On Wednesday, 7 December, The Irish Times published an article informing that Polish migrants make up Northern Ireland’s most numerous minority community. 

The article is based on the data provided by the 2021 census. The latter revealed that over 22,300 Poles lived in Northern Ireland last year. In the meantime, unofficial data shows that their number could be much higher and even exceed 30,000. 

No matter which of these data is the most accurate, Polish nationals make up close to one in five (18%) foreign-born citizens in Northern Ireland.  

The number of Poles living in Northern Ireland has constantly been increasing in the past two decades, especially since Poland joined the EU in 2004. The existence of about 10 Polish Saturday Schools, which have been active for the past 15 years, is one of the illustrations of this phenomenon.  

Although the tendency slightly changed due to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Polish language remains to be heard in many places across Belfast and beyond.  

https://twitter.com/IrishTimes/status/1600290881332219905?s=20&t=tVZ4lBQ2NpxvswD1kbd20Q

As the Belfast Telegraph revealed in 2021, Polish remains the second most common first language of schoolchildren across Northern Ireland, along with Lithuanian. 

Image: Unsplash

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen