Festival tradition celebrated in Mayo town

COMMUNITY NOTES: BALLYHAUNIS - WESTERN PEOPLE (SEPTEMBER 23 EDITION)

Over 100 people filled the Community Hall in Ballyhaunis recently with song, dance and the scent of spices in the food served for the happy celebration of the Onam festival.

“It’s a tradition which celebrates the rule of the benevolent king Mahabali,” explained Jenish Jon, president of Knock Indian Malayalee Association (KIMA) who moved to Ireland five years ago to take up his job as a nurse in the Queen of Peace Nursing Home in Knock.

Malayalee denotes a person who is from the south-westerly Indian region of Kerala and who speaks the local language of that region, Malayalam.

“We’re here from Ballyhaunis, Knock, Kiltimagh and Tooreen,” said Jon.

Some of the others celebrating in the hall work at the Sonas Nursing Home, also in Knock, while staff from Mayo University Hospital were also present, a testament to the demand in Mayo for Indian care workers and medical staff. In the KIMA group there are also “IT workers, accountants and healthcare assistants,” noted Jon.

Wearing his pink-hued mundu, the traditional robe commonly worn by males in Kerala, Jon explains that his group hasn’t felt the sense of threat from anti-immigration activists which the Indian community in Dublin spoke publicly about last month.

“In Mayo we didn’t feel any of that up to the moment.”

Jon thinks anti-immigration commentators in Ireland have confused asylum seekers with migrants arriving on work permits to fill Ireland’s skills shortage. He is keen to stress that many highly qualified workers have been recruited from Kerala to come to Ireland on working visas.

“I completed five levels of courses to come here,” explained Jon.

Kerala is home to a large Catholic population and members of Jon’s group are largely Christian and congregate for a weekly mass in Knock Shrine.

“There are three Indian priests on staff at the Shrine,” said Jon. “They say our mass in the local language. We go for the English mass as well. Our services tend to be longer than the Irish mass, usually 90 minutes.”

After a traditional lamp lighting ceremony at the Community Hall, a female dance troupe performed the Thiruvathiria, moving in a circular formation around the lit candles.

Watching on, Jon expects his community to grow in Mayo given local demand for skilled Indian workers. He lives in the Maples estate in Ballyhaunis with his wife who works in Mayo University Hospital in Castlebar.

As the community grows, home comforts arrive at the Onam celebration in Ballyhaunis in the form of dishes served by an Indian catering company based in Dublin and Waterford which delivered the food.

Nearer to home, Jon explains that there’s an Indian shop near the hospital in Castlebar. In Kiltimagh, there’s an Indian restaurant.

That will help make the local Indian community feel at home. Like all migrant groups, finding affordable housing remains a challenge however, and the rising cost has been noticeable.

“I was paying €650 per month a few years ago but now it’s €900 and if I was to take out a new lease now it will be €1,300,” explained Jon.