Archive for January, 2007 Page 2 of 2

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Polish Policemen in PSNI

Published at January 14, 2007 in Northern Ireland, Polish Comm and Polish Emigration. 7 Comments

Couple of days ago Irish Independent devoted its attention to a massive number (about 1000) of applications to the Police Service of Northern Ireland by young Poles. It is well welcomed by PSNI and due to the fact that almost all Polish emigrants are catholics it would fit perfectly a PSNI 50 ?Äï 50 recruitment policy. Employ 1000 Polish officers would raise an overall percentage of Catholics in the service from 21 percent at present.

It is a good opportunity for many of Polish emigrants, and former policemen to be still in the service and to earn at least 4 times more than in Poland. The need to employ Poles to the police service is quite obvious due to growing number of our community in Northern Ireland (which is now estimated to be about 30 thousands). The same need exist in the Republic, but I am a little bit afraid about that idea in the Northern Ireland.

Due to the agreement there must be an equal number of protestants and catholics in the PSNI, but it is far to be done at present. There is many reasons of that, i.e. there is a problem with MI5 involvement in PSNI and I guess there can be still lack of confidence to the police among the catholic communities and their experiences with RUC. For the British and Northern Ireland authorities employment of huge number of Poles can be a solution. They can say that everything goes fine, due to the growing number of catholics in the service. But Poles are a foreign element, not linked to the problems, memories and sensitives of the local catholic communities. In my opinion they can’t be a good representatives of the Irish catholics in the North and they probably won’t be a regarded by them as let me say ?Äúour people?ÄÌ.

Apart of a real need to recruit Poles to PSNI, there is a danger of political involvement, and in my opinion Poles won’t be a good replacement for the Irish catholics in the service. I hope that the number of Poles employed will be appropriate to the size and needs of Polish community’ and won’t be treated by the NI authorities as part of the 50 ?Äï 50 recruitment policy.

kick it on kick.ie

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Nenagh from Abbey Street perspective

Published at January 11, 2007 in Nenagh. 6 Comments

A week ago I came back to Nenagh after two months I spent on touring with my band in Poland. It is my second time in Nenagh and after 2 months I have just started to gather more information and reflections on this town and its citizens and also their own opinions about it. I have been searching the Internet for a while and I have found an interesting thread on boards.ie. Discussion conducted by Nenagh residents concerned positive and negative aspects of living in Nenagh, what is good and what is bad in the town and also policy of the local authorities. During reading the discussion forum I tired to determine my own reflections and opinion what is good and what is bad. Sometimes the same thing or place can be considered both as a good and bad.

Nenagh seems to be nice cozy town with spacious but not overwhelming main streets and the main junction. Buildings are nice, some of them reminds much bigger town, and others are typical for small Irish towns, both kinds fit excellent (in my opinion). Both Kenyon and Pearse Streets look much better with Christmas decoration, especially with the lamps hanged above them. Compared to Kenyon and Pearse streets, Banba Square seems to be not developed properly and the Garda station determines unofficial boundary of the town center. The same impression I got on Silver Street, that is more quite and narrow and it would be the perfect place for quite restaurants, caf??s and pubs. The same opinion has been expressed on boards.ie mentioned above.

In my emigrant’s opinion the thing that seems to be the biggest disadvantage of the town is very low quality of the Internet services. There are only 2 Internet caf??s. One on Kenyon street is mostly full of the children with no proper place for quiet work. There is only one Internet access socket for people with their own laptops in the front of the caf?? just close to the bar. Before I got my wireless access I tried to connect to the Internet via access socket in the Internet caf??, but without success. It was simply broken. The other one, not so far away, in the back of O’Connors shopping center, but almost always I tried to visit that place it was closed. The only available for public wireless access point is provided by computer shop on Mitchel’s Street for about 30 Eu per month, but unfortunately the coverage of it encompass only the front table in the pub on the opposite side of the street. I can’t understand why the town authorities haven’t made up their mind to introduce WiMax coverage on the Nenagh center or on entire town. It could be simple due to the compaction of the urban area. There is no need to have it for free, but I am sure that this service would find many of users willing to pay a monthly charge. Good example of town authorities’ attitude to the Internet and promotion of the town in it, is an official Nenagh web page (www.nenagh.ie) that looks rather outdated in its form and design. It doesn’t encourage potential tourist to visit the town, not to mention on the lack of web 2.0 idea, that would give to the residents opportunity to co-operate in the building its content and design. Nenagh Town Council website looks pretty old fashioned as well. The lack of information and links about Nenagh in Internet is clearly visible in Google ?Äï Nenagh Town official page takes 2nd place after… my blog’s entry (Polish version).

