ABSTRACT
The Republic of Ireland is the most recent destination for Polish migration flows among the four countries considered in this book, with significant numbers of Poles arriving there only after Poland's European Union (EU) accession in 2004. Like the UK, it was especially attractive to young graduates, with about one-quarter of Polish migrants there holding tertiary degrees. As the research material for this book – 18 qualitative interviews with Poles residing in Ireland – has demonstrated, non-graduates chose the destination mainly because of the help offered by their social networks, while graduates took into consideration a broad range of economic and cultural factors. While some of the respondents perceived Ireland to be an extension of the British economic and cultural core to which they aspired, others chose it because they perceived it as a more peaceful periphery, which offered economic stability despite being less dynamic and ‘worldly’ than the UK or even Poland.
