'God helped us leave explosions behind & sent us here'

Flor Sylvester
Arrived from Venezuela via Spain, 2008

Last September, Sylvester’s daughter began at a local Catholic primary school in north Dublin. As Buddhists, she and her husband struggled to find a school that would accept their daughter due to the fact that she is not baptised. Despite the initial challenges of finding a nondenominational school for her daughter, she has received a warm welcome from the “inclusive and progressive headmaster in a local Catholic national school.

“I learned that, despite government policies that are in place, the tone and ethos for the school are very much set by the headmaster.”

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 3

At an event to mark the series’ first anniversary were reporter Sorcha Pollak with various participants. Photograph: Dave Meehan

She says the Government must address the issue of school patronage so that the Irish education system aligns with the modern beliefs and practices of most parents in Ireland.

“A child born a citizen of the State should not be subjected to a point system based on religion, and the same should be extended to those children who are not Irish nationals but have immigrated to form part of our communities.

“The policies I envision don’t impose religion different from the one at home. They would teach children to respect and interact with people of other faiths, ideas and backgrounds, and where each child feels valued and respected as an individual regardless of their parents’ beliefs.”

The growth and development of Sylvester’s practice as a massage therapist and wellness adviser has contributed to her feeling at home in Dublin and she has enjoyed becoming involved in school and community projects. During a recent trip abroad with family, she noticed for the first time her Irish accent in contrast to their American twangs.

“When the plane door opened, it smelled like home, but most importantly, I was rooting for Ireland this Euro 2016. Now, if there’s someone I could talk to about turning up the temperature . . . ”

Marwan, Rodaina and their three daughters
Arrived from Syria, 2015

In April 2015, Marwan, Rodaina and their three daughters arrived in Ireland, leaving behind the war and destruction in Syria. The couple had been forced to abandon their jobs as civil engineers when bombs fell near their office. Their daughters stopped going to school because of the constant explosions around Damascus.

Thanks to the kindness and compassion of a group of people from Stillorgan- Kilmacud parish, the family are now living in a new home in south Dublin.

Following the publication of their story in The Irish Times, a member of the parish came forward with an offer from the community to pay housing and education bills for the family for two years. Convincing a landlord to rent a home to the Syrian family was a struggle and took a number of months. However, in early spring this year, the family of five finally unpacked their bags.

Marwan did a month’s training on a construction site in April and is now training with a structural engineer in central Dublin. His eldest daughter, Ghazal, is sitting her Leaving Cert this June and hopes to study science at university. Her dream is to become a doctor. The middle sister is doing her Junior Cert, and the youngest has just completed second year.

“You can see that Ghazal is amazing, she’s so hard-working,” says Marwan. “She is determined to go to university.”

School has been a challenge for 16-year-old Nagham, who began studying for her Junior Cert in January. “Three years of study in six months is very hard. Next year she will go straight into fifth year and everything will be new for all the students.”

Their youngest daughter loves her new school and was awarded a certificate for her diligence and hard work at the end of the school year. Her report card commends her for being a “pleasant, co-operative, diligent student who has worked extremely well”.

“If my daughters are happy, then I am happy,” says Rodaina, who has booked a two-week trip for herself and Ghazal to Lebanon later this month, where her parents will travel to meet them for the first time in nearly two years.

“I miss them so much. They’re still in Damascus and life is very difficult there. It’s so expensive; there’s no electricity and no transportation.”

Rodaina hopes the Irish Government will accept her application for her parents to join the family in Dublin.

Marwan says his faith has been a huge support since leaving Syria. “God helped us leave the explosions behind and sent us here. He has been taking care of my family since the first day we arrived. We are so grateful to God for all the kind people we’ve met.”

Ovidiu and Luminita Miron
Arrived from Romania, 2014-2015

When Luminita followed her husband, Ovidiu, to Ireland from Bucharest in May 2015, she was enthusiastic about starting a new life in Dublin with their three young sons. The eldest, Tudor, began school in September without a word of English. Nine months later, his language skills have vastly improved.

The middle boy, Vlad, has struggled as he was too young to go to school and make friends. Luminita looks forward to when he begins preschool in September and hopes he will make friends and learn English. Stefan, the youngest, is just 1½.

“Vlad was the most annoyed because he didn’t have kids to play with all year. I found some play groups for him, but because of the language differences he couldn’t integrate well. This autumn this will change.”

