“I thought you’d gone hiding,” joked President Catherine Connolly to Sharon Murphy as the singer-songwriter and anti-racism activist re-emerged from behind a sofa in Kinvara’s Merriman Hotel recently.

Sharon was simply retrieving her guitar from where it had been stored, behind the couch where President Connolly and her husband Brian were sitting.

The folk-reggae singer was preparing to perform at a multi-cultural celebration of food and music, held in the hotel, currently an IPAS Centre, on that Friday.

With dishes from sixteen countries including Afghanistan, Venezuela, Sudan, Nicaragua, El Salvador and more, all prepared by residents in the kitchens of local homes, this was “a joyous community event”, according to President Connolly. She was addressing some 70 international protection applicants and 60 local people at the Friendship and Food celebration in the hotel, which was bedecked with Christmas decorations.

“I know it didn’t happen by accident, didn’t happen easily and a lot of work went in to it,” said President Connolly, thanking the residents, the organisers, Kinvara for All, and the community for inviting her to be part of it.

“Music and song brings us back to the spirit of what Irish people are, brings us back to basics and, in that identity, makes us much stronger to reach out the hand of friendship, the hand of love,” said President Connolly.

“Every community is enriched and can only be enriched by such diversity,” she said of migration.

The Food and Friendship for All gathering, which included a healthy helping of music, was organised by Kinvara for All, which was set up about six months ago, as Sharon Murphy explained.

She had attended a meeting organised by several other locals, objecting to a government plan to designate the Merriman as an International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) Centre.

The hotel had housed Ukrainian refugees since 2022 and had previously served as an IPAS Centre in 2019.

The protests earlier this year against returning the former hotel for use as an IPAS centre included a tractor demonstration through Kinvara, and a failed bid to bring a High Court case, challenging the Government’s decision to house international protection applicants there.

“Some of the stuff that was said was disturbing and racist. I was never afraid until that night,” said Sharon of that meeting.

She struggled to sleep afterwards. The following morning, another local woman, Ann Lyons, rang her and suggested taking action.

Kinvara for All was born, and among its aims was “educating ourselves and others on racism and the impact of racism on society”.

Sharon performed Bob Marley’s Redemption Song at Friday’s gathering, after which Maledi Mathala from Botswana sang the South African song Vulidlela. Local musicians Áine Bird, John Faulkner, Jack Talty, Eimear Clancy and Kitty Sabry played a selection of jigs, reels and slow airs.

The speeches were short, but to the point. Margaret Brehony of Fáilte Kinvara, which was set up in late 2018, as the Merriman was first about to become an IPAS Centre, welcomed the guests, including President Connolly and her husband Brian McEnery.

“It’s wonderful we can all come together with our President to share and reflect on the riches and challenges of migration,” she said, adding that emigration was “in Irish people’s DNA.

“Most people have a story in some generation of their family of emigration . . . some stories are positive and others may be negative. We always hope for the best for our emigrants, that they are well-received and integrate into their host country.”

Irish people have played a large part in the history of global migration, she stressed.

“This is human migration and the negative stories told today about migrants were told about Irish people in England and the Americas. That’s why Kinvara joins with President Connolly working together for an inclusive society.”

She thanked the staff of the Merriman Hotel for their support, as did the next speaker, Mercedes Verona Pereira from Cuba.

Living in Ireland for 35 years, she told the gathering, “this country is now my country”.

She had found security and love here, and she had given her “love and respect and work to this community”.

Kinvara for All welcomed those living in the Merriman, “and most people living in Kinvara welcome you”, she added.

“We will do everything in our power to help you feel safe in this community. It is our moral responsibility to take care of you.”

Faloke Otun, from Nigeria, thanked the Irish Government and people for their welcome.

“You have opened not just your country but your hearts.”

Migrants had much to offer this country, she added.

“We are able to bring worth and value but it is a difficult journey,” she said, urging help with housing and jobs.

“I also want to learn Irish,” she said to much applause, adding that “the kids are lucky because they are learning it at school”.

The kids were very much part of the celebration, playing and enjoying the international feast, with all the dishes being labelled and vegetarians being catered for.

South African mother-of-two, Thobile, explained that her little family had been in Ireland for three years, initially in Dublin’s Artane and, for the past three months, in Kinvara.

“I love Galway,” said the qualified tax consultant who fled South Africa due to the xenophobia being experienced by her children, whose father is from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The single parent is working as a home care assistant in and around Gort, having saved to buy a car while she was working in Dublin. It’s difficult, she said honestly, but in Kinvara, there was afterschool care for her children, something she’d never had in Dublin.

Everyone was welcome to the village, said Maeve Kelly of Fáilte Kinvara, “whether people are here only for a few hours or a few years. We offer a hand of friendship and want to be your friends”.

Ann Lyons of Kinvara for All agreed.

The goal was “to nurture friendship and to raise awareness of racism in our community and broader society. Racism is so destabilising of the common good”.

Pictured: President Catherine Connolly and her husband Brian McEnery listening to some of the village’s newer arrivals tell their story at Kinvara for All in the Merriman.