Guide Index Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!
When I told one of my mates in Florida that I was moving to Ireland, that he should come visit sometime, Cesar was not enthusiastic. "I don't know how welcome I would be," he said, "The only black face in Dublin!"
In all reality, mi amigo had it all wrong. Forget quaint scenery from Circle of Friends and flicks like that: Dublin has become a cosmopolitan city. The changes even since my first visit in 1991 are dramatic. Walking down O'Connell Street or Grafton Street now, or even just shopping at the overpriced Eurospar across the road here in Lucan, you could as well be in New York or London. Even the ads on Telly or in shop windows show Black, White, Oriental, Indian, every sort of person. Coming from an American background, this all seems normal to me and I generally don't give it a second thought. The integration , the phenomenon that has brought about such change is amazing when you think about it though.
Ireland has for hundreds of years been exporting its people. It's a poor country, where 4 million people starved to death in a famine in the last century. The farms were tiny plots barely large enough to support one family. In turn these meager acres would be left to the eldest son, and the rest of the children were forced to leave. One hundred million people in Britain, the United States, Australia and elsewhere claim Irish ancestry from this Diaspora, this centuries' long heritage of emigration.
And now, with the Celtic Tiger economy roaring and living conditions improving, the tide has reversed. The ships and planes and trucks with hidden compartments are rolling into Dublin, not out. Many of these newcomers are fellow citizens of the EU, who have liberty to move freely seeking employment. Others- like myself- have specialized skills which are in chronic shortage, and so are granted Visas. Most visible, however, of all the newcomers are the refugees.
Recent TV footage has followed the arrival of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, landing in Cork and settling into their new housing. There have been massive appeals for goods and funds to assist these displaced persons, and special provisions have been made by the Government to arrange productive employment. Reaction from the population in general has been both sympathetic and generous. In years past, the same scenes have been played out with refugees from Bosnia. This Algerian fellow I met when I started working at Gateway, Mohammed, showed me his passport stamped "Valid for entry into all countries excluding Algeria." He could never go home, and there's thousands more in his same shoes.
The Bosnians are good example of why this entry falls under "Hope." They began arriving in 1992 or 1993, when everything went so horribly in old Yugoslavia. I don't know how many thousand were received and placed--- enough so that just about everyone sees "Bozzos" around, going about their daily business. There are twenty or thirty in the school where my mate teaches, for instance. Some of them are dead smart, she says, and are very hard workers. True, I got my hair cut once in this dog rough part of town and the lads in the shop were giving out vehemently about how the government provided these foreigners with jobs and housing for free when there were Irish people still in need of the same. But then there's also been a bunch of marriages. There's kids on the bus messing and being bold, doing kid stuff, two of them Dubs and two clearly not. It's difficult circumstances, for all involved and any way you look at it. Some have lost everything and been forced to live in a foreign land without language or friends. The others have never had anything before and are now asked to share what little they have finally received. And at the end of the day, when it comes down to action, it is generosity that shines through. That is one reason why I love living in Dublin.
Guide Index Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!