Tag Archives: Pól Ó Muirí

150623-channel-tunnel-jsw-543p_b974be290f1ecfc0ff992e95bc610186.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000

Refugees trying to enter the back of a truck near the entrance of the Channel Tunnel in Calais, France this summer

Pól Ó Muirí, in the Irish Times, writes:

“While learning Irish in Donegal in the 1980s, I noticed that there were very few men of my age around. “They are away working on the Channel Tunnel,” I was told… And the Channel Tunnel is in the news again. There they are, migrants on the other side, trying to get through.

…The whole thing is a bit frightening isn’t it, all those people throwing themselves at the fences at the mouth of the tunnel that the Donegal ones helped build?

“…When the camera panned back to show men standing and watching, with all the dignity they could muster, that I suddenly realised I was seeing my grandfather in Scotland, my father in England. There they are. Trying to earn a living. Trying to survive. Do you see your family in their faces too? Look a little closer. Don’t be afraid. Those people at the fence are from Donegal and Mayo, Leitrim and Galway. They are from little villages in the glens, townlands on the edge of the Atlantic, small holdings in the mountains. Don’t be afraid. Who knows?”

An Irishman’s Diary: Migrants at the Channel Tunnel – built by Irish migrants (Pól Ó MuiríIrish Times)

Pic: NBC News