Work / Salary for entry level Scandinavian / Finnish speakers in Poland [10]

OMG! The mean, stingy so-and-sos.......the cheek of them, and you with the perfect qualifications and all those languages. I'm gutted for you, that's terrible. I'll see if I can think of any place else :)

Work / Salary for entry level Scandinavian / Finnish speakers in Poland [10]

@ finswe have you tried Nordea Bank?

nordea.com/en/careers/vacant-positions/?cty=19508&geo=0&area=0&jobid=

There might be a better chance of career development there and your type of degree plus languages are the perfect match for them.

Polonia / Do you know any Polish Language teachers in India? [44]

How old is your daughter? If she is under six years old she will pick up basic English within a few months if she goes to an English speaking school. If she's older it will take her a bit longer. I doubt very much that you will be able to find a school that offers primary or secondary school education through Polish. However if there is such a place, these people would probably know about it:

polishinstitute.in/

Life / My Last Link To Poland Died - Why Leaving Poland Was My Best Decision [249]


By here you mean America - again. I've worked for Indians so they don't hire only Indians. Maybe it's a different story in the U S of A.


Now, we have a population of under five million people in Ireland so I think that a million ofany nationality would be too many. In fact I wouldn't like to see too many more native Irish either as one of the lovely things about Ireland is the low population density and the many places where you can actually be alone, even in the city. We have an amazing coastline in Dublin where you can walk for miles along the beach and hardly meet a soul. But immigration into Ireland has worked very well on the whole - as to why, that's not a discussion for a Polish forum.

Life / My Last Link To Poland Died - Why Leaving Poland Was My Best Decision [249]

Oh Dolno, pu-l-eeeease!!! WHAT are you on today?? He never said that Indians were superior to other nationalities. He made the absolutely valid point that they are the most financially successful ethnic minority in the countries where they settle. Incidentally they also tend to be the most integrated. And they are generally law abiding. Working class Indians in the UK for example, don't have a history of crime, drug use, low educational attaiment long term unemployment, all the things that have afflicted the white working classes in the UK for decades now. Although I think his point would have been better made on another, more relevant thread.

Life / My Last Link To Poland Died - Why Leaving Poland Was My Best Decision [249]


Dolno, if by people here you mean people in Poland, they have nothing to worry about because there are virtually none. As for people 'here' as in this forum they also have nothing to worry about as most of the people who pretend to be worried about it don't even live in Poland and are just using their 'worry' as an excuse to say the vilest things they can think of about people of other races.


Yes, I myself was being a bit of a smart arse and rather unfair to you. I know what you mean about the thing of restaurants and shops which serve immigrant communities. But the Indian community in Poland is still relatively small and is scattered between several cities so I'm not sure if there's really enough custom to keep many restaurants in business especially in the region where you live. A lot of Poles find even mild Indian dishes too spicy as you probably know so it would take a long time to educate the local palate. Add to that the fact that it's not that easy to set up and maintain a business in Poland compared to many other EU countries. It's improved but Poland still ranks very low in terms of 'ease of doing business'.However there are more shops where you can buy a range of Indian spices and ingredients and some Polish online outlets that sell them so there's more of a presence than there was ten years ago.


Well that's an assumption. You'd need the stats for migration for the last ten years or so and you'd need to see how many Indians came to Poland and how many applied for permanent residence to get some idea. You're not going to see droves of them because they come here in relatively small numbers.

Life / My Last Link To Poland Died - Why Leaving Poland Was My Best Decision [249]


I know it wasn't. I wasn't saying that you were prejudiced. I was saying that I am surprised at your apparent mystification as to why he's posting about Indians on a Polish forum. I can understand why. He's clearly responding to the terrible things that are said here all the time about 'migrants'. There are very ignorant posters here who lump all people from the Indian sub-continent together and whilst Pakistantis and Bangladeshis are often at the bottom of the societies into which they migrate, Indians are a very different matter.


