Space and ground rules help those taking in refugees, says Cork host

Sinead Dwyer and her husband Tom opened their Cork home to Karina and her son Artiom last September

Sinead Dwyer at her home in Monkstown. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

For Sinead Dwyer, one of more than 600 homeowners who have hosted over 1,400 Ukrainian refugees around the country, the most important factor is to lay ground rules.

“I would say set the rules as you start,” said Sinead from Monkstown, Co Cork. “Also, it’s important to give the person or people you are hosting as much space as you can and if you are not happy with something, say it.

“Don’t accept something you are not happy with because that festers.”

The mother-of-three was speaking in advance of a public meeting being held on Wednesday for anybody in Cork thinking about hosting refugees in their house.

She and her husband Tom opened their home to Karina and her son Artiom last September after they read about them in the Irish Examiner.

At the end of the article was a link to Helping Irish Hosts. Sinead sent them an email and they got a reply back the following day.

She said: “After contacting Helping Irish Hosts, we spoke to Karina on Facetime and we got on straight away.

“I would have been nervous about the whole thing if I was living on my own and I would have also been nervous if it was a man and a wife.

But Karina and her son turned out to be a joy to host. They were great.

Karina and Artiom had to leave the Cork city student accommodation they had been housed in at the end of last August because students were returning for a new academic term.

They ended up being bussed to emergency accommodation in Clonmel, Co Tipperary.

Artiom, who was 13 at the time, had also had to leave the secondary school he had been enrolled in.

Although they had enrolled with the Irish Red Cross after Russia invaded Ukraine, Sinead and Tom hadn’t heard back, so she had signed up with Helping Irish Hosts.

Sinead Dwyer at her home in Monkstown. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

The nine-month stay at Sinead and Tom’s was the first long-stay accommodation Karina and her son, who are now living in their own apartment, had been in.

This was because, since coming to Ireland, Karina and Artiom had been accommodated in Dublin’s Citywest, a camp in Banteer in rural north Cork, the city centre student accommodation and then the sports hall in Tipperary.

Although only scheduled to stay with Sinead and her husband for six months, they got on so well that it was extended to nine months so Karina could complete a radio production course she had enrolled in.

The Helping Irish Hosts event will be at 7pm this evening in the Midleton Family Resource Centre on Youghal Road in Midleton.