Sep 24 2007
Lithuania to Limerick
My first impression of Limerick is that it has welcomed many people from eastern European communities.
After a red-eye flight covering 24hrs Wendy-time I look more than a touch bedraggled and every bit my 43yrs.
Wendy: what choices do I have to get from here to Limerick?
Shannon Airport Information: Bus or taxi, do you have much luggage?
Wendy: Just this
Airport Information: take the bus.
This is the kind of advice that I like to hear.
At the bus stop two young girls wearing heavy dark eye-liner shelter from the drizzle by me. They chainsmoke wearing airport badges with their long hair pulled away from their faces. The original colour of their hair is showing for 2 inches at the roots. White-skinned blonded brunettes talking with an urgency normally utilised by drug addicts or excited children they look slightly bedraggled too. They are not talking English or Irish, they sound eastern European.
A couple looking over 50yrs wearing well-ironed bright clothes stand either side of numerous new-looking suitcases. In an US accent the lady asks me Is it daylight savings time in Ireland? In my English accent I reply I have no idea. It is 7.50am
The girls stop talking, their cigarettes held close, but not touching their lips. They look at the US couple and me for a few seconds then resume their chatter.
When collecting my fare the bus driver scowels at me. Here my accent is definitely not cute it is that of a recent occupier and oppressor. During its route the bus (30mins, €5.70) picks up about 10 people. Judging by their accents and language about half of them are eastern European. On the journey, inbetween talking calmly, slowly, continually, into an earmounted phone headset, the driver shouts obscenities at other drivers “Ya Prick!” in an Irish accent .
Later downtown I find several shops that specialise in Lithuanian and Polish foods, as I walk passed queues at the downtown bus-stops I hear eastern European accents mixed with the the Irish. The two receptionists, half the bar staff and all the restaurant wait staff in the Hotel sound eastern European….
Lithuania to Limerick
I saw a documentary on PBS a few months ago about Polish emigres coming to the Irish big cities for service industry jobs. Apparently the Irish economic miracle has created a need for those kinds of employees.