In March of 2024 amidst the rising tensions in Ireland around Immigration, I approached the IPAS centre in Courtown , co. Wexford housed in the Old Courtown Hotel with a view to documenting the lives of the men living there. Initially I spent a couple of months dropping in to get to know the residents and to get a feel for the place and once I had explained the project and gained their trust I began photographing them. So much was in the press and online at the time about how these men were here to take over and to exploit our system.

What I found was a group of men that bore both physical and mental scars from a deeply traumatic past, trying to turn their lives around in a country whose government had welcomed them in and granted them safe passage from the former atrocities that they had endured.

At the end of the summer I sent the project to the Guardian UK and they decided to feature it as a photo essay with accompanying text from their Irish correspondent Lisa O Carroll. I organised the interviews with the refugees that run through the piece and I also liased with local community leaders, facilitating interviews with them also to order to provide a local perspective of life in the village with an IPAS centre so centrally located.

This is an ongoing project that I will be working on in 2025 with the assistance of Wexford Local Development.

I’ve made a lot of friends along the journey this project has taken and I thank them all for their openness and generosity.

The Guardian UK photo essay with interviews with the guys can be found here - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/dec/02/asylum-seekers-refugees-courtown-ireland-photo-essay