Life / Neoliberalism and family formation in Poland [100]


Well, speaking for myself, I prefer a man who displays basic manners and common courtesy - and not just towards me or women in general but towards everybody.


And neither am I. For example, early proponents of women's rights in England (and some of them were men) advocated for equal educational rights for girls. That was a massive issue. Sir Thomas More who died in 1535 insisted that his daughters have the same classical education as his sons, which was pretty much unheard of in those days. His daughter Margaret Roper was a classical scholar and translator of considerable repute during her brief lifetime. For centuries it was about women being routinely denied equality of opportunity in a range of areas, not just in voting.


I know Americans generally dislike nuance and complexity but it's just not that simple.


He takes advantage of foolish or unstable young women and makes money from selling pornography.

Life / Neoliberalism and family formation in Poland [100]


Feminism has its roots in works like England's 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' by Mary Wollstonecraft which was published in the late 1700s.


On his own website he said the following:

"My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she's quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she'd do anything I say and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together,"

"I had 75 women working for me in four locations and I was doing $600,000 a month from webcam," he said in a podcast interview.

He's just a a low-life.


Really? The latest news from two weeks ago is that they will be tried in Romania and then extradited to the UK for trial there. The English police already have the European arrest warrant.

He claims to be under instruction from God ............. I suppose that's useful if he wants to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

Genealogy / Anyone from Berezka / Brzuska near the Ukrainian border ? [53]


According to the sources I checked, the village of Berezka was destroyed by the Germans and abandoned by the villagers.

'The church is visited by former inhabitants of the village who emigrated after the war or were displaced, and by their descendants. Services are sometimes held here in memory of those who lived here.'

Of course it's possible that some villagers returned and settled there so I suppose one could check what the 'local' names are and see if there are any people of that name living in the village today. They might have a few tales of the 'my granny used to say' variety.


I know, she needs to go to Ireland for that :)


You're welcome :)

Genealogy / Anyone from Berezka / Brzuska near the Ukrainian border ? [53]

I'm not sure it's worth visiting there to be honest. The problem with these Polish villages is that they were small rural settlements with wooden houses which have mostly disappeared and there is now nothing much to see other than modern buildings and the locals have no historic connection with the area and don't have any stories to share. However the ruins of the church are there but it's an Orthodox church.

If you like walking in hilly places and forest trails etc. you might enjoy a couple of days in the area and there's a river, so nice countryside.

Here's a link to Google streetview so you can see what the village looks like:

instantstreetview.com/@49.390782,22.387613,270.58h,3.65p,0z,-2PLe8KH3vM3_no4lbtABg

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


That's nice :) I especially like the pic where they've done some kind of project and there are photos of the beautiful coastline. How come I wasn't invited? ;)

Love / How do I make a Polish guy fall in love and his family.( I'm American) [10]

You can't do anything to make anybody fall in love with you. Just be yourself and if it's meant to be, it will be.

News / SHOULD POLAND HAVE NUKES?? [154]


And you have Ireland to thank for that.

"In 1958 Ireland introduced at the UN the first of what became known as the "Irish Resolutions". This initiative culminated in the adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Ireland was the first country to sign the NPT in 1968."

It took Herculean labours by Frank Aiken, the Irish representative at the UN to talk everybody round to supporting the first of the Resolutions. He drafted in extra staff to get the job done.

"Seán Ronan, the head of the political and information divisions at headquarters in Dublin, was sent as a delegate to the First Committee of the UN..

His insider account reveals some of the dynamics and calculations at play in the building, as Ireland managed a balancing act of engineering consensus between East and West."

Interesting to see the notes from the meeting when it was adopted in 1960:

"The U.S. indicated that they would support the Irish proposal. The Foreign Minister of the Ukraine spoke for the Soviet bloc and commended the Irish initiative. He then launched into an attack on Western Germany as a 'hot bed of aggression' which retained the greatest possible stocks of nuclear weapons and whose forces were being trained in their use...............The representative of Iraq in his statement accused Israel, with the assistance of France, of building a nuclear reactor that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Poland attacked France, NATO, and West Germany in their statement. The efforts of West Germany to get nuclear weapons was a matter of great concern to Poland, and the nuclear arming of West Germany might deal a fatal blow to efforts to achieve agreement on complete and general disarmament."

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]

I'm sure there's an audience for a Gracie Fields tribute act/show of some kind. They were great songs. Do you like Vera Lynn? Beautiful songs that are still uplifting and have an important message today.

