‘I went knocking the doors here in Bray because I couldn’t find a place to live. I had the baby in my arms’

Deusa de Assis answers the door of her new home. She and her daughter Lilly moved in a month before Christmas. Originally from Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, Brazil, de Assis has lived in Ireland since 2010. She’s delighted with her new apartment, one of more than 200 new rental social homes near Southern Cross in Bray, Co Wicklow, opened by Co-operative Housing Ireland in November.

Her new, light-filled, two-bedroom apartment has a large corner window and L-shaped balcony with a splendid view. She proudly shows me around, pointing out Bray Head, the Little Sugar Loaf and the Big Sugar loaf in the distance. On a clearer day the sea is visible. She loves the light, missing the Brazilian sun. She has hardly any furniture yet, but bought a cooker, fridge and washing machine with her savings. She laid the wood flooring herself, impressively working out how to make the attractive cross-hatch in the corner.

It’s been a long time coming. Deusa (“goddess”) de Assis is thrilled with her luck, and the security of a home after nine years on Wicklow’s social housing waiting list; nine years is staggering, but she says she knows neighbours who were waiting 20 years.

“Now I can give my daughter the basic things she needs for a good life – a good education and a secure home.” Lilly comes in. She’s been playing with a new friend nearby. She has a word, grabs a bite and runs off to play again. She has settled in very quickly. She is very sociable, her mother says.

‘I came to Ireland in 2016. If I came in 2024 I wouldn’t survive because now the rents are like €3,000’

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Life wasn’t always this good. She came to Ireland in 2010 with a friend studying English. She had to consult a map to find Ireland and had hardly any English. In Brazil she was a gigs and events producer with a busy social life. Originally intending to spend a year or two learning English (“I couldn’t say anything. It was so hard at the beginning”), she also worked at an insurance broker. She extended her stay, but planned to return to work in Brazil, which was hosting the 2014 World Cup and 2020 Olympics.

“And then,” she sighs. “I got pregnant. It was very hard moment.” This changed everything. Her Irish boyfriend of four months didn’t want to be involved. Ultimately, “he’s not part of our life”, she says. When Lilly asks about her father she says “maybe it’s not his time. People are different”.

She was in her 30s, pregnant, alone, thousands of miles from family and support, with very little money, precarious housing, working 20 hours a week. It sounds harrowing. She considered going home, but her mother encouraged her to stay in Ireland, where she’d earned maternity leave and where prenatal care would be better. She was afraid, “totally lonely. It was very hard, overwhelming. I was broken-hearted”.

Being alone and pregnant far from home was also a learning experience. She recalls telling her mother years later that she was ultimately thankful for a challenging situation where ‘I could learn so much. I could grow up as a human’

She’s encountered aggression. She recalls queuing in Social Protection when she was pregnant, for information about maternity leave. “I’m student but I work and pay tax. And the guy said go away, go to your home. We have nothing for you here.”

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She moved into a house-share in Bray. When Lilly was born in 2014, her mother visited for a few weeks. “It got to be awkward to be there with the baby, because she was crying in the middle of the night.” The landlord gave her a month to find somewhere else. “I went knocking the doors here in Bray because I couldn’t find a place to live. I had the baby in my arms.” She got lucky through a friend’s landlord, from whom she then rented for 10 years.

After the birth, “I was struggling. I was so slim, because I wasn’t eating properly. The money I got I used to buy formula for Lilly.” De Paul charity helped. “In Brazil we say a child is born with a bread under their arm. Which means that the mum will always find a way to feed them.” She used to go to family Mass in Bray, “to see people. I was going to the Mass to get the sense of: I exist.”

One day she resolved: “I will ask for advice from the father. We had almost no food to eat.” Fr John O’Connell, who died two years ago, was saying Mass. “He is my daughter’s godfather.” He introduced her to a solicitor who gave her legal advice and ultimately became a good friend. So, too, did the public health nurse who brought her to a mother-and-baby group. “She said, ‘This is Deusa and she needs your support.’ I used to go to see people, to feel I was alive that moment. And it was lovely. Most of the moms are very receptive and caring.”

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Three days after returning to work post-maternity, she lost her job. She recalls “going to the mothers’ group, saying to my friends, ‘guys, I was fired and I need a way to mind my baby. From now I’m being a childminder’.” She’s been a childminder for 10 years, growing very close to a couple of the families. One little girl the same age as Lilly is “like my daughter”.

Lockdown was “another chapter in my life”. A couple of weeks after shutdown, her beloved mother died suddenly in Brazil, aged 69. Her older sister is in Portugal and her father and two younger sisters are in Brazil. “I watched the funeral from WhatsApp. I screamed to see my mom going down. My mum was so loved.” She’s upset talking about it now. She finally got to her mother’s grave last year. Her friends were supportive, though Covid isolation was difficult. There were great kindnesses too, moving in, when the couple in a nearby apartment saw her lugging her things, and immediately helped.

Although she came from a very poor and dangerous part of Belo Horizonte, de Assis had a good life. She worked during the day so she could go to college at night. It was hard “to come here, to be a minority, the side that people pointed fingers at”. Through her early struggles in Ireland, she found strength and learned about humanity. “I would never have learned to be in these shoes, to be in this kind of life.”

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Being alone and pregnant far from home was also a learning experience. She recalls telling her mother years later that she was ultimately thankful for a challenging situation where “I could learn so much. I could grow up as a human”. When she sees people behaving badly, she reflects: “Each one of us are passing for such a battle. You don’t know.” She learned to stop and think “let’s be careful with all of us humans, because each one of us” has a story.

The future looks good. De Assis is building on her child-minding experience by starting a new business, With Love To, preparing balanced meals for children aged six months to two years. The parents she works for often ask her to make additional food for the children, so, having studied nutrition and food safety, she’s expanding this to offer a service preparing healthy, fresh and convenient meals for babies, toddlers and small children in Dublin and Bray. New year, new home, new business.

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish