In Churchtown, a couple invite a former asylum seeker into their home

As soon as she hears the key turn, the dog barks and skirts past a grey sofa headed towards the front door.

That’s Will Foley and Nathalie Ennis’ lurcher Bella. She’s all hyped up to greet Shafinah Namirembe.

When Namirembe walks into the living room, in a cream-coloured trench coat with a daffodil pinned to its lapel, Bella hops on the sofa. Namirembe giggles and gently holds the pooch’s head in her hands, standing over her.

When Namirembe – who is known to friends and family as Mariam – first visited the home in Churchtown in south Dublin, she was nervous around the dog. But Bella quickly grew on her.

“She said to me the other day, ‘Now I understand why people might prefer dogs to people,’” said Ennis, before Namirembe had arrived.

Namirembe has been living with Foley and Ennis for about a year now. In June 2023, Ennis read Namirembe’s story in Dublin Inquirer.

The International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) – the Department of Children and Equality office in charge of housing asylum seekers – had asked Namirembe to leave a hostel in Tullamore in Co. Offaly because she had been granted status.

IPAS was offering her an emergency shelter in Co. Clare. But Namirembe, who had been shuttled from centre to centre since arriving in Ireland in 2019, didn’t have it in her to commute from Clare to Dublin every day.

She was juggling a master’s course at Dublin City University (DCU) and work at a city crèche.

Ennis and Foley have lived in their sunlit two-storey home since 2020. They had hosted family and friends going through tough times before, they say.

When Ennis read Namirembe’s story last year, she walked across the hall to her husband’s home office. “I was like, you won’t believe what I just read.”

They both thought that if they could help, why not? “We were like, we have a space at the moment in the house,” said Ennis.

They reached out to Dublin Inquirer, asking to get in touch with Namirembe.

A year later, Namirembe is still living with them. She’s recently graduated, still works at the same crèche, and goes to view homes all the time. Foley and Ennis say they don’t regret it.

For them, hosting has meant months of being super aware of their unchecked power over Namirembe’s life, understanding the sheer dread of the hold that bureaucratic whimsy can have over immigrants, enjoying Ugandan chapatis – and wincing at Namirembe’s unfiltered declarations of love and appreciation.

We’re not the same

Foley and Ennis realised they could do something like that after the government’s campaigns to encourage people to share their homes with Ukrainian refugees after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, they say.

“We looked at it at the time, just to see what the process was,” says Foley.

But a friend was staying with them then. They didn’t hear about any similar campaigns for asylum seekers from elsewhere, they say.

The Irish Red Cross’s website says the accommodation scheme it is co-running for Ukrainian refugees has housed nearly 18,180 people.

Its web page for pledging accommodation doesn’t mention asylum seekers but says one can offer to house a Ukrainian or programme refugee.

A spokesperson for the Irish Red Cross said that 211 programme refugees have got accommodation support this way.

Programme refugees are those who have applied to come to Ireland with pre-approved refugee status through the government’s humanitarian schemes.

But their numbers are tiny compared to Ukrainian refugees. Roughly 600 Afghans have come through that route since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, according to government figures.

As of 4 February 2024, 104,870 Ukrainians had arrived in Ireland, show Central Statistics Office figures.

Ukrainian refugees are granted freedom of movement around the European Union, too. But programme refugees have said that European countries demand they apply for visas.

Foley and Ennis say they can’t wrap their heads around all the disparity.

That people are not only encouraged to invite Ukrainian refugees into their homes but can get paid for it is befuddling if similar campaigns are not in swing for asylum seekers from elsewhere, they say.

The government offers a monthly payment of €800 tax-free to those who are housing Ukrainian refugees.

“To my knowledge, there isn’t a scheme for the guys sleeping on the canal this morning,” said Foley on Thursday evening.

Ennis asks her husband if he thinks that’s because Ukrainian refugees are White.

Foley says it’s probably because Ukraine is close to Europe and because the Russian government is not a European ally. “But also because they’re White,” he said, laughing.

A spokesperson for the Department of Children and Equality didn’t directly respond to a question about why there isn’t a similar scheme for asylum seekers.

But they said that those who have been granted status have the same rights as Irish and European citizens in accessing housing aid from their local councils.

IPAS has a dedicated transition team that helps former asylum seekers to move out of its centres, the spokesperson said.

A fear

Ennis and Foley say how much power they hold over Namirembe’s life scares them.

“We were scared for her, not for us,” Foley said.

Since they didn’t invite her through an official scheme, they didn’t have to be Garda vetted. They could’ve been weird or dangerous, they say.

“And nobody has checked on her,” said Ennis.

Foley remembers how when Namirembe first met them, she saw it differently.

He turns to Namirembe. “Remember you asked me, ‘Why would you take this risk?’”

Namirembe is sitting beside him on the edge of the sofa, barefoot in a summery dress. She nods.

The way they saw it, Foley says, Namirembe was the one in unfamiliar territory. She was taking the risk of living with unvetted strangers who held all the power.