My grandad used to sing that to annoy my sister when she first started learning the harp :) he was a right old tease. He sang a lot of the old musical hall songs too, I remember him singingOh, Oh, Antonio(Florrie Forde) andA Bicycle Made for Two and of course My Old Man said Follow the Van, and Any Old Iron.

A while ago I discovered an album of the records which Ernest Shackleton took with his ill-fated Antarctic expedition. Of course it included some of the popular comical songs of the time. I really like this one!

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


The harp circle was kind of separate and a bit rarefied in those days. Many of those involved were academics or also classical musicians. To give you an example, a couple of the key figures in it were Grainne Yeats, who was married to W.B.Yeat's son Michael. She was a graduate of Trinity College, had studied concert harp first and then discovered the Irish harp. She was a regular adjudicator in harp and singing competitions. Then there was Sheila Larchet, whose father had been musical director of the Abbey Theatre during its formative years. Mrs Ferriter was wonderful because she was completely 'unstuffy' if you know what I mean.

Here is a really rare thing that you wouldn't find if you didn't know you should be looking for it :) It's another one of Mrs Ferriter's young pupils. She's about twelve years old when this was filmed. The song is a Catholic mother's plea to her son to return to the Church, he having deserted it to become a Protestant minister.



And here's something else for your scrapbook, a pic of, left to right, Mrs Ferriter, her sister Roisin and in the forefront a young Mary O'Hara. I believe this was taken in America but I can check with my sister.

Sorry Maf, forgot to say Jean Ritchie is new to me - how lovely! She has a natural vibrato in her voice. You can hear the Irishness in the melodies :)

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Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


Oh, I agree, but they were just a bunch of local kids really and they were certainly no worse than U2.

As for Rory - no, you're wrong. Rory was exceptionally gifted.


I grew up listening to her literally every day and can thus sing her repertoire verbatim - my sister's harp teacher Máirín Ní Shéaghdha had been Mary O' Hara's teacher and Mary's repertoire of early Irish songs was acquired from that wonderful lady. Mary O' Hara learned her phrasing and arrangements for both harp and singing from her though she never acknowledges that and claims the arrangements as her own.

O'Hara's voice was beautiful, though her style was unfortunately tainted with 'the drawing room' due to the intervention of Sister Angela, an ancient nun who taught singing at Sion Hill Dominican Convent where Mary (and indeed my own sister) was a pupil. Máirín Ní Shéaghdha, (Mrs Ferriter,after her marriage) absolutely deplored Sr Angela's influence on the singing but anyway ............ when I met Sr Angela she would have been about ninety and she was still teaching in the school. Usually nuns loved me, but she was one of the few who didn't! Fortunately I never had to learn singing from her.

My mother and Mrs Ferriter had many a long conversation - with me sitting in the corner - about Mary O'Hara's singing and the agreement was that her phrasing was superlative. It was her breath control that set her apart but her tone was considered a bit shrill. Farewell but Whenever is a good choice to show the breath control. Beautiful phrasing.

Incidentally my mother who was a singer won the Thomas Moore Cup at the Feis Ceoil. It was awarded for the best interpretation of Thomas Moore songs. I don't know which ones she sang but there's a photo of her with the cup and a rose :) The winner was always given a rose to represent The Last Rose of Summer. I remember her singing that and Silent O'Moyle, which Mary O'Hara also recorded.

My sister sang all of Mary's songs and followed in her footsteps winning every competition for harp and voice under 18s by the time she was fifteen. She gave it up when she was sixteen but returned to senior competition for a year or two later on. Won everything again and stopped again! She still plays though.

Incidentally "Is Ar Eirinn Ni N-Eosphainn Ce Hi" is what Mrs Ferriter would call one of 'the big songs'. This is a song that she would only allow pupils to attempt when they reached a certain level of accomplishment in both voice and harp, which most of them never did. Another one is 'Jimmy Mo Mhíle Stór'.

You might like this.

Life / Poles - the Nation of Liars? [478]

Oh Alien, please. They are not talkative with strangers, as a rule.

Life / Poles - the Nation of Liars? [478]


What is a British American??


That's odd, unless you were looking for American cars - or something with an enormous engine. If you just search for a European or Japanese make of car you'll find that a lot of them are imported from other European countries, not from the US. In fairness, the used car market is pretty dodgy but it's not as bad as you think.

