The Polish?

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Hi,

Have been based in Cardiff recently, but back in Dublin for a week.

Am really loving the whole sentiment in the city about non-Irish people, specifically the Polish.

There are six Polish beers in the Centra on Dame Street. There are Polish signs in Dunnes on Georges Street. There is the Daily Polski Herald. The highlights from the Polish World Cup match last night were reported in the papers today from the Tolskay (sic?) Bar (a polish bar, with apparently 40 types of Vodka!) on O'Connell Street.

Really love this. I remember when i was based in the UK about 8 years ago that i went into deliriums of delight whenever i saw something Irish. Even if it was only the Irish Independent.

Personally, i think we are quite welcoming as a nation. I certainly don't see this in Cardiff, where i am based at the moment.

What do you know about the Polish?

I've personally had great experiences with the Polish people here.

What good experiences have you personally had?

p.s. please don't post negative comments - if you want to do that, then start a new thread. Let's have this as a positive thread about the 150,000 Polish people who are now based here

padi89

Roundtower2 wrote:

Hi,

Have been based in Cardiff recently, but back in Dublin for a week.

Am really loving the whole sentiment in the city about non-Irish people, specifically the Polish.

There are six Polish beers in the Centra on Dame Street. There are Polish signs in Dunnes on Georges Street. There is the Daily Polski Herald. The highlights from the Polish World Cup match last night were reported in the papers today from the Tolskay (sic?) Bar (a polish bar, with apparently 40 types of Vodka!) on O'Connell Street.

Really love this. I remember when i was based in the UK about 8 years ago that i went into deliriums of delight whenever i saw something Irish. Even if it was only the Irish Independent.

Personally, i think we are quite welcoming as a nation. I certainly don't see this in Cardiff, where i am based at the moment.

What do you know about the Polish?

I've personally had great experiences with the Polish people here.

What good experiences have you personally had?

p.s. please don't post negative comments - if you want to do that, then start a new thread. Let's have this as a positive thread about the 150,000 Polish people who are now based here.

Only really ever got to know one polish guy i worked with.Funny funny guy,used to always go on about out his 2 door honda civic back home in kracow(i dont know he spelling).He lived near me so i used to give him lifts to work and home etc.He thought the bus service in Ireland was in his words "a fvckin disgrace",he wouldnt be far off.

Amazotheamazing

Being from Limerick they've made a big, positive impression on the city (imo). Go down to the river on a sunny day and see beautiful polish girls in bikini's sunning themselves, nice distraction at lunch. Seriously though, I think Limerick is a much better place with them, in part becuase they've outpriced the knackers from the city centre, so the centre of town is just a more pleasant place. I'm sure there's horror stories too, but you get that everywhere.

Tar.Aldarion

The one's I have worked with have been lovely guys and I met a few cool ones. Mostly positive. Few bad experiences, as is to be expected, ejecting them from my parties and such.

monkeyfudge

Polish jobsworth secuirity gaurds are much more pleasent than the Irish jobsworths.

dahamsta

Roundtower2 wrote:

There are Polish signs in Dunnes on Georges Street.

Heh, cool. There was a program on one of the Irish channels recently telling Polish people about how to live in Ireland, i.e. rights, facilities, etc. How often do you see something similar for the Irish?

We've a lot to learn from them. If the muppets that complain about them sat down and had a chat with them, they might actually learn something.

adam

InFront

Serious drinkers, they fit right in! Ireland is like poland (or what i imagine Poland to be like!) in so many ways... History, culture, humour, religion and literature, they have it in gallons. I dont know many Polish people and I dont think we can speak for all of them, but in general theyre just like Irish people, very cool :cool:

Pity about the game, something else they have in common with us: world cup disappointment:)

Karl Hungus

I went out with a polish girl briefly. That was fun.

Dirk Gently

Ahh, love the poles and generally all the eastern Europeans I've had the pleasure of meeting. While you can't generalise the characteristics of a people as a whole, all my experiences so far have been good ones.

From my experience all I’ve met are great craic and very friendly. Love their drink and always find new ways to get hammered when socialising with them. (Not sure that’s a good thing but it is fun) They seem out going and generally just want to make friends and enjoy themselves. The women are crackers too, really friendly and easy to talk to. Even with some language problems I still find it easier taking to polish chicks than defensive and adversarial Irish girlies. (no offense Irish girlies) I realise I'm generalising but that’s my experience of Eastern Europeans I’ve met so far.

