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A A wave of violent anti-migrant protests in Dublin and beyond, including the burning of property meant for asylum seekers, and an emerging far-right have challenged the Irish government over the past year.
In the seaside resort of Courttown, 100 km (60 miles) south of Dublin, residents showed there is another way, full of humanity and support for people fleeing conflict or persecution.
A hotel here houses around 200 male refugees and asylum seekers, including a doctor, a vet and an engineer who speaks five languages.
This is their story.
It was pure luck that Grandma William made it across on the boat and pure luck that she survived. His roommate in Libya, also from South Sudan, initially received the call from the people smugglers to reach the Libyan coast to help pilot the boat across the Mediterranean. “He was sick and he said ‘go away,'” says William. He didn’t know how to steer the boat, but he knew how to use a GPS from years of working with his father, a fisherman.
“We were moved at four in the morning and then I started praying and praying. There were 85 people on the boat,” he says. It was his first attempt to get there Europe. “I had a guy also from South Sudan next to me who had tried nine times.”
He continues: “We were three days at sea. We were trying to get close to Lampedusa and then the engine stopped. We had no fuel. Fishing boats were coming close to us, but they said they couldn’t help us. They asked us what we needed and threw us bread and water. We had a phone and kept calling the emergency number for Italy.”
They were eventually rescued by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and ended up in the Italian port of Bari. After saying goodbye to the dangers of life under the militia in South Sudan and then in Libya, he could not believe how difficult it was in Italy, which this year took in 105,000 people on boats run by people smugglers.
He supported himself by working illegally harvesting olives in the middle of the night, for which he was paid €40 (£33) for an eight-hour shift, until he was selected for an official Irish refugee resettlement program and was one of 21 people sent by plane to Dublin two years ago.
Born in Khartoum, 29-year-old William recalls the ever-dangerous life at home when civil war broke out. “It wasn’t safe,” he says. “Even now people are scared. You don’t know what will happen to you at night or if you walk down the street. You go to work and you may not come back. People just disappear. And you can’t tell who’s taking people, who’s killing people.”
Barre, a doctor from Somalia who received his refugee papers a year ago, spoke of his relief at being in Irelandeven if he cannot legally practice medicine. “There is no militia in Ireland. It’s very safe here. You can speak freely here,” he says, highlighting the freedoms people in democracies often take for granted.
Explaining how he ended up thousands of miles from home, he lifts his peaked hat to reveal a horseshoe scar on his skull from a rifle butt. He also has a large scar from a bullet wound he received during a militia ambush near Mogadishu in which his friend was shot dead.
“I was working with medical people and they caught us, me and a logistician who was driving,” he says. “They said they had to take the car, they shot him and hit me on the head and shot me. You can see the shape of the rifle. I was in a coma for four days and they took me to prison, but someone helped me out.
He went to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, later got a UK visa and stayed in London for about two years, but realized it was “not good” for him. A fellow Somali he met offered to get to Ireland via Belfast.
“I like Courtown,” he says. “People are very hospitable, they help refugees. If my family comes here, I will be so happy.”
Mohamed, an Algerian vet, also arrived in Courtown via London and Belfast. He says: “When I was in Algeria, I didn’t know what asylum was. I didn’t know about Ireland or where it was. I just wanted to leave Algeria. I completed my military service and started working at the same time, but I also started looking for a visa. I tried France, Germany, Italy, Canada, USA for 10 years and finally got a UK visa. I didn’t tell my mom or dad, just my brother, that I was going.
After 11 days in London in a hostel, he was advised by someone he met while looking for a house share that he would be better off applying for asylum in Ireland and could go undocumented via Belfast. “I met a guy who had been in London for 10 years without documents, another 12 years, so I started thinking about Ireland,” he says.
Like Barre, he was unable to practice his trade due to different qualification standards, but quickly became involved in local life, working in a charity shop to keep busy six days a week, and now works as a barista in nearby Gorey.
“Things were bad in Algeria,” he says. “I wasn’t feeling well and I just had to leave. I didn’t mind where. I was happy when I got England because it is famous. One of my friends said that if England is not good, there is a chance of going to Ireland. I had never heard this information before.”
Bouncy, cheerful, Muhammad says he may be sad inside because of the trauma at home, but outside he is “always happy.” He is currently awaiting his second asylum interview and says he is optimistic. Fluent in Arabic and French and improving his English, he wants to take the exams to work as a vet again and build a future.
Also at the hotel is Theron, a young South African journalism graduate who came to Ireland to escape persecution, including after attending a pride march with a friend in the town of Alexandra. He says he has received death threats and been robbed repeatedly and felt unsafe in a country known for its inadequate police force and whose homicide rate is at a 20-year high.
Theron’s mother now lives in the UK with a sibling, but he was not allowed to join them as he was no longer a minor. Not knowing what else to do, he sought refuge in Ireland in the hope that he could be close to his family.
Courttown is “very peaceful,” he says. “People care about each other. There are always activities and people are asking us for help and giving us some interesting things to do.”
He adds: “I never felt threatened or hated. I haven’t been called names’, although he says some of his friends closer to Dublin have had to ‘cancel some of their plans’ at the time of the anti-immigration the riots last November.
Why Courtown has been so successful in integrating asylum seekers and how it has managed to escape the kind of anger and abuse captured in a recent RTÉ documentary, Inside the Protests. People in the town say this is largely down to the integrated support offered by residents, gardaí, transport operators, the library, the football club.
“Watching this program, I can’t get over what I saw. It was shocking, it was frightening,” Carmel, a local shopkeeper, says of the documentary. “We haven’t had any problems with people here. They are nice, friendly, always say good morning and thank you, many of them can work, work, buy Irish cars and put money into the local economy.’
Donny, who works in the same shop, says of the arrivals: “Personally, I think it’s good. We learn something from them. Some people feel they are losing their Irish heritage because they can’t sing the national anthem. But you have to remember that this country is very set in its ways – look at the priests and the abuse that just came to light. We must remember that our way is not always the best way.
Craig Lang, a community activist, says the key to success is that the people of Courtown decided to get to know the people at the hotel. Gardaí responded to any problems at the hotel and some of the arrivals were welcomed into the football team, given jobs at the local Tesco and bakery and asked to manage local festivals. Their visibility lessened the chances of fear taking hold in this small seaside resort.
The community already had experience with families in the hotel, so Lang says there was a “transition” when the hotel became a hub for male asylum seekers. “It was really simple. All of these people are human beings, so there was crossover with what we were doing before.”
Lang says: “We went in and talked to them, explained what the city was like, taught them about Irish culture, got security [police] c to talk with them, discuss with them and interact with them. They’re all new in town, so we explained what hasn’t worked in the past as hanging out in large groups. We warned them about community cohesion and it worked.
“We got them involved in volunteering, litter picking, traffic control at festivals and things like that. And it was brilliant to see them integrate. In Dublin they don’t have the opportunity to integrate into the community and I think that’s where the fear comes from. Here people accept them for who they are because they talk to them.”
“Of course you get a few idiots,” he adds, referring to a brawl in the street involving several of those he supports. “But it was nipped in the bud because we had channels of communication with them. At the end of the day, it was a pleasure to help these guys integrate.”
Lang says “boarding people” as done in Dublin or Newtown Mount Kennedy is a recipe for disaster. “You block them out,” creating them and us, he says.
What are his tips for other cities? “Talk to people, engage with them, get to know them,” he says. “Get to know their story. Ask what help they need, what mental support they need. And get them involved in the local community.”
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