Nobody can decide when they are born as well as nobody knows what the future may bring. It is clear and obvious. All who decided to come here, learned new language (despite sometimes difficult accent), got used to the brand new environment and succeeded in finding a job should be proud of themselves. And should be respected. The price these immigrants have to pay is high – there are many obstacles ahead. The main, but not the only ones, are language barrier and loneliness. When considering this fact I come to conclusion that nobody has a right to judge them because of that. Especially those who have never been forced to leave their world due to economical or even worse political reasons as they have not the faintest idea what it is like.

A great majority of people from Eastern Europe came to Ireland because of poor economic conditions in their own countries. But despite money is in fact a very serious reason, the way some people approach it seems to be sometimes a little exaggerating. Earning money becomes the main aim for many of those who came here. They simply forget about other goodies of this beautiful country. There are many people here who don’t feel like learning about Ireland or visiting places of interest. What I am concerned about is not only unwillingness to travel but also lack of need to socialize with Irish people.

Ireland is country of advantages: familiar and easygoing people, easiness to find a well paid job, many tax relieves and nice social program, places where we can buy “our own” food, call shops thanks to which we can easily contact our families. There are also many nationalities in Cork so we can feel almost as at home. Moreover, much information for immigrants is translated into their own languages. This is something extremely positive. We should thank God that there are people who dedicated their precious time to make our stay in Cork easier. If it hadn’t been for them we would probably not know much about our rights and other important things. But on the other hand we became a little lazy as much is done for us by others and our contact with local people became narrowed because of that.

Limited contact with the Irish is one of the reasons why not many of us – immigrants – have non-immigrant friends with whom we can meet on Friday evening. Suffice to look around on the street: most of us keep with people from our own country. When I ask people what language they speak at work to non-Irish people but in presence of the English one, the most common answer is: our native language. When I ask people if they read Irish newspapers or magazines, the most frequent answer is no, only those in my own language, I can buy them in Cork. It is of course important not to lose contact with our culture but also not a sin to get familiar with the Irish one.

We seem not to be as open as this country is open to us. Whatever happens, we are still guests here, our hosts welcomed us generously and we should show them gratitude at least by appraisal and appreciation. And one day, when somebody asks us what it is like to live in Ireland, we should be able to say something more than nice, safe and secure – better life.