Kintarō Hattori

No complaints here. I've been seeing a Polish lady for the last 18 months and it's great. All the Polish folks I've met so far have been cool. I work with two and you can't meet two nicer harder working guys, really put most of our Irish workers too shame.

Fridge

Don't know many but the few I know seem nice. They seem to work really hard anyway.
I took a few Polish lessons a while ago. Impossible language - seriously, French is piss-easy compared to this!

super_furry

Haven't had a bad experience with any Pole. A mate of mine is seeing a Polish girl who is a bit of a headcase, but then again she'd have to be to be going out with him.

daveg

We employ quite a few where I work now (approx 40% of the 350 workforce). They are really hard workers and don't tend to moan and gripe like a lot of the Irish workers...

What amazes me is the qualifications some of them have and their doing manual/operator work. On our line we have 2 doctors and a chamical engineer to name but a few!!!

Irish Wolf

Amazotheamazing wrote:

Being from Limerick they've made a big, positive impression on the city (imo). Go down to the river on a sunny day and see beautiful polish girls in bikini's sunning themselves, nice distraction at lunch. Seriously though, I think Limerick is a much better place with them, in part becuase they've outpriced the knackers from the city centre, so the centre of town is just a more pleasant place. I'm sure there's horror stories too, but you get that everywhere.

I have to agree - they've really brought a breath of fresh air to Limerick in my opinion. I've met a quiet a few, quite mellow, and very friendly. They are really hard working, and very eager to make a good impression.

Slightly off topic... but...

Roundtower2 wrote:

Personally, i think we are quite welcoming as a nation. I certainly don't see this in Cardiff, where i am based at the moment.

I have to disagree with this, I've been visiting my brother in Cardiff for the last 10 years, and found the Welsh to be absolutely some of the finest people you could ever meet. We went to the Grand Slam decider last year and they were brilliant - can't think what it would have been like if the neighbours to the east had won!

But...

Poland - home of the best national dance!*




*completely plagarised.

pbsuxok1znja4r

The polish guitarist we had in our band took it really well when we had to kick him out...so, yeah, sound bloke. Had some weird ideas about music though. Polish metalcore FTW!

Yeah it's crazy how some of them have degrees and everything but are doing manual labour type stuff

Sam Vimes

i've met one who was a pr!ck but my experience overall has been very good. they're making it tricky to find a part-time job though. i worked in the leisureplex for four horrible hours because i couldn't find a job anywhere else

chamlis

Karl Hungus wrote:

I went out with a polish girl briefly. That was fun.

Dito. Tiny little barbie doll, she was. Lasted almost exactly a week, to the hour.

koneko

daveg wrote:

What amazes me is the qualifications some of them have and their doing manual/operator work. On our line we have 2 doctors and a chamical engineer to name but a few!!!

Yeah, same here, some people with great qualifications but they're doing very low level manual jobs

Goolay

I'm working with 4 Polish dudes at the moment and they're all dead sound. Self-deprecating sense of humour, hard workers, enjoy a few beers.

ChityWest

I would say they are just the same as us really. Cept their women are almost all fan-tastic. Judging from the ones I have come across - I would be interested in seeing poland at some point as it sounds like a cool place. Yay EU !

dahamsta

Threads like this must drive the minority of Irish racists nuts. Which is nice.

adam

Sleepy

Threads like this make me quite proud to be Irish.

Dyr

I *love* the fact that the majority of people in the city centre dont speak english anymore..i'd say thats doing great things for our tourist industry :mad:

Most poles and iron curtain types i meet are sound enough..too much of a good thing at this stage though lol

Savman

Lovely people, great for a laugh and good to have 'em in Ireland but their World Cup team SUCKS!:D:D:D

Setun

Are there many Polish on boards?

Never a problem with them, and yep their women are fantastic. Worked with one for a while last summer, sound lady.

Owen

My girlfriend is Polish, as were my previous two. They're the most kind people you'll ever meet, they all want to suceed in life, and coming to Ireland is a great way for them to do it. They work hard, socialise mostly indoors at dinners, well behaved when they're out, and they WANT to integrate. Their food is great, their beer is just incredible (Okocim Mocne if you're out lads, 7% no hangover), and the vodka is crisp. I had the pleasure of going to a Polish christmas celebration on the 24th of December this year. 12 people around the table, and the craic was unreal.

