They came here seeking their fortune but life in Ireland didn't live up to the dream. Ruadhán Mac Cormaicreports
TADEUSZ DOESN'T say as much, but his story of a lifetime spent revelling in the journey and the prospect of open roads offers a knowing counterpoint to the life he lives now.
A former ambulance driver from western Poland, he tells fondly of the years spent crossing the continent as a lorry driver, and of the decision to pack it in and come to Ireland in 2004, when thousands of his compatriots were doing the same.
"Every man likes travelling - the journey, the discovery - all of this," he says in his calm, deliberate way.
"Before coming here, I looked for information about Ireland and Irish people. I knew there would be good jobs and a good future. But I had some bad luck and everything I found is just problems."
Work came quickly in Dublin, but the cash-in-hand lorry driver's job he landed in the first few weeks paid a paltry €5 an hour and lasted no more than a few months.
Tadeusz hasn't been in steady work since, and it's now almost three years since he started sleeping on the streets.
At first, he tried some of the homeless hostels, but too many of the men he met were drug addicts and he didn't fancy the atmosphere.
So for over a year he camped in the Phoenix Park, hiding his tent in some bushes each morning while he searched for an employer who would take a chance on a man with no address.
None did, and before long his tent was stolen and he had taken to sleeping in sheltered doorways and alleyways in the city.
He showers once a week and takes meals at some of the homeless support centres that operate walk-in services in the capital.
When night draws in, he explains, the important thing is to find a patch of dry ground protected from the wind and rain.
"I just put some paper on the ground to insulate, then my jacket, that's all. Everyone tells me it is very cold, but not for me. Much more important to me is that it's quiet, peaceful and calm," he says.
Most of his days are spent walking the streets, one of his few possessions a tattered plastic bag bulging with copper coins collected from ticket machines and pay-phones, or picked up from the street.
Tadeusz and his wife divorced years ago, but he speaks with the children - his son is 20, his daughter 14 - from time to time, and hopes one day to raise enough money to bring them over for a visit.
Tall, lean, a few years short of his 50th birthday, he has about him a disarming calm and self-awareness; his voice never rises and he rarely sounds bitter.
At the morning drop-in service run by Trust, a charity that provides food, showers and basic medical care to homeless people in Dublin, meanwhile, Artur and Witold are cupping soup in their hands, chatting with the other Poles who have come this morning.
(Almost half of the men in the room are from central and eastern Europe.)
Their stories are variations of one another's, each replete with dashed hopes, broken marriages and an open space where plans might lie.
"I haven't got anybody in Poland," says Artur, an electrician whose badly injured foot has kept him out of work for years. He returned home last spring to visit his mother's grave, but there was nothing to keep him there.
"My parents have died. I don't have any family. I don't even have a dog there."
Artur has known only struggle in Ireland, but for Witold - a middle-aged builder from Gdansk in northern Poland - there first came the sort of success that most of his compatriots have enjoyed here.
A job on the M50 extension works gave him a steady income and covered the rent on a comfortable house he shared in Rathcoole.
But since that ended and his savings ran dry, he has been sleeping rough and visiting homeless services every day.
He has two sons, aged 23 and 17, but like many of the men here, he has all but lost contact with them, and it pains him to think of it.
"One of my sons got married and didn't tell me. I'm a grandfather but I have never seen the child.
"And I don't know if my parents are alive or not."
Some names have been changed at the request of individuals