“I was quite raw when I arrived,” says Fabio de Souza Oliveira Filho. “Communicating was quite a challenge. I barely had any English.” Aged 24, he had recently finished his law degree in Brazil and was married for a year.
“It was quite a journey, six years in the university. And now I had to restart everything from the beginning, not speaking the language and trying different jobs that I’ve never done before. I worked in a bakery. I worked in a restaurant, different places.
“And they all were very important for me, to learn, to get closer to people. There were many, many different challenges ... most of the time I see everything like a glass half-full. I’m very positive. The challenging things that happened in my life led me to something greater afterwards.”
He arrived with his wife Pollianna Fernandez from their homeplace in northeast Brazil (Campina Grande, Paraiba) in 2018. They came “looking for adventure, to learn English”.
“Me and Pollianna, we wanted to explore other places and cultures before pursuing a career,” he says.
His wife had a friend living in Cork City and that’s where they headed – and where they still live.
The biggest challenge for Oliveira was crossing the ocean to start a new life, far from friends, family and all he knew, “landing on a rainy island” with a language he did not speak. His English classes in school had focused on grammar so he struggled to communicate or understand much initially. As his wife has a Spanish background and passport, Oliveira secured “stamp four” residency and recently became an Irish citizen.
“Moving across the world, it is a tricky thing to do, especially if you were in your 20s. The most difficult was moving far from people that I grew up with my entire life. I also consider myself a free soul, quite independent. My mother raised me this way.” Even so, “it was hard for me to be far from everyone, especially my grandmother”.
However, he says he went on to make good friends here. “People in Ireland are very welcoming. So we felt very comfortable,” he says. Since then, “over here, our close friends became also family, sharing and cherishing important moments of life”.
While there were a number of roads he could have followed using his law degree he says he was keen to find something that allowed his creative side to flourish. He tried a little bit of IT for a few months and some web design.
When the pandemic hit everything changed. He says his finances came under acute strain and meeting day-to-day expenses was a challenge. “We had to replan everything. My account got very, very low. But it was important to keep calm and navigate through that challenge. But when you are with a good partner it