Well obviously they leave India to go to a variety of other countries where they are clearly visible. As for the ones who leave Poland or 'Europe' what makes you think they leave?? Stop being a smart arse about curry houses. Most Indians coming to Poland are in IT, banking etc. Plenty of authentic recipes on the internet if you want a curry - learn how to make one :)

Life / My Last Link To Poland Died - Why Leaving Poland Was My Best Decision [249]

Hi Indian Champ. Those of us who actually know Indian people and have lived alongside them for decades in the UK and Ireland are well aware of that. I myself have worked for Indians, worked with them, been their neighbour, their customer, visited their homes and taught their children. However there are some members of this forum who have no clue what they're talking about and are uneducable - they just want somebody to 'hate' and will continue to do so regardless of the facts. But it's right and necessary to ensure that the truth gets heard too. It may make a difference nto to the ignorant chumps on this forum but to those who come across your post by chance. Always worth putting the message out into the world :)


Come on Dolno! I'm surprised at you. The amount of prejudice and downright hatred expressed on this forum, frequently by Americans (not Poles) towards 'migrants' is staggering. There are many Indian people regularly posting on this forum regarding obtaining visas for work or education, asking about cost of living etc. The OP isn't bragging. He's trying to show that Indian people are not spongers, layabouts and rape squads. Just the other day an ignorant troll, on a thread about visas, was asking what contribution Indians make to the places where they settle.

Study / What requirements for moving through ECTS to any other European Country, if coming to Poland on student visa? [15]

You need to contact the university in Norway. In theory it's possible but the Norwegian university will want details of the courses you studied during your first year in Estonia to see if they covered the same material as their Norwegian equivalent. They will then award you credits based on how much of the syllabus is the same/similar as theirs. If they award you the full number of credits it will be 120 credits for one year's study but it can be as little as 30. It depends on the university. Not sure why you're asking the question here as neither university is in Poland :)

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]


You were stirring the pot under the guise of being 'helpful'.

Then lo and behold who adds his voice to the choir but 'Rich Mazur' who just happens to pick up the racial tension/homophobia ball and run with it......

I really don't care but for the fact that you're misleading a young person who's embarking on a very big moment in his life, travelling halfway round the world to a strange place for his education and you're doing it for your amusement. I don't like that.

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]

How convenient.

In any case a single incident 14 years ago in some obscure corner of a kitchen or a warehouse, hardly justifies the statement:


You sound like the old lady in The Royle Family, Nana, who refers to her friend Elsie who had a fall in the shopping centre years before:

"Oooh it was dreadful. It's still talked about, to this day" she says to her daughter.

"What?? Who talks about it Mam?"

"Well, me and Elsie".............

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]

I suppose a couple of twelve year old boys might carry on like that but it would very untypical behaviour for adult Indian men in the UK who are generally middle class, hard working, educated and socially adept. They don't generally hang around the street exchanging racial slurs and getting into scuffles.

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]


@Adidasboy, not true. It's just more trolling. For Indians in the UK meeting a non-British white person would be quite normal, not new and shocking, as there were already literally millions of other Europeans living in the UK even back then. As for the Poles, they may have given the brown faces they encountered in the UK a few looks, as Poles at that time hadn't met many people of other races and many of the first wave of Polish immigrants came from small towns and villages. Different story in Poland 2018.

Basically don't take any notice of people on this forum or elsewhere who try to put doubts or worries in your mind about your safety or well-being in Poland as either a gay person or an Indian. You'll be fine.

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]


Well Polish people do actually have a tendency to stare but not because of skin colour particularly. They frequently stare at me and I'm white and not in any way peculiar looking, just average :) They definitely don't particularly stare at brown or black people though, not in the cities and tourist areas and when you think about it, why would you want to go anywhere else? I mean, there's no reason for you to visit a remote village somewhere in the back of beyond so I don't imagine anyone will stare at you.

Funnily enough, I've just arrived home after being out and about in Warsaw and there were two Indian guys in the supermarket waiting at the checkout in front of me, then I saw them again as I was walking to the tram. I can categorically state that nobody stared at them. As I once said elsewhere on this forum, the only time I saw somebody actually stop to stare at another person with eyes popping out on stalks, was when there was a guy with a moustache walking round the supermarket wearing a woman's skirt - and quite frankly I think the staring can be excused in that case :D

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]

@Adidasboy, once again, press the 'ignore' button. I actually live in Poland and there will be no 'strange looks'. The above poster is just trolling.

Polish who live in cities such as Gdansk are well used to seeing brown or even black faces. Any city in Poland with a university or an IT industry will have a population of people from the Indian sub-continent.

