Polish Migrants in Urban Space of Dublin

The end of Cold War in the late 1980s of the 20th century and the accession to EU in 2004 brought spectacular changes in Polish migrations during the last 20 years. The opening of borders in 1989 and labour markets for Poles in 2004 caused fundamental changes in the scale, intensity and directions of Polish migrations. This paper is an attempt to analyze the Polish wave of migration to Ireland, which is one of the three states that opened labour market for workers from the ‘new EU’ in 2004 without any restrictions. The special attention is paid to Dublin, where the presence of Polish immigrants is very visible both at the statistical level and within social and urban space.