The second disadvantage is for sure the lack of good promotion of touristic values of the town, especially the castle and Franciscan’s Friary. The Castle seems to be pretty interesting with its tower and gate house, but both buildings seems to be shut down for good and renovation seems last forever. The castle with good touristic facilities and good promotion of the place (like tourist center, guides) would be a good reason to visit the town, and maybe the Reginald’s Tower in Waterford is more interesting but both structures are almost the same age and Nenagh Castle can be utilized in the same way. I must admit, that recently there have been some work in the castle vicinity.

Franciscan’s Friary is the 2nd problem linked with another disadvantage or dark side of the town. It lies at the end of Abbey Street, one of the dirties in the town. I am living just 2 houses down from the church ruin on that street. Almost everyday it is covered with liter left by the customers of O’Connors supermarket. Empty plastic bottles, flying pieces of cardboard boxes or plastic bags. It looks disgusting and what is the shame ?Äï it is almost strictly town center.

Some photos I took recently:

Nenagh Castle:

Nenagh

Nenagh

St Merry’s Church:

Nenagh

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Rural Pubs extinction

Published at January 11, 2007 in Irish culture and Ireland. 0 Comments

The yesterday issue of Irish Independent devoted a couple of pages to a problem of drink-driving legislation and its impact on a rural society.

A couple of months ago I was thinking about the costs of the economical changes in Ireland. I have noticed that following the economical boom there is a lot of changes in the Irish landscape and even culture. A rapid grow has both positive and negative impact on Irish society and land. One of the negative aspects is drink-driving. The new drink-driving legislation is understandable, but from the other hand affected the rural parts of Ireland - especially rural pubs that started to lose customers who don’t want to walk a couple of kilometers on the winding and narrow Irish roads. Public transportation in the country doesn’t exist almost. Some of the pubs has been close down becasue they almost lost all of their customers. Some of the pub owners - facing losing their business - begun to drive their customers from and to their homes.

In my opinion Irish rural pubs have important place in the landscape and small country communities and their disappearance would be a great loss. Irish Independent report on the fastest government reaction to a backbencher proposal to introduce Nightlink buses in the country. Anyway, it is strange that the government didn’t think about that before introducing drink-driving legislation.
I hope that Irish people won’t pay that high price of the economical changes and they won’t awake in a couple of years only to look back and complain about what they lost.

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Irish Media question

Published at January 6, 2007 in Polish Comm and Polish Emigration. 3 Comments

About 3 months ago I was invited to the live debate on the air of RTE radio on the question: what can Irish Media do for the growing number of Polish emigrants. Unfortunately I couldn’t go because of the workday and distance between Nenagh and Dublin. Regardless of my absence that problem is still up to date.

The more important question arises, if the Polish emigrants want anything more from Irish Media? So far Poles have had about 6 or so Polish magazines, weekly newspapers and so on. Some of them have been published as a supplements to Irish newspapers and some others have been independent or probably a part of non Irish media group. In any case, Polish every emigrant has wide selection of Polish press. Moreover, in Dublin one can buy today’s Polish press imported from Poland and many of us have Polish digital TV receivers. The other important fully independent medium is the Internet, over that we can listen to Polish radio stations or we can read the breaking news on Polish Internet portals. Well, of course - a Polish public television and radio channel broadcasted by RTE would be excellent, but in my opinion that wouldn’t integrate Polish community into Irish society. It would made many of my compatriots so comfortable, that they wouldn’t learn English at all. The attitude of Irish community to Polish TV or radio public channel would be questionable as well.

Many of the emigrants are completely cut off from the Irish present issues and problems. They are not interested in Ireland at all, due to their plans to stay only temporarily in Ireland. Others, who want to stay for a long term, usually they have Polish media and many of them learn English.

So, what can the Irish Media do for Polish emigrants?

In my opinion our communities - both Irish and Polish are still cut off from each other. Irish people know something about Poland and Poles, but usually not so much to understand everything that seems to them so strange or even mad, and Poles can provide a fresh independent outlook on Ireland and its issues or problems, showing the Ireland from a Polish perspective. During conducting my blog a couple of time I was asked to give an interview or opinion to both Irish press and radio, and considering that, I am of the opinion that the best what we can do for each other is to let Polish columnists or journalists present our point of view in Irish media more often.

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