“It’s a small risk to us,” says Foley. If something went wrong, they could just call Gardaí, Foley says.

“And you get thrown out on the street or a direct provision centre or get deported,” he said.

The off-kilter power dynamic is something they have wrestled with so much, they say.

They ask her not to do house chores for them. “I didn’t want her to act like a housekeeper,” says Foley.

They let her have her own space, bring over friends and have fun, they say. But she insists on minding their dog, Bella, when they’re away.

And sometimes, it’s hard to stop her from sweeping the leaves outside their home, said Ennis.

A childhood ritual born out of growing up with a strict father, Namirembe says. When she was a kid, her dad would ask her to sweep all the leaves that kept falling off a colossal mvule tree in their backyard.

“And he would say, ‘If I come back and see one leaf on the ground, we shall talk,’” says Namirembe.

Ennis says she noticed Namirembe eyeing the whole street when sweeping the bit around their house recently. “And I was like, Mariam, don’t even think about it,” she said, chuckling.

Know thy neighbours

Anti-immigrant activists often pose the question, “How many refugees or asylum seekers do you have in your house?” as a gotcha to those voicing support for asylum seekers and refugees.

Ennis and Foley say they enjoy shutting down talking points like that by telling people that they actually do live with someone from an asylum background. And that they get on.

“You can have great conversations with people who are being annoying to you,” said Foley, laughing.

Foley and Ennis say the government’s failure to tackle vital problems like the housing crisis let those with an anti-immigrant agenda surf on the public’s outrage.

Ennis and Foley say it’s baffling how the Irish, known for their long history of emigration, wouldn’t understand why someone might not want to live in their country of birth.

“Like there’s the Epic Museum on the quays, which is a celebration of Irishness and emigration,” said Ennis.

It’s all about how Irish people have left and made other countries better places with their talents, ideas and labour, she says. How come that can’t apply to everyone else?

“So much of the history of Ireland you’re given is that terrible things happened to us and how the people had to leave,” says Foley.

Ennis and Foley say they probably would have been more hesitant if they had read about a guy facing eviction from an IPAS centre, instead of Namirembe.

But they’d be reluctant to invite any random guy, regardless of place of birth or immigration status, they say.

They still would’ve reached out to meet to see how it goes, Foley says – and if his wife had met him and felt comfortable, he would have been game.

Their hope is, Foley says, that those reading their story will consider hanging out with people seeking asylum, and getting to know them, as people. And if they can, invite someone over, like they did.

“It’s definitely worthwhile, you’re gambling so little as an Irish person in a situation like this,” he said.

What they have shared

Ennis and Foley recently helped Namirembe file her citizenship application.

They’d watched her dread the process for so long, always vigilant for something to go wrong, and cobbling together physical copies of documents, unaware of the new electronic route.

“She literally did a little dance just submitting it,” says Foley, smiling.

They navigated the bureaucracy of applying for the rent subsidy, the Housing Assistance Payment, together and understood that the process wasn’t set up with everyone in mind. That can be hard for some immigrants to navigate.

They have also learnt about discrimination in the rental market as Namirembe tries to find a rental to move on. A letting agent, himself a person of colour, told them at one point that a landlord just wouldn’t have a Black tenant.

“He said the landlord wouldn’t rent it to me,” Foley said.

But they have shared good times, too. Ennis and Foley, big into Christmas, shared its joys and cookies with Namirembe.

She invited them to her Ramadan feasts.

On a board hung in the kitchen, there’s a Ramadan sticker with dangling lanterns and stars and crescents resting on mosques’ minarets.

Foley says he was able to surprise Muslim co-workers with a ton of small talk about fasting for Ramadan.

“Just being able to turn around and say, ‘How’s Ramadan going for you? Is it an easy or a hard one?’” he says, laughing.

Namirembe baked Ugandan chapatis, which Ennis says she loves snacking on.

“It is one of the delicacies snacks that we have in Uganda,” Namirembe says.

She decided to bake because Ennis is a terrific cook, she says. She enjoys her dishes.

Food in Ireland had never tasted good before she met Ennis and Foley, she says. “I don’t miss the food back home now.”

The big moment for them all was when Namirembe graduated from DCU.

A picture of the graduation hangs over the fireplace. Namirembe, in her graduation gown, stood upright between Foley and Ennis. They’re all smiling.

The photo is also Namirembe’s profile picture on WhatsApp. When they went out to dinner that night, Namirembe sang a song she’d written in appreciation of Foley and Ennis in front of her friends.

Being Irish and averse to praise, Foley and Ennis say they baulked. “We died,” says Ennis, laughing.

But Foley says the song sounded a lot like Irish folk music about hurt and hardship and triumphing over them. They listened and were moved, he says.

The chorus involves lots of “thank yous”. And Namirembe says she plans to record it in a studio.

Ennis and Foley wince. “They don’t want to be praised,” says Namirembe. They laugh.

Still, they mean so much to her. She can’t help it, she says.

“They say there’s light at the end of the tunnel, me, I saw the light,” said Namirembe.