'We’re not going to move back to Poland, we just wanted to become Irish'
Nine years ago, the first members of the Skorupa family left their Baltic coast city of Gdansk in northern Poland, in dribs and drabs for Cork.
“Our whole family is here so that’s the reason, and our parents. My dad and my older brother came first and then I came with my now ex-boyfriend and then my mum came with my younger brother,” explains Iwona.
What was the reason behind deciding to apply for Irish citizenship?
“We’re going to stay in Ireland, we’re not going to move back to Poland, we just wanted to become Irish,” answers Iwona.
“I don’t even want to go there anymore. If I had a choice to go for a holiday, I would go to Spain or somewhere else. There’s nothing really that would push me back to Poland. My friends are all around somewhere, they left,” she adds.
Mateusz, who’s in Ireland five years, works for Bandon Vale Cheese.
“I was 17, when I left. I was in school here. I had a bit of English, it was a bit [tough]. I work at the moment,” he says.
When asked if brother or sister feel any sadness at leaving the old country behind, Iwona answers:. “Not really no. We keep all our traditions like Christmas and Easter. It’s handy to have a dual citizenship you know?”
The family chose Cork as home because Dublin is too busy a place for them, but Ireland, in general, they find full of warmth.
“Irish people are so happy, they’re kind. The people is what I like about Ireland. St Patrick’s Day was the first thing that we got to know, all the celebrations and the parades,” says Iwona.
Meanwhile, the Alonzo family also became fully Irish yesterday as husband and father Andyson took his citizenship, in the footsteps of his wife and daughter.
“I’m here nearly six years in Ireland and my wife — she was already 14 years here,” explains the proud Galway man.
Originally from the Philippines, Andyson and his wife Rosalie, were separated for five full years, before marrying and moving to Ireland.
“Actually, for five years we only wrote because I didn’t go home. Sometimes we tried to use the internet, but it wasn’t really the fastest internet before and I used to live in Connemara, so you can imagine,” says Rosalie.
Now the newly-declared Irish couple are proud parents to five-year-old Aira.
“I think she’s more of an Irish than a Filipino — eating wise, more chips and nuggets rather than rice. We hope to raise her here,” says Rosalie.
Becoming Irish is very important to Andyson.
“Oh it’s very important because now my wife and my daughter are Irish already so I need to become Irish also, that’s why. All of us are Irish now. It feels like being a new-born,” he says.