Plus, Poland is a beautiful spot for holidays, Krackow is idyllic, and Warsaw is great for a day visit. The mountain lakes are like something from a postcard, and you can live like a king for a week on 300 Euro.

Terry

Bambi wrote:

I *love* the fact that the majority of people in the city centre dont speak english anymore..i'd say thats doing great things for our tourist industry :mad:

i went into one of the mcdonalds on O'Connell street one day about 7 or 8 years ago and i was the only Irish customer in the place. the city centre has always been full of foreign people.

as for the poles, i've only actually met one. i was outside my local having a smoke and a foreign guy asked me for a light. i assumed he was italian because of the football top he was wearing (some italian team), but he told me he was polish. i asked him how he was getting on over here and he said he really liked it. he wasn't too happy about the smoking ban though.

magpie

Only met a couple of Poles, but I know a lot of Romanians who are similarly hard-working and overqualified for what they do.

Is it just me or do/did the Romanians not have as good a rep because they were the first wave of Eastern Europeans and/or the whole Gypsy Beggar thing giving them a bad name? I don't see any signs in Romanian about the place.

El Duce

i cannot believe u guys are serious.polish women are no good to any1 cuz ther wit their fellas who will kill them if they try to leave and the polish fellas are so intimidating and rude and smelly and dangerous!!i shudnt be afraid to walk out of my own house wit 20 angry looking men staring at me for no reason!!

WhiteWashMan

well, im in the UK, and i know loads of polish people, and they are just the same as any other type of people as far as im concerned.

although, becuase the UK is far more multicultral than ireland ayway, large groups of minority groups are everywhere, so you really dont notice it that much.

Raiser

Hate to Stereotype - but have to say that the Poles seem to be hard-working, friendly, pleasant, family orientated, good decent folk. They are a welcome addition to our under-populated country in my opinion!

I had always assumed that the were liftime immigrants into Ireland - like we were around the time of the famine etc. Seemingly the vast majority plan to work save cash and make their way home ? Anyone know the story here am curious as to whether they are making a life here or having an extended working holiday.....[?]

Terry

i'm sure some will stay. the vast majority will probably return home though.
it's not like poland is a completely desolate wasteland.
give it a few years, some EU investment and they'll be up with us financially.

Giblet

El Duce wrote:

i cannot believe u guys are serious.polish women are no good to any1 cuz ther wit their fellas who will kill them if they try to leave and the polish fellas are so intimidating and rude and smelly and dangerous!!i shudnt be afraid to walk out of my own house wit 20 angry looking men staring at me for no reason!!

You just all for stereotyping aren't ya?!

deisedolly

I work with 3 Polish, 1 Slovakian and 1 Lithuanian and the trend seems to be that they come over here for a year or 2 save up aload of money and hed back home!
One girl had saved like €25000, thats like looooooads in Poland!

Dyr

julep wrote:

i went into one of the mcdonalds on O'Connell street one day about 7 or 8 years ago and i was the only Irish customer in the place. the city centre has always been full of foreign people.

as for the poles, i've only actually met one. i was outside my local having a smoke and a foreign guy asked me for a light. i assumed he was italian because of the football top he was wearing (some italian team), but he told me he was polish. i asked him how he was getting on over here and he said he really liked it. he wasn't too happy about the smoking ban though.

Well let's say your experience of the city centre 8 years ago is radically different to mine then. I've started playing a game when i'm around town of counting languages as i hear snatches of conversation..english features in about one out of three to five, though that's around henry street o'connell street, quays etc but the volume is suprising. It was an actually an american friend of my brothers who was over visiting that pointed out the lack of natives to me

thelordofcheese

Have met a few poles in the past few years, they're all great craic, and their women are, almost without exception, fantastic.

Must be something in the water over there.

zuma

magpie wrote:

Only met a couple of Poles, but I know a lot of Romanians who are similarly hard-working and overqualified for what they do.

Is it just me or do/did the Romanians not have as good a rep because they were the first wave of Eastern Europeans and/or the whole Gypsy Beggar thing giving them a bad name? I don't see any signs in Romanian about the place.

That would be because Romania wont be in the EU until 2007!

Once in the EU the internal borders should disappear and one of the 4 freedoms of the single market allows them to travel and work wherever they like if the host state agrees to such.....most of the original EU15 still dont.

