lucky now to have some knowledge about Ireland, which has so many things in common with Cuba. One thing that I really admire about the Irish is that they keep their traditions, basic things that we seem to be losing in Cuba."
Miguel, Alla and their two children eventually hope to secure full Irish citizenship. While he cannot return to Cuba under any circumstances, he is hopeful that Rosa can come to Ireland to visit him and his family some day.