IPPN

Published: 06 July 2005

While many European nations struggle with the immigration issue, Ireland has adopted a more positive attitude, offering free English lessons, and celebrating its newfound multiculturalism.

A new wave of immigrants have been making their way to Ireland

When a national economy thrives the way Ireland's has in recent years, you might expect the capital city to take on an increasingly international flavour.

But an Irish market town, situated on bog land, in the middle of the country, a place of cattle-rearing, peat-cutting and whiskey-making?

Walk up the main street in Tullamore, County Offaly, in 2005 and you will hear languages of Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.

Within the space of only about five years, foreign faces have become the norm.

'Growing awareness'

"We're coming on, you know," one local man said. "We may only be a small town but we're metropolitan now!"

I have been looking at Ireland's new ethnic mix through the - slightly unlikely - eyes of the Adult Literacy Agency.

It was given the responsibility for making sure English language lessons were available free of charge to every immigrant who wanted them.

Inez Bailey, the agency's director, told me: "There was a growing awareness that we needed more of our population to be productive and involved in society".

She admitted to having had to organise things "in a bit of a vacuum" because immigration on today's scale was such a new phenomenon for Ireland.

But once it was established that the foreigners did not have to declare their legal status to be entitled to language lessons, they came "in droves".

In demand

Several years ago, Mary McLoughlin volunteered to help run adult education classes in a classroom off the market square in Tullamore.

The classes have proved extremely popular with the new arrivals

At that time Ms McLoughlin never imagined her services would be in such demand from a new workforce lapping up the rules of English grammar.

"We're a multi-national town now," she said, "and we meet multi-national needs."

At a Tuesday evening lesson given by Tanya Moran - a Belorussian woman married to a County Offaly man - it is evident Ireland is one of only three old EU countries to open its doors straight away to migrant workers from the new Eastern European members.

Among her students are a plasterer from Latvia, a cook from Poland and a waitress from Hungary.

They are so focused on improving their English that they often work through breaks.

Foreign workforce

A couple of kilometres away on the outskirts of town, a busy building site typical of many in the area, provides more insight into the kind of social upheavals going on.

Brendan Grimes is supervising work on 200 near-identical new houses, expected to be snapped up as rental properties, second homes or new homes for Irish families becoming smaller.

About 65% of his workforce is foreign "from Poland, Brazil, China, Lithuania", he said.

"It's a great mix. It's a very good thing for me."

Brendan warned against thinking that his attitude is universal here, and spoke about racism in some parts of Irish society.

But he said his own approach is shaped by having been an itinerant builder and immigrant himself - nine years in the UK, and three years in Germany.

"I know what it's like," he said, "there was no work here when I left school."

"There was just a boat in Rosslare and away you went to England and did whatever had to be done to earn a living.

"These guys here are the very same, they're hungry for the work, nothing is a problem. I have admiration for them all... and we need them.

"The Celtic Tiger couldn't keep on going if it wasn't for them."

Jack, from southern China, is employed on the site as a plasterer.

He said he earned the kind of money in Ireland he could only dream of at home; money to give his wife a good standard of living, and to give his four-year-old son a private education.

Sharing skills

On other days of the week, the classroom at Tullamore Adult Learning Centre is used by local people who come for lessons to improve their reading and writing skills.

I asked farmer Kevin O'Duffy from Ballycumber, if he thought it was right that an education budget funded by Irish tax-payers should also buy English lessons for the newcomers.

"Yes, it's right," he said. "They're quite welcome as far as I'm concerned.

"It's good for the community that people are going to settle down and bring skills and knowledge from their own countries, whatever it may be.

"So we need to help them achieve their goals and help them communicate with the people of Ireland."

Social revolution in rural Ireland? Maybe.

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