Real Estate / Planning permission - buying a house in Poland [7]

It's such a shame when you think you've found your dream home :( I would suggest that next time, make enquires about what work has been done on a property before you go to see it and tell the agent that you will only view the property if you see the paperwork before viewing. That way you won't fall in love with a place and have your poor little heart broken again :) Good luck with the search. Hope you find something soon.

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]

I warned you didn't I Adidasboy! I told you this place was full of trolls, weirdos etc. Listen to your Auntie Atch and you won't go wrong :))

It basically started as a forum for Polish-Americans to learn more about the culture of Poland and as Maf said most of them not only don't live in Poland, some have never even been there. In recent times it's attracted a lot of slightly mad people who either have or pretend to have, extreme right wing views so their comments are in no way to be taken seriously. There are plenty of gay people in Poland living happy, productive lives.

There may well be things about Poland that make you decide not to live there after you finish your studies, but your sexuality is likely to be just somewhere on a long list of other more pressing concerns. Who knows you might even meet Mr Right there :)) So don't listen to all that rubbish from a bunch of old miseries and enjoy life.

I just googled "gay Gdansk" and there's loads of stuff there for you to read which will be far more useful and relevant to you than this forum (apparently it's a very small gay scene and that bar in Sopot is not very nice :( I really feel sorry for gay guys because it must be hard to meet somebody in the 'normal' way because you unless you go to a specifically gay venue (and there are loads of gays who are non-scene), you're just hoping that somebody you meet on the off-chance either socially or through work, will also be gay. I suppose you could consider a gay dating/friendship site so that you could connect with other gay people around Poland without having to go to the bar in Sopot. It's probably closed in the winter anyway as it's on the beach and Gdansk in the winter is not a tropical Paradise! I would suggest that after you arrive in Poland and get settled, you should start searching via internet for the gay network around your area. Even if you contact those people in Poznan who organize the Gay Pride event, they're bound to know other gay people all over Poland and maybe they could get you an introduction into the gay community in your area through one of their friends in the neighbourhood.

But if you're looking for practical information about things like cost of living in Poland etc you'll find plenty of threads on this forum to help you. Best of luck!

Real Estate / Planning permission - buying a house in Poland [7]

One alternative would be to get a solicitor to draw up a contract stating that the deposit is refundable in the event of the paperwork not being forthcoming within a specfied length of time, but enforcing the contract if it came to the crunch, might be difficult and end up costing more in legal fees etc. You could also specify that the money should be held in an escrow account though rather than being paid to the owner.


If you mean he needs the deposit to cover those costs, well my heart bleeds for him but that's his repsonsibility, not yours.

It seems odd that nothing was issued prior to the works being carried out and now it seems they are applying retrospectively, although with this being Poland, maybe not so odd! I personally wouldn't pay a deposit on such a property.

Life / How's the life of an LGBT person in Poland? [90]

Hi Addidasboy. You'll hear some very unpleasant comments on this forum about gay people from a few weirdos and trolls but they're mostly either American or Polish-American (or suspected of being Russians, trolling for Putin) so just ignore it. While Poland is not the most gay-friendly place, it's definitely not in the same category as Russia.

For you, coming to Poland, it really depends on where you'll be living. As you'd expect the larger cities have more of a gay scene and if you want to come out of the closet and make gay friends you should have no problem. Sometimes, while there won't be a gay bar, there will be bars where gays are welcome and you could meet a guy and not get hassled by anyone. Just check online for the area you'll be living in and you'll find out what's going on.

Poland is a predominantly Catholic country and as you know the official line of the Catholic church is that while it's not a sin to be gay and we should respect gay people, having homosexual relations is a sin. Most Polish people under forty would be more openminded about it as they're often not especially religious but there is an element of 'macho' guys who really despise gays, but then you tend to find those in any country really. However in Poland you will hear some very harsh and hurtful words from public figures and politicians which would be unacceptable in Western Europe. It's not just gay people they target however, vegetarians and cyclists have also been denounced as 'un-Polish' :D Basically there is a very, very conservative element in Polish society that still exists back in the 1950s in their heads and unfortunately some of them are in government at the moment :)

There is a big Gay Pride event in Poznań every year. It just took place a few weeks ago and passed off peacefully. There's quite a thriving gay scene in Poznań. I read an interview with one of the organizers who lives there and she said that she gets a bit of hassle sometimes from people in the street who make a few comments about gays but that on the whole it's ok. I would say whatever town you're going to, just google 'gay scene in........' and you'll get lots of information.