I've also used Allegro for dozens, if not a couple of hundred purchases and I only had a problem with them once.

I wouldn't say that medical services are scammers but they're not as professional as one would hope for. I once had to have a visual fields test at LuxMed and I thought the girl performing it seemed a bit inept. I engaged her in casual conversation (that in itself is a feat in Poland) and managed to find out that she'd had very little training in using the equipment and that her last job was as a dental hygienist. I'd expect a nurse or properly trained technician to be carrying out such an important test.

But, Poles are definitely not all thieves and liars. They're a mixed bag. They're not the 'nicest' people but not the worst either. Poland is a lottery, and your chances are absolutely fifty-fifty down the middle as to what kind of experience you have in any given situation. It can be just fine or a shambles. Are you still in Poland?

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


Never so keen on Gary Moore. He was very talented of course but Rory was unique.


Oh agreed, absolutely no comparison.

This may interest you. Totally obscure. This was another local band from the suburbs of north Dublin around the time of U2. Again, I was too young to go and see them live but I remember one evening as I walked past the guitaritst's house, hearing him practising the guitar solo from Emerald :) At some point they played support for Thin Lizzy. They had great potential. Average age in the band was about twenty, when they recorded this, it's just a demo and played live in one take, so not great quality, but way ahead of U2; compare the guitar solo at 1:40 to Edge of the same vintage ;)

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


I know what you mean, but you expect that. What I find more disturbing is people effectively enslaving their own.


Sadly, no. My favourite Rory period is the 1970s and I was only a kid then.


Thanks Joker, interesting choice. Have you heard this version? It's Rory's old band mate playing it at Rory's funeral. You can hear the Gaelic influence in the music when it's played this way. If you knew the old 17th and 18th century ballads it could easily be one of them. (The bit at the end is a a quick snatch of a jamming session after the funeral):

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


No, he's not. They can't help being annoying. Novi does it on purpose.


That's not true at all. Thanks to the properly designed Single Transferable Vote system of Proportional Representation in Ireland, when we're not happy, we have far more power than Americans to vote out those we don't want and vote in those we do. There's a general election next year in Ireland next year and already the government is changing its tune about migrants but at this stage it's too late to regain ground and they'll be out.

Now, while I'm here I'll take the chance to mention the Irish women who tried to escape from their indentured servitude in Montserrat and were sentenced to 39 lashes apiece on their bare backs. I'm sure Poloniusz would have been happy to administer the lashes, combining his hatred of women and the Irish in one neat package.

Or how about John Scott, an English adventurer who travelled in the West Indies during the Commonwealth, who saw Irish servants working in field gangs with slaves, 'without stockings under the scorching sun'. The Irish, he wrote, were "derided by the n@groes, and branded with the epithet of 'white slaves'"

Speaking of branding, Irish who attempted to escape from their servitude and were caught didn't only get the lash, but were frequently branded with FT. on their foreheads - Fugitive Traitor.

And we mustn't forget that it was the Anglo-Irish Marquess of Sligo, who on arriving in Jamaica as Governor, proceeded to free the slaves and set up schools for them. The first free village of Sligoville in Saint Catherine parish, Jamaica is named after hiim.

Now let's start a thread to talk about serfdom in Poland over the centuries. Imagine to think that whole villages of serfs were sold as a job lot to their new masters. Shocking stuff.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [309]

Here's a cheerful piece of news..............

notesfrompoland.com/2024/03/18/polish-government-wants-to-release-20000-prisoners-from-overcrowded-jails/

The general gist of it is that prison reform is needed in Poland - which it is, wouldn't argue with that - but in the usual cheap and not-so-cheerful Polish style, a fast track to reform is to reduce the present numbers by around 25% as quickly as possible. That will alleviate overcrowding.

The daft bint deputy justice minister Maria Ejchart believes that it can work because it does in Norway - Norway! Yes dear, it works in Norway because Norwegian society and social policy couldn't be more different to Poland. What a silly cow.

Wonder what sort of convicts she'll be releasing? Happy days ahead.

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]

Why does the cover show people doing Scottish dancing??

Please, let us differentiate between the Irish and the Irish-American (who in fact were a mixed bag of Anglo-Irish, Irish and Ulster-Scots. The early Irish immigrants were both Catholic and Protestant, rich, poor and somewhere in the middle. For the middle and upper class ones, it made obvious sense for them to align with the status quo. For the poorer ones, the indentured servants and labourers, many had the great advantage in those times, of literacy. Being literate and white gave them the chance to elevate themselves in what was a very harsh world. Adapt and survive, then hopefully thrive.

