Michael Svoboda moved to Dublin from Czechia in September 2022 aged 19 but had paid a deposit for his accommodation in the northside suburb of Cabra six months beforehand.
He moved alone to study mechatronic engineering at Dublin City University and is in receipt of a scholarship from the Kellner Family Foundation.
Svoboda knew Ireland’s housing situation was “not great”, which was why he chose to pay for accommodation half a year in advance for his, at the time, unconfirmed move, having applied to colleges across the country in the hope of being accepted to one, and hoping that one would be in Dublin.
“Being Czech, I don’t even feel like I get to complain about [the housing crisis] because, like if Czech guys want to live here, obviously the rest of the world wants to live here as well, so it was important to get our spot in advance,” he says.
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Coming to Ireland took some getting used to, says Svoboda, who had to pair the move with becoming an adult and starting university.
“I was doing it in a foreign environment where there were all these new things to get used to. You drive through Dublin and you start doubting if you can speak English because everything is in Irish first,” he says, laughing.
“The good thing I found about the country is, if people perceive you as competent enough to do something, they don’t look at your age, your background – it’s really just about, can you get the job done.”
People are much more encouraging. They expect more of you and the standards are generally higher, and I found that it’s much easier to thrive in that kind of environment if you want to do interesting and boundary-pushing things
Svoboda is involved with a solar racing team in university and has discovered “all these beautiful parts” of Ireland, including Gaelic sports and traditional music.
He says he finds it easier to thrive in Ireland, sensing an openness from people “letting you carry yourself as far as you can go, even in small, silly things”.
“You guys have cycle paths all the way from the city centre to Dublin Airport, so if somebody decides it’s not that big of a deal, I’ll cycle to the airport, the country will just let you,” he says.
“People are much more encouraging. They expect more of you and the standards are generally higher, and I found that it’s much easier to thrive in that kind of environment if you want to do interesting and boundary-pushing things,” he says.
Everybody is “insanely approachable”, he adds, saying that in his course, he can easily get advice and help from professors and lecturers.
During the summer, he worked in a city centre convenience store and in a language school, allowing him to stay in the country instead of returning to Czechia.
Many Irish people the student met appreciated how he took an interest in Irish history and music before he moved, he says.
“I feel that it is possible to become Irish in a way it would never be possible to become German or to become Japanese, that would be just unthinkable. But in Ireland there is a different sense of what identity means, and there are ways, when you get to know enough people and to prove yourself, to actually be accepted here, which is amazing,” Svoboda says.
He says life in Ireland is easier for him than for other immigrants.
“I am an immigrant, but there is a hierarchy. If you are from Switzerland you get much easier accepted, if you’re from Czechia you get much easier accepted than if you were Russian, than if you were South American,” he says.
“People who come to the country to earn and just become part of the society should be welcome and are welcome.”
“One thing that’s important, especially to make sure that people can thrive, and that I can thrive, is to make sure that we can manage to uphold safety because we all require a safe environment at work and that goes for immigrants as well as the natives.”
Czech people have many great qualities. The Irish people seem to be healthier in the most expansive way
He says immigrants should be encouraged to show that they can be valuable to society.
“So long as there is clarity in communication on what the expectations are of us, then I think all of this can work out well,” he says.
Irish people struggled to integrate when they emigrated en masse to the United States, says Svoboda, but now, “the Irish community in the United States seems to be thriving”.
“Stepping back over the longer time horizon, that’s a success story, and we all hope, I hope as an immigrant that, like all the different backgrounds that come to Ireland, we will have a similar success story later on,” he says.
“When we come here, we do retain some parts of our cultures that we’re fond of, but very often there are things that we are happy to leave behind. Now it’s just in terms of making that negotiation beneficial to both sides. I learned a lot and I’m still learning.”
Svoboda says there’s a tradition in Czechia of baking Christmas treats as families over the holidays. He was baffled that it is not done in Ireland, so he began sending people recipes and making them samples to give them a taste of his country.
After university, he plans to spend most of his working life in Ireland, because of the opportunities it offers. However, he also plans to continue to visit Czechia and keeps in contact with his family and childhood friends.
The two countries, he adds, are fundamentally different.
“Czech people have many great qualities. The Irish people seem to be healthier in the most expansive way. One thing, it’s not normal in Ireland that people would retire and just stop working. This is normal in Czechia,” he says, adding that Irish people tend to have more social activities.
Irish people also drive more slowly and seem to be livelier and more open, he adds.
“I think it’s great that a lot of kids here went through the Gaelic sports, because you can see them walking on the street and you know he’s been playing Gaelic football, you know he’s a footballer, you know he’s a hurler,” says Svoboda.
“The people wearing this mantle of pride as well, a lot of people wear their county dresses even though they’re just going to town or something because it’s that kind of uniform, it’s kind of the identity. That’s amazing.”
The people are very welcoming and helpful, and crucially, Ireland is still free enough and still economically successful enough that we get to build up our way and over time we get to actually establish ourselves
Irish people also have a youthful attitude, he says, recalling being in Dundalk, Co Louth when an older Irish couple broke through roadwork barriers on a street, hopping over the fence to save themselves going around.
But it was not all fun and games: the move was difficult. “Suddenly you’re 21 and it’s cold and it’s raining, and your hot water doesn’t work in your tiny apartment the size of a shoebox, and you don’t know anybody in the country and there’s all this insane paperwork you have to handle suddenly,” he says.
“You have to fight off an incredible sense of isolation to an extent that I don’t think it’s apparent to anybody who didn’t really leave the country. I didn’t appreciate before I came here how much of my social life and future even would be determined by networks already set up in place.”
Everything in Dublin is a competition, he adds, referring to housing, school and the job market.
“But I chose to put myself in a position where I have to build my whole life up from scratch and through that process, especially if you have a difficult field. There are long stretches of time where you’re very insulated, very alone, you have to deal with things – maybe you get sick, all of that,” he says.
He primarily uses his bike for transportation, because he feels Dublin is not built for public transport.
“Suddenly you find out it’s a weekend evening and half the bike lanes are full of shattered glass, because people found it fun to smash their glasses and drink has to do with that,” he says.
“All these little inconveniences, when you have to take care of them all yourself can really build up and you have to have the fortitude of being like, ‘No, I will make this work. We are greater than these problems’.”
“When you come to Dublin or you come to some of the Irish towns and you are low income, as a lot of us are, you have to spend a lot of time from a very uncomfortable position, building slowly your pace up, and some people get broken by that, they don’t manage to do that, and it’s not necessarily their fault. It can be causing mental health issues, all of that.
“You have to not let it break you, and you have to tolerate that kind of intense, long hours of isolation, poor standard of living through the housing and all of that, you have to tolerate those kinds of conditions, that discomfort for some period of time, and it gets better.”
He is also keen to point out that he got to the position he is in now with the help of Irish people and their welcoming nature, and giving him a chance “in places where they certainly didn’t have to”.
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
