Ireland from a Polish perspective

For the last couple of months we have been facing sad news about attacks on Polish community in Northern Ireland.

The first attack took place on 20th of May in Derry - Waterside when the Polish family was attacked at their place by masked men. Another attack took place on 27th of May in Megheraflet in county Derry. Young Polish male has been brutally beaten and severely wounded (broken skull and wounded face). The attack took place late evening when he was walking from door to door trying to sell some pictures of saints.
The last one took place last week in Belfast on Castlereagh Road. Somebody put fire at the door of the house inhabited by Poles who work in Belfast. A few of them were brought to the hospital with the symptoms of suffocation and monoxide poisoning.

Despite of the fact that The Northern Ireland Police claims that some of the reported attacks and threats could be provoked by very loudly behavior that brought attention of some of the hooligans, the common rumor about attackers is the same as the some opinions of the Northern Ireland Police: the attackers are supposed to be Protestants involved in far right neonazi movements that are very popular in the North, and almost all of the Poles are Catholics and the number of Poles grows rapidly both in the Republic and in the North.

I can agree with the opinions that some of the noisy aggressive Poles can provoke attacks, and every Polish person is in charge of the opinion about whole community, and because of level of hate and pressure in the North people ?Äï especially Protestants ?Äï can be less tolerant than people in the Republic. It is clear.

But for sure, there is another aspect of this problem. Number of Polish emigrants is growing rapidly. We are the biggest minority in the Republic, and the same is in the North
I guess. Most of the Poles are Catholics, and many of them decided to stay longer than temporarily in Ireland, thus the percentage of the Catholics in the North is growing, and maybe now Protestants are outnumbered.
Maybe the pressure of the changing religious ?Äï political status quo is the answer for those attacks. In a couple of years Protestants in the North may become minority. Of course Polish minority has no direct effect on political situation, but for sure they have an effect on minds.
Some of my friends have no good memories from the protestant areas of Belfast. They were told very seriously that Catholics, especially Poles, are not welcomed there. They had no problems in Catholic districts.

It is told that loyalists are usually cut off and closed minded. I can understand aggressive reaction on aggressive behavior of foreign emigrants, and I know that could happen, as I know how we behave sometimes, but those attacks have religious and nazi background.

The loyalist?Äôs attacks on Polish emigrants can?Äôt lead to any good thing. It can only antagonize all communities and put formerly neutral Polish minority at the same side as republicans. At the moment we and republicans have the same threat ?Äï loyalist masked criminals
Will that ?ÄúDAY?ÄÌ come for Poles as well? It depends as the same on us as on the Protestants in NI.

A the end, I have to admit, that I got some black-mailing emails with threats sent from the Northern Ireland.

Graffiti in Derry (after Polish National Television TVP):

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