Ukrainian Refugees Flee To Ireland And Now Live In A Castle Owned By A Good Samaritan

Rasset

Eleven Ukrainians who had no choice but to flee from their war-stricken homeland have found a new home in an old Medieval castle. The 15th-century home has become shelter for a group of people that had to leave the bombed-out streets of some Ukrainian cities.

Barry Haughian, who lives in Madrid with his Spanish wife Lola, chose to open up his vacation home since his place in Spain wasn’t big enough to house other people. Known as Ballindooley Castle and located in County Galway, Haughian managed to fly to Poland where he picked up a group of Ukrainian refugees from Mariupol and Dnipro, eleven people in total.

In a report with Reuters, Haughian shared, “We were emotional wrecks for probably more than a week. We weren’t sure what we were doing, and just trying to make things better for them.”


“So now, every week it gets better… You can see the weight coming off their shoulders. We’ve got people dropping in all the time trying to help them. It’s a real ‘céad míle fáilte’ (a hundred thousand welcomes) from the people of Ireland.”

Since the eleven refugees made it to the castle, the children have enjoyed playing on the castle grounds, and they have already celebrated one birthday together as they attempt to pick up the pieces of their war-torn lives.

Since moving, at least five of them have managed to find jobs. 20-year old Maria Nazarchuk now works at a garden center located near the castle, and her hope is that in September, she plans to finish her accounting studies at the National University of Galway .

She told Reuters, “When we are going to go to another country, I cried because it was very fast. I plan my actions, what I do with friends, with family, with university, and one day I have no plan. Irish people are very friendly, very kind. All the people want to help us. I (am) very happy here. I have a good job, a good home. I never thought that someday I will live in castle.”


Moreover, the other children have managed to start school, while a number of locals in the area of the castle have helped out by giving the refugee families extra refrigerators, bags of turf, television sets, and even baskets of eggs which they use to bake and eat.

Ireland is has long since been a contributor to the EU refugee sharing policy. When the national registration opened just two months prior via the Irish Red Cross, which allowed them to host Ukrainians, the website ending up crashing because of the high volume of applicants.

These eleven refugees are just a miniscule portion of the 23,000 Ukrainian refuges that have since made their way to Ireland from Ukraine since Putin first began dropping bombs on the otherwise peaceful country. The government believes that this number may quadruple in the near future, which means that they need to consider housing them in their sports halls and conference centers if needed.

You can see more about their story in the video below.

 

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