To sum it up I would say official Poland under the present government is not supportive of gays, just about tolerates them and that's just because they have to as members of the EU, the Polish Catholic Church doesn't support them at all, the ordinary people of Poland have mixed views.

There was a time in living memory when nobody in Poland would live openly as a gay person but those days are gone, now people have a choice and many are choosing to be 'out' so while it's not as easy as it would be in some other countries, it isn't as bad as you might have been told.

We have one 'out' gay member on this forum so he might be along later and give you some good advice :)

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]


I know quite well that despite your protests to the contrary, you have an interest in Ireland and have read a certain amount about it so you're referring to the Celtic Revival and the appropriation by the Anglo-Irish ascendancy of all things Gaelic. However as you're not actually Irish yourself and don't have any real connection to Ireland outside of Dublin and the Pale, you don't know the culture intimately. I do. Also if you had read enough Irish history you would know that the Gaelic culture co-existed alongside the English culture for many centuries and really only began to go into decline the 1700s. But even as late as that for example a man called Edward Bunting managed to collect the songs and music of the last of the Irish harpers before it was lost.


In my own family I was fortunate to have a very elderly grandmother, (she was in her mid seventies when I was born and lived to be ninety) who was brought up in rural Ireland and she was raised, steeped in the folklore and culture which you believe existed only in books. That was her normal everyday life during her childhood.

I remember things like seeing her doing the 'keening' after someone had died. That had already largely died out as a practice in Ireland by the 1950s but my grandmother was still doing it in Dublin in the 1970s :) When she heard of a death of one of her old friends or relations in her home county, she would keen the dead person, (actually she also keened De Valera! ),wrap herself in a rug, go to the fireside, begin to rock back and forth, beat her breast with her fist and then start the recitation of their life, their character, any misfortune they had suffered etc. The keening is a very ancient practice going well back to pre-Christian Ireland when it was much more elaborate with complex songs, rectiations etc, and went on for days. She put chairs in front of the fire on the night of Hallowe'en before going to bed to welcome the souls of the dead. She explained all about the fairies to us and warned us about offending them etc.

The healthy fear and respect with which the rural Irish regarded the fairies and the remnants of which still remain, is certainly not found in Poland. But Christianity was never able to wipe out the Irish belief in fairies because it was so deeply rooted. If the concept of the 'fairy tree' for example existed in modern Poland, could you imagine the planners of a motorway halting works until the coordinates of a bush were established and thereafter fencing it in to protect it.It's partly to do with the length of the tradtions and belief systems that can flourish on a small island.


The tribes that later formed the Polish nation state certainly seem to have shared a common culture and belief system although we're sadly short of details and it can hardly be said to have much importance to most modern Poles.

Language / How do Poles feel about foreigners learning their language? [105]

No, not at all. There was a huge variety in pronuncation amongst educated people at the beginning of the 18th century.

There was what you might call, a lobbying element, including Lord Chesterfield who were keen to see a standard pronunciation by which it would be impossible to determine the place of a 'gentleman's' birth. This resulted in the spread of elocution lessons and the publication of dictionaries of pronunciation.

Oddly enough it was a Scot and an Irishman who lead the way in that respect. They were contemporaries of Dr Johnson, so the whole thing makes sense. One sees the first dictionary, the first pronouncing dictionary and the first elocutionists all emerging simultaneously. It was agreed that the model should be the speech of the Royal Court but Sheridan, the Irish elocutionist was the first to draw attention to the habit of dropping the 'aitches' amongst Londoners and expressed concern that the habit was found even amongst the elite of London :)

During the early nineteenth century standard pronuncation began to be taught in the public schools and as instruction was 'received' by the students, it became known as received pronunciation, now known as RP. Of course RP itself has been somewhat corrupted and twisted into various hideous forms such as the 'ok ya' vibe of the Hooray Henry Sarah Ferguson types with their odious, constricted vowel sounds which is basically yet another dialect. But to my ears the purest RP - I would cite for example Ian McKellen (yet still with that tiny hint of Lancashire, lovely), Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons - is beautiful to listen to.

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]


I'm not having that! What about Val Doonican??


