Syrians in Ireland: ‘It feels like life has been on pause for years’

It's a midweek evening in Thurles, Co Tipperary and the Syrian-Irish card game is well under way.

"I think we're going to win again," says Ayman Amouneh, with a mischievous grin.

There’s laughter and ribbing, in a mixture of English and Arabic.

When Ayman and other Syrian men arrived here a year ago, they were taught to play blackjack by locals from the Men's Shed organisation. Now, they're beating them at their own game.

“It a nice break,” he says. “We get to meet Irish people and practice our English. They get to know us. We’ve a lot in common. We’ve a similar sense of humour.”

Thurles has been home to 12 Syrian refugee families for the past year or so who moved here as part of a State-funded resettlement project.

It has tested families, whose lives have been disrupted and traumatised by years of conflict.

But it has also challenged the town to meet the needs of new members of the community, at a time when unemployment and affordable housing are highly sensitive issues.

With up to 4,000 asylum seekers due to be relocated to Ireland under a wider relocation programme over the next two years, policy-makers and community are taking a close eye on how the project is faring.

Most families have been housed in middle-class housing estates, scattered across the town, with no sign of opposition from neighbours.

Sally Daly, a refugee resettlement officer with the North Tipperary Leader Partnership, says much gone into auditing people's skills and interests to help target employment and training.

But there has also been a big emphasis on building up social connections across the community.

“At the end of the day, we’re talking about people with shared traditions, stories and experiences,” she says.

“We’ve already had a Syrian and Irish story-telling evening. There’s a women’s art group, a men’s chess and cards group that locals and Syrians attend. There are English classes. Day-trips. It all helps build bridges.”

Major challenges to integration remain, like making services accessible to non-English speakers.

Ayman (26), a father of two, is better placed than most to adjust to a new life.

Prosperous, well educated and with good English, he never thought he would end up making a new life for himself thousands of miles from home.

His family had a rambling, seven-bedroom house outside Aleppo with a swimming pool.

Own house

While studying economics, he worked part-time as an accountant and was saving to build his own house.

But his involvement in uploading video clips of anti-government marches to YouTube and other sites meant he became a marked man as the conflict deteriorated.

He fled across the border to Lebanon in August 2012, where he ended up seeking asylum.

When he slipped back across the border months later, he realised there was no going back.

“Everything is gone – everything you could imagine. My college, my house, my family – five of my cousins are dead – and my friends,” he says. “My father’s business. My childhood memories. All gone.”

Ayman feels haunted by what happened, but is determined to rebuild his life.

He is married and has two young children, aged one and three months. He hopes to go to college shortly and carve out a new career in aeronautical engineering.

“All of us want to work. There was no social system in Syrian. You work to survive. Every single man here will learn how to work, or find work,” Ayman says.

“We are all very thankful to have another chance at life,” he says. “It feels like life has been on ‘pause’ for years. Now, it’s time to press ‘play’.”