The Republic: The Pope was the only thought in the minds of the Polish community in Ireland yesterday, said Stella Pedziwiatr, a recruitment consultant living in Dublin.
"I was just talking to my mother, and she said 'Poland is crying'. Everyone is crying on the streets and they are all in the churches, praying for him."
An estimated 50,000 Poles have moved to Ireland since their country joined the EU last year. Ms Pedziwiatr said every Polish person living here would want to be in Poland at the moment.
"You feel you are missing something. The Polish people always get together when disasters happen. Even when communism was in Poland, people socialised in the church."
She remembered the massive crowds flocking to churches when the Pope was shot. "Everybody was in the church, up all night crying. It's going to be a black week."
She was planning to attend Mass in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral yesterday evening and expected to meet many Polish friends there.
Polish priest Fr Andrew Puyka said the Pope would be the main thought in the minds of his congregation who would be attending Sunday Polish Mass in St Michan's Church in Dublin.
Fr Puyka, who is also parish priest of Sallynoggin, Co Dublin, said the Pope was "the man of the millennium. What he has done for us as a nation and for the world in general is just unquestionable. He gave us dignity and respect. He gave us a place and a position in the world".
He pointed to Pope John Paul II's fight against communism in Poland and said the country would never have joined the EU without the Pope's role.
Fr Puyka met the Pope in 1967 when he was in the seminary and the Pope was a bishop. "He was very strict and very traditional and he spoke in a language that was hard to understand."
Seminarians used to joke that their penance in purgatory would be to read some of the bishop's very academic, philosophical writings.
Yet when he became Pope, his language changed, said Fr Puyka. "He was speaking a much simpler language and I can see that this was the work of the Holy Spirit. He could speak to ordinary people anywhere."
Maciek Umiecki, Polish liaison officer at Telling Construction in Celbridge, Co Kildare, said Polish friends had spent most of Thursday night watching the television for news of the Pope.
He described the Pope as "one of the biggest men in the world." He still remembered the massive celebrations when the Pope was elected. "I was very surprised and nobody knew what to expect. We were so proud and I still am very proud of him. He was one of the men who had the greatest influence on the history of the world, especially in the last 25 years."
Poles Apart - Making Ireland Home: Kathryn Holmquist reports in Weekend Review, in the first of a two-part series, on the people from eastern Europe who have come to work in Ireland
