Think or Swim: Part X

Mao Kelly was eating dim sum in Huit-Huit Chien, a Chinese restaurant on Chée d'Alsemberg in Brussels, when the immigration police walked in. "They said, 'Don't move. Show us your ID'".

"So I gave them a very good student card that identified me as a Catholic Taiwanese post-grad scholar at Louvain. That'll keep them busy for a while," he said, smiling.

Mao was sitting across a table from Murphy Van Hool, founder of Expatriate Irish Respectable Europeans, a voluntary organization that, officially, gave legal advice to expatriates who were in trouble with bureaucrats, employers or landlords.

"I've been busy recently," she said, brushing back the blond hair that kept falling across her eyes. "Look. Two hundred files open and nearly all of them about someone who was fired summarily or denied payment. It's just a few short steps from being fired to being arrested to being deported, you know."

Murphy Van Hool, the daughter of an Irish mother and a Belgian father, showed Mao the breakfast IPTV interview she'd given to a Swiss blogger a few hours earlier.

Irish immigrants, she told the interviewer, had flocked to mainland Europe from the early 1970s, drawn by the potential of the pub trade across the continent. Then, Ireland's integration into the world's economy in the 1990s led to a change in the profile of its émigrés. Remittances were less important and getting white-collar jobs in Brussels and Strasbourg became part of the country's international development strategy.

Irish immigrant numbers rose rapidly across Europe in the early years of the 21st century. The result was that in some NGOs and Quangos there were offices comprised entirely of Irish officials.

The Irish, however, had very low rates of participation in trade unions and political parties. They were also more likely to spend time with other Irish migrants in bars watching football because social interaction was frustrated by language barriers as most Irish insisted on speaking English only.

"Today, the Irish European experience is bleak," Murphy Van Hool told the interviewer. "It is marked by constant anxiety about immigration status. Since the tightening of visa regulations in 2010, the number of undocumented Irish has risen significantly, and while the statistics show they are disproportionately affected by crime, they are the least likely to report their experiences to the police."

They also earned less than others, she added. The unskilled were the most affected. "Most of them are doing cash-in-hand work, like slaves," said Van Hool. "Governments don't care. They just want non-EU people out of here."

The blogger cut to a French report on Irish workers that quoted Jacinta, a 28-year-old lawyer from Dublin, living in Paris. She described the sort of routine typical of many compatriots.

"I work seven days a week," she said. "I wake up at 5 am and start work at 6 am. Until 7 am, I clean a nursery. After that, I clean an optician's office, which includes the toilets. I finish at noon. Then from 1 pm to 3 pm, I clean an office. After that, I go home for a rest. From 4 pm to 2 pm I work in a bar."

"It's quite common," Van Hool to the interviewer. "They sleep for a few hours; they don't have any social life. They don't complain, because they're afraid of being deported."

The blogger cut to Iarfhlaith Ó Tuathail, Ireland's most influential pundit, who began to speak of the "Irish Diaspora" and how the overseas Irish were akin to the Jews of the early 20th century.

"Most of them dream of returning home one day," said Ó Tuathail.

But Mao didn't. He had grown used to the European way of life.

"Murphy, when I go back to Ireland, I don't feel I belong there," he said. "It's different. The weather's bad. People's teeth are bad. I feel like an outsider in Ireland."

Mao was struck by the fact that he was doubly alienated: From his own ethnic group and from the country in which he had been born.