Getting back to the Irishman as opposed to the Irish-American, at what point does one cease to be Irish and become American, taking on all the less savoury attributes of American culture and society? Certainly within one generation there is already a vast difference. Born in America, raised in America, you're American.


I'll let a black man tell you:

"the entire absence of everything that looked like prejudice against me, on account of the colour of my skin-contrasted so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States, that I look with wonder and amazement on the transition." (Frederick Douglas, Ireland, 1845)

And I'll leave you with the words of his friend, Irishman, Daniel O'Connell's words to the Irish-Americans:

"Come out of such a land, you Irishmen, or, if you remain, and dare countenance the system of slavery that is supported there, we will recognize you as Irishmen no longer."

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


I didn't even know there WAS a PC one! We wouldn't dream of singing it in Ireland :) The guys performing it were various old friends and associates of Shane McGowan, so they were honouring his memory and definitely wouldn't be cleaning it up for singing in church. Anyway, the priest knew him well.

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


And yet he produced a child with a Moroccan woman - incidentally, while still married to his Irish wife. That wouldn't go down well with you at all now, would it? Oh and he was co-founder of and remains very involved with the Dublin-Arabic Film Festival. Not surprising really seeing as he's now living with his former bit-on-the-side.


If I were 'ashamed of my roots' would I be speaking Irish? "Tír gan Teanga, Tír gan Anam".


Yes, the Irish in Montserrat were supposedly not a nice bunch - but no in-depth scholarly work has been produced on the subject with any real detail about they behaved towards the black slaves. Would you like to do it? :)

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


No :)) but I've heard of them.


No, like this:



youtube.com/watch?v=6s8lvnSmISc

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]

Irish culture I suppose really.

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]


Why wouldn't they? There are plenty of links between the two nations and while the average Pole wouldn't know the historic connections, Poles generally like Irish people and Irish culture.

Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhaoibh go léir to anyone who is celebrating today, wherever you may be, Irish roots or not.

Life / St Patrick's day in Poland [272]

A Thiarna, dein trócaire orainn ............... ach go raibh maith agat :)

And no, they never sold Irish Spring in Ireland!

Travel / How to get Polish entry/exit stamps in passport when entering the Schengen area in a country other than Poland [12]


If you're staying in a hotel, you'd have proof. Otherwise you could use any bank statements that show credit/debit card use for the period of your stay. You could also get a mobile/cell phone sim card. You need to show ID/Passport when you register your mobile number. It would prove you were in Poland at that time. You could even set up a doctor's appointment at a private medical service for something simple like a blood pressure check. Then you'd have a record of that. There are lots of ways you can document a visit.

As others have said you can keep tickets etc. If they're e-bookings you can print off the bookings and keep the. A stamp in the passport is not a thing anymore.

Travel / How to get Polish entry/exit stamps in passport when entering the Schengen area in a country other than Poland [12]


If you're staying for more than a month you can register with the local authority:

welcome.uw.edu.pl/during-your-stay/registration-of-address/

Food / Polish dishes with foreign origin in the name [99]


I know and that's a bone of contention for some of us :)

These images might interest you. One is of a letter typed on a very rare thing, an old typewriter with the cló gaelach font and the other a child's school exercise book from around 1920. The writing is so beautiful.

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Food / Polish dishes with foreign origin in the name [99]


Not just a font in my opinion as it existed centuries before printing and spread from Ireland to England. It was developed by the Irish monks to transcribe Latin into Irish so they created the diacritics they needed to render the Gaelic eg. the dot over the b to represent the v sound. Also the monks created the spaces between words system that renders text more readable. They started it around the 7th century and it spread to the rest of Europe later.

Food / Polish dishes with foreign origin in the name [99]


Yes, I do. It also meant the end of the lovely old Irish script in which people used to read and write the Irish language.

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Food / Polish dishes with foreign origin in the name [99]


You do if you're properly literate. The etymology of words should be respected, not simplified. The dumbing down of everything ........... make things simple and people become simpletons.

Life / Womans day in Poland? [242]


Like my maternal great-grandmother who died in childbirth, at the age of 38 after eleven pregnancies? Eleven children in sixteen years of marriage. The poor woman. If you really think that she or countless other women like her had those children for 'gratification' you are beyond help.