BArra

i work in a net cafe and the majority of ppl that come in are... you guessed it polish, most are nice people but as always you have a few bad apples and the ones as mentioned above pure iron curtains.

a few of the bad ones are regulars, had a knife incident, a few drunken ones and a polish man who somehow thought that the bmw keys on the counter were his, so he took them went along to his phone to call back home and in trots the real owner of the keys enquiring did he leave his keys on the counter, which i knew he did i just didnt realise who had left them there and presumed the polish guy owned them, needless to say either myself or the guy who actually owned the car were very happy with him, the guy suddenly couldnt speak english which was strange cos i know he can speak english. aw well those are just the minority of bad experiences.

other than that most of em are polite and nice, pity that some of them dont have a word of english though and think i know what they are on about.

some of the polish women are... nice eye candy aswell :eek:

dahamsta

Giblet wrote:

You just all for stereotyping aren't ya?!

1. Look at user's post history.
2. Add user to Ignore list.
3. Profit!

New_Departure06

p.s. please don't post negative comments - if you want to do that, then start a new thread. Let's have this as a positive thread about the 150,000 Polish people who are now based here

116,206 according to the Irish Times. http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2006/0511/3422421441HM1WORKERS.html

Personally I do not know any Poles.

Sam Vimes

Ken Shabby wrote:

1. Look at user's post history.
2. Add user to Ignore list.
3. Profit!

good idea. he is named after mussolini after all. not too likely to be a tree hugging hippy

demosuzki

the polish are sound.
we should be delighted they have chosen ireland to move to.

/ds

Piste

Commander Vimes wrote:

good idea. he is named after mussolini after all. not too likely to be a tree hugging hippy

And has fecked up his Italian at that, it's Il Duce.

RE*AC*TOR

I hate the ****ing polish!

What a pointless excercise, what's so bad about a little dust anyway. Plus I hate the smell... Mr ****ing Sheen.

projectmayhem

at least we'll get points from poland in the eurovision...

Piste

The scabby F*ckers didn't give us much.

Brian Capture

Ken Shabby wrote:

Threads like this must drive the minority of Irish racists nuts. Which is nice.

adam

yeah
f*ck those guys

ronbyrne2005

Some people seem to get a warm happy glow from seeing migrants everywhere, i dont, migrants dont bother me at all but dont get me happy clappy either,i dont thinks it a particularly good or bad thing. its just different faces/languages/cultures becoming more common untill they become the norm.im sure that as soon as economic conditions change "welcoming " irish people will become less hospitable unless the migrants have already moved on to the next location with surplus jobs.

fightin irish

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

Some people seem to get a warm happy glow from seeing migrants everywhere, i dont, migrants dont bother me at all but dont get me happy clappy either,

I think ya might be missing the general consenus(sp?) here. From the way i read this thread people are really happy to see a nation FULLY intergrating into Irish society for a change...In fairness we've a **** load of horrible, criminal/scam merchants coming over(not just in ireland tho)

But yeah i agree that the Poles are sound. I work with three and they are seriously hard working folk. One guy i know the most is a computer programmer, He washes cars in our place and is happy as a pig in ****....and fair play to him.

And for the ladies...Well sweet jesus they are some of the most beautiful looking women i've ever seen...Altho i said this to my polish friend in work and he said..and i quote '' seriously man, but very very careful of some of the polish women'' I was and still a bit miffed at that. He never did expand on that statement and i kinda said ''oh rightio then.:p

jazoo

Why is it polish this polish that there have been Chinese, Nigerian ,Romanian people coming here a long time before we had any poles and they don’t have there own segment in the evening herald , that’s racism ………….

fightin irish

jazoo wrote:

Why is it polish this polish that there have been Chinese, Nigerian ,Romanian people coming here a long time before we had any poles and they don’t have there own segment in the evening herald , that’s racism ………….

Racism...really? Let me see ...the triads(chinese) ran amok in town a few years back chopping some poor fellow china man to bits..

The first Romanians to come here where Gypsies and begging all over every god dam motorway junction in Ireland...with newish Pajero parked down the road

And the Nigerians kinda got famous for CC scams...general Identity theft and popping babies the minute they landed....

Now what i've said above is racism, having a section in city paper ain't. IMO it's called intergration.