Luminita increasingly appreciates life in Ireland – “the capricious weather, the humid air, the warm winter and cold summer, the open and pleasant people, the amazing landscapes and all the good and bad between”.

Last October she spoke of the loneliness and isolation of minding the children at home while Ovidiu is at work. The Miron family has begun spending time with Romanian friends who have kids of the same age, and Luminita gets on well with their Irish neighbours. “But this takes time. We are on the right track,” she says.

“I have moments when I miss friends and family very much and the food; in summer the fruits and vegetables from my parents’ garden taste heavenly. But those moments pass when I think about all the amazing things around me here. I must enjoy them now because no one knows what will happen in the future and where we will be.” Luminita, who worked as a business analyst in Romania, will begin looking for a job in the autumn.

Her husband Ovidiu, who works at a tech company in Dublin, has watched with pride as his son’s English-language skills have “shot up” over the year. He has made plenty of friends from around the world through work. “If you have enough time to hang around with the right people, you will end up having lots of friends. Dublin is a good place to meet people; there are plenty of different cultures.”

“Ireland is our home now,” he adds. “Nobody knows for how long; we have no fixed plans. But I’m feeling good about where I work and live, so no plans for change.”

Ellen Baker and James Sweeney
Arrived from New York, 2015

In May last year Ellen Baker and James Sweeney swapped their life in Tarrytown on the banks of the Hudson River, north of New York city, for an apartment on the banks of the Grand Canal in Dublin. They had spent most of their lives in New York, but with retirement on the horizon, the couple decided to take a chance and follow their dream of living in Ireland.

Baker, who volunteers as a tour guide at St Patrick's Cathedral and in an Oxfam shop, says the first year in Ireland has been "very gratifying . . . The experience has been one of the easiest life transitions I have ever made. I spent 15 years dreaming of living here every day. I thought I was deluding myself, and even went into some short-term, transitional therapy during the last few months before we moved."

The key to the success of moving their lives across the Atlantic was concrete planning, says Baker. “We learned as much as we could about finding a place to live, neighbourhoods, healthcare etc before we left. That was a critical part of the process and it really paid off. But, at the end of the day, I had to rely on my gut feelings and trust that what I had been dreaming of unceasingly for 15 years was real and true.”

Sweeney says they hoped to discover “new identities by engaging in volunteer activities”. After a career in the American healthcare sector, Sweeney has followed his passion for animal welfare by volunteering at Dublin Zoo and the Irish Blue Cross.

“Dublin Zoo is a world-class zoological park that projects a vital message of conservation, preservation and education into sustainable living on the planet that reaches an appreciative national and international visiting public. These uniquely Irish charities have motivated my integration into Irish society and life.”

The couple have also joined the Revenue Choir and have made good friends in the city. “There would not be life without friendships, and we have been blessed with forming meaningful, warm and enduring bonds in the course of our first year,” says Sweeney. “Our love of Ireland would be appreciably diminished without the love of these new-found friends.”

Susanna Wickes and Tom Wang
Arrived from China, 2015

Shortly after he had married Susanna Wickes, Tom Wang travelled outside China for the first time to visit her family in Edinburgh. That was in 2014. A year later the couple packed their belongings and travelled halfway across the world to begin a new life in Dublin. Wickes had been accepted into an applied linguistics master's at Trinity College Dublin, and Wang was eager to see the world.

“If I didn’t, I was worried I might end up staying in Inner Mongolia forever,” he said at the time.

Nearly a year later, Wickes is writing her dissertation, and Wang is working as a barista in Starbucks. The couple recently moved from their flat in the Trinity Halls complex to a new home in Ranelagh in Dublin 6. They will stay in Dublin until Wickes's graduation and then decide whether they will remain in Ireland.

“We’ve had such a good first year here. We’re not ready to leave yet,” says Wickes, who is now teaching at an English- language school near Ranelagh. “Everything has gone pretty smoothly. Tom’s residence application required a lot of patience, but it’s mostly sorted now. Tom hasn’t got his long-term residence card yet, but it should be here any day. Fortunately this doesn’t affect his right to work, and he got his work permit in January.”

Wang says Dublin feels like a second home but still finds the city very expensive. “We have to be more careful with our money than we were in China, but that’s not too big a deal.”

“I like that everything in this city is so green and that the air is always so fresh, even though the weather isn’t great all the time. The people here are probably my favourite thing about living here, and I’m excited to stay for another year.”