The Romanians remember the darkness, the cold and the plastic bags they used as toilets.
The Irishmen who opened the back of the container lorry when it arrived in Rosslare port remember the stench.
Dan (28) and six other young men from the same village left Transylvania two months ago and travelled by train through Hungary, Italy and finally into Spain.
In a Madrid car-park in daylight last month, they slit the canvas siding of a container lorry with a knife and climbed in. They had only the clothes they were wearing and small bags with food and water.
Four days later the seven men, along with two Moldovans and another Romanian couple, stumbled blinking and exhausted onto the asphalt at Rosslare port. Dan shrugs off the gruelling journey. He used to work in a Transylvanian mine.
Since the president of the mining union was arrested after the overthrow of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Dan says he and other people who took part in anti-government protests have been harassed by police.
He does not want his surname used because he says he fears for the safety of his wife and baby daughter at home.
Three weeks after their arrival in Ireland, Dan and the friends from his village, all aged under 30, sit in a health board house in Wexford town. The radio blares and the television is on. The room smells of fried food. They smoke and talk, killing time. The gardai have their Romanian passports and they have been told that they must not leave the area. They want to go to Dublin, they say. But it will be six months before they can leave Wexford.
Dan says all the men have "different problem with police" in Romania. "I was happy to come here. I would be very happy if my wife and daughter came here too." The average monthly wage was £48, he says. Now he receives £64.50 a week from the health board for food. "I do not buy cigarettes or coffee."