Well, I'm not Irish, but I've lived long enough in Ireland to be able to tell the Irish view on Poland. But I'm not really sure if you meant Poland as a country or Irish views on the Polish ppl? I guess I'll give both (as far as I hear from my Irish friends): most ppl I've met are fairly positive about Poland as a country and like to go there. However, it depends a bit on the person wether he/she likes it because of the landscapes or because of that it's so cheap over there (cheap in comparison to Ireland). One friend of mine said he and his wife went on a cycle-trip from Germany via Poland to the Baltic countries. He said that he had been approached the nicest in the Polish country side and that the landscapes were absolutely stunning, especially in Mazuria (do I spell that right?). The lakes there reminded him of Minnesota in the US (I took him there once), which also has a lot of lakes. Given his enthousiasm when he came back, I guess I have to go there some time. Other friends said they liked Zakopane, and Carpathian mountains. And others again said they were really impressed by the cities. As for myself, I've only been in Warsaw, Krakow and the obligatory Auschwitz (of course - had to see where my family perished). I must say that I wasn't really impressed by Warsaw (though the time we are talking about is early 90's - I'm sure things have changed since then), but Krakow was truly amazingly beautiful (funny, but somehow it reminded me of a German city) and Auschwitz, well, some ppl say that on some places on Earth you can feel the presence of evil and I used to laugh about that. But in Auschwitz you can actually feel the evil that has taken place there.
About Polish ppl, that's a bit different: most Irish like the Polish, mainly for two things: 1) Poles are Catholic too and like to drink, just like the Irish and 2) the huge amount of Polish ppl in Dublin brings with it the presence of Polish skleps, which finally gave the Irish the opportunity to sample a tast of European continental food. Then there is another side: Irish DON'T like the Polish because: 1) they tend to stick to themselves and except some exceptions, they don't really mingle with the locals; 2) especially in the beginning, they didn't like the Poles because they were willing to work for a lower pay than the Irish would get and now at this point in time, with the crisis and all, they complain that the Poles take away their jobs. Which is nonsense of course, Poles at first did the work the Irish didn't want to do and now there's no work left, they are willing to do those crappy jobs, but now they are taken already by Poles. For me personally, I don't mind the Poles being here, they don't threaten my job in any way and the presence of skleps came in handy as it gave me the opportunity to buy some foodstuff every now and then that reminds me of home.
Hope this was a bit what you were looking for? Thanks.
>^..^<
M-G (needs coffee)
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