Being more intelligent than the English I figured that out when I was five, by the simple method of asking 'Is Auntie Jean your sister Mummy?' and being terribly disappointed to find that she wasn't really my Auntie. Then I realized that even though we weren't related I'd still get birthday and Christmas presents from Auntie Jean and Uncle Joe so that was a small consolation :)


It has Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. You're allowed to say anything you want there as long as it doesn't cause violence and the police won't get involved unless they receive a direct complaint. The UK doesn't have a first amendment as it doesn't have a single document like the USA. Its constitution is a complex network of laws and precedents which has evolved over a thousand years and more.

Language / How do Poles feel about foreigners learning their language? [105]

Well actually according to the 'experts' it's the complete opposite. The pronunication of American English is pretty close to that spoken in the England of the 1700s whereas in England accents have evolved and changed greatly in that time.

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]


Well of course they did, even England :)) although let's face it, where would you have been without our kindly intervention which makes subsequent events all the more bitter - 'how much sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child' or to quote Billy Bunter 'talk about the thankless tooth of a serpent's child'.


Indeed they were, just as the Irish used ogham but those alphabets were used, as far as we know only for inscriptions in pre-Christian times. Literature comes later. The Anglo-Saxons produced some literature using runes but quite late, I think around the 8th or 9th century.

The Latin alphabet was introduced to Britain by Christian missionaries in the 9th and 10th centuries after which England began producing literature in English using the Latin alphabet. Literature written in the English language really begins with Beofwulf in the 10th century. The earliest example of literature written in the Irish language dates from the eighth century so not that much of a difference. Of course there were a few snippets here and there in both cultures in the years preceding that and possibly a lot more that has been lost.

However as far as religious manuscripts go, Ireland's earliest surviving manuscript in Latin, The Codex Usserianus Primus dates back to the sixth century whereas the oldest in England is another Codex thing-a-mu-jiggy, cant' remember the Latin bit, it's a complete Bible and it dates from the beginning of the eigth century.

Obviously the cultures of the two countries developed in very close alignment with each other for a long time until we made complete eejits of ourselves by inviting you over to help out in yet another internal conflict and then spent the next 800 years trying to get rid of you. However that's all in the past, we're best of friends again and no need whatsoever to mention the war :))

The oldest Latin manuscript in Poland is about 800 years old. The earliest pieces of writing in Old Polish, a single line in an otherwise Latin chronicle, dates to around the 13th century which is what I mean about Poland being a 'young' country. That's only 700 years ago.

What's sad for Poland is that the early Christian monks didn't write down the mythology and legends of the land at a time when they were still vivid in the oral tradition. Ireland was lucky that the Irish monks recorded the great mythological cycles which went on to become part of every child's education. This is what I mean about the continuity of the culture that is a peculiarity of Ireland, the sense of connection to our ancient past. We know the stories that our ancestors listened to thousands of years ago, even the game of hurling is part of the legend of Cú Chulainn. The game has survived for several thousand years - how many places in modern Europe do you find that?

I think that Poland suffered because the early monks were not Poles or even Slavs and didn't care about preserving the ancient myths, legends and folklore of the Polans and other tribes that formed the nation of Poland. The Irish monks were Irish and wanted to record their heritage which is why they wrote all the stories of the Pagan Gods of the ancient Irish. So when Ironside says that 'Irish' culture began with Christianity he's completely wrong - as usual. It's clear that a sense of Irish identity already existed in the fifth century whereas Polish identity begins with the orchestrated and symbolic unification of many tribes under a Christian king.

History / "Hurricane" - New film about the famous Polish RAF squadron 303. [26]

Just to add to that, the Scottish director of the film talks about it briefly here:

thefirstnews.com/video/director-david-blair-talks-to-tfn-at-the-warsaw-premiere-of-his-new-film-hurricane-65

The script was written by Robert Ryan, an Englishman and Alastair Galbraith, another Scot.

Ryan gives a few nice little details about historical accuracy in the film here:

robtryan.com/tag/hurricane/

Nice that it has a Scottish provenance, given the connection between the Polish servicemen and Scotland where so many of them settled after the war. I wonder whose idea the film was in the first place.

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]


Gaelic Ireland already existed when Christianity arrived. At that time the people were already speaking an early form of the Irish language, Primitive Irish. That's why literature in the Irish language (Old Irish, the next stage) written in the Latin alphabet was so quick to appear and why Ireland has the oldest tradition of vernacular literature in Western Europe. Most countries in Europe began by writing in Latin and Greek and then moved on to writing in their own language.

