Over 300 individuals gathered for a St. Patrick’s parade in the Polish city of Łódź yesterday, as part of a weekend festival celebrating Irish cuisine and culture.
The event was inspired by Ivonka Kwiek, a Łódź native who relocated to County Galway a decade ago.
Her connection to the city of the Tribes was somewhat serendipitous.
“A friend invited me to Galway, and I had never been to Ireland before,” Ms. Kwiek recounted, while seated in a restaurant within the OFF Piotrkowska Center, a transformed former cotton mill now filled with trendy eateries, design studios, and tech startups.
“It was like a vibrant village, bursting with color, dance, and culture. It felt like a completely different world,” she shared, noting that after her second visit to Galway, she decided to move there for work in 2015.
As a cultural anthropologist, Ms. Kwiek has been active in the cultural sector in Galway for the past ten years.
Last summer, she moved to Indreabhán in the Gaeltacht and greeted your reporter in Łódź with a cúpla focal.
Ivonka Kwiek at the OFF Piotrkowska Center in Łódź
A few years back, a coffee meeting during a trip back to Łódź with the management at the OFF Piotrkowska Center inspired Ms. Kwiek to revamp the ‘OFF to Ireland Festival’, a three-day St. Patrick’s themed event at the historic red-brick mill that had been running for a few years prior.
“Since I’m living in Ireland, I believed I could help create a real connection with Ireland, beyond just serving green beer,” she explained.
To achieve this, Ms. Kwiek collaborated with ‘A Taste of Galway’, a network of food producers in the county, whose members have provided Galway Bay oysters, Conamara lamb, Irish cheese, soda bread, salmon, and other local products to the center’s restaurants.
“All the restaurants are offering food from Ireland, not just food inspired by Ireland,” Ms. Kwiek added.
Her vision included staging a parade as the centerpiece of the festival, beginning at OFF Piotrkowska and making its way down the city’s main street.
“There’s nothing more quintessential than a parade, so we thought, let’s create the first Irish St. Patrick’s parade in Łódź ever.”
This year, the Embassy of Ireland in Poland, Łódź City Council, and Galway City Council joined as honorary patrons of the festival.
Ireland’s Ambassador to Poland, Patrick Haughey, attended the parade yesterday.
‘Filids’, a Polish band performing traditional Irish music, at the event yesterday. Courtesy: Artur Kraszewski / Off Piotrkowska Center
The organizers also engaged local primary schools, inviting children to create artwork inspired by Ireland.
A budding young artist and their parent won a weekend getaway to Galway, complete with hotel and flight accommodations.
Another prize went to the best-dressed attendee, who received flights to Ireland, a spending voucher, and entry to the International Oyster Festival in Galway this September.
Ms. Kwiek also set up a pop-up stall for the Galway Tourist Office during this weekend’s festivities.
The Polish community in Ireland is notably the largest minority group, with over 93,000 individuals documented in the 2022 census.
Additionally, there are around 123,000 Polish speakers residing in Ireland, as indicated by the same census—this larger count likely includes Irish-born children of Polish parentage who converse in Polish at home.
Conversely, the number of Irish citizens living in Poland is significantly lower.
The Embassy of Ireland in Warsaw estimates the Irish community in Poland is “in the low thousands,” with about 1,000 Irish students currently enrolled in Polish universities.
Based on the most recent Polish census conducted in 2021, around 10,000 Polish citizens possess dual Polish-Irish citizenship.
This figure likely encompasses children born in Ireland to Polish parents whose families have since returned to reside in Poland.
Ms. Kwiek expressed her desire to continue “building bridges” between her two homes.
“Łódź is in my blood, but after a decade, when I visit Łódź, I sometimes feel overwhelmed and need to return to my Conamara.”