The fact is that it was Christianity that lead directly to the founding of the Polish state and that without it, Poland as a nation might never have come into being. The Polans were merely one of many tribes in the vicinity at that time as you know and they managed to unite with those other tribes under the umbrella of Christianity. You can't compare the ancient history of Ireland and Poland because Ireland was an island and that makes all the difference. We can trace the gradual development of 'Irish' culture over many thousands of year, much more systematically than one can the West Slavic tribes who combined to form what we now know as Poland and the roots of Irish culture go much further back than Christianity.


According to the most recent genetic mapping of Ireland done by Trinity College, most of the genes present in Ireland today come from the people who were living at the time of Newgrange, more than 5,000 years ago. So whether they would recognize us or not, we are closely related.

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]


All jokes aside, there is significant maths involved in the construction of Newgrange and those maths didn't come from the Babylonians.


Not quite. There was pre-Christian literacy in Ireland. Experts on ancient Ireland agree that the existing literacy which developed independently on the island was the reason we adopted the Latin alphabet etc so quickly and used it to express our spoken language. We had already been writing our spoken language in the ancient Irish alphabet for a couple of centuries so this explains why Irish tradtion of vernacular literature is the oldest in Western Europe.

Of course everything started in the Middle East but it soon spread out and ideas developed independently of each other. Civilizations rise and fall. Who'd associate modern day Italy with the Roman empire - or Greece come to that. I think Ireland on the other hand has done pretty well in maintaining and building on its early civilization and continuing to make progress, partly because it's an island and partly because despite the centuries of war etc it wasn't repeatedly invaded by different tribes and cultures.

I always see Poland as quite a young country that never really got itself established. I mean it's only a thousand years old and it's been been in decline since the 1700s. Not out of the woods yet either with PIS at the helm.

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]


What about Newgrange? Quite complex maths there. Very ancient Ireland, so ancient Europeans :)


Well that's not quite true but this isn't the place to argue about it.

Of course Dirk and Rich are talking rubbish though.

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]


We brough Christianity, literacy and scholarship to much of Europe .
Britian, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy:
Iona, Lindisfarne
Annegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines in France,
St. Gall in Switzerland, Disibodenberg in the Rhine Palatinate,
St. Paul's at Besancon, Lure and Cusance in the Dicoese of Besancon, Beze in the Diocese of Langres, Remiremont Abbey and Moyenmoutier Abbey in the Diocese of Toul, Fosses-la-Ville in the Diocese of Liege, Mont-St-Michel at Peronne,

Ebersmunster in Lower Alsace, St. Martin's at Cologne, Regensberg, Vienna, Erfurt and Wurzburg.

To name but a few :)

"Irish scholars who arrived in Continental Europe in the early Middle Ages are often credited with making some of the most important contributions to European culture and learning of the time".

Of course being overrun by Vikings rather put a damper on our activities and after that we were a bit preoccupied fighting off the English and the lowland Scots (a pox on them!). Nonetheless because of our adoption of the English language we were able to make a significant contribution to English literature blah, blah.


Now you do know our history don't you?? However, be that as it may:

The guided missile (Louis Brennan)
The submarine ditto
I think he designed the first helicopter that actually flew as well.
Cure for leprosy (Dr Vincent Barry)
Boyle's Law (Dr Richard Boyle) chemistry
George Francis Fitzgerald whose work was incorporated into Einstein's theory of relativity.

There's actually a load more but does it really matter? You know how it is with 'inventions'. They come about over a period of time by drawing on the work of those who have gone before and are often responsible for a single element of the invention that makes all the difference.

Oh and Marconi's mother was one of the Jameson family, you know the Irish whiskey people, so he was halfIrish anyway :)

Only an ignorant idiot would deny or detract form the fact that Britain has a superb history of engineering and innovation and in fact Scotland played a large part in that.

As for crime, wherever they went, the Irish and the Poles were far more of an asset to their adopted homelands than a burden or a threat.

UK, Ireland / No Poles Allowed! - Latest Polonophobic Outrage Out of Britain [660]

Should this stuff not be moved to off-topic - it has nothing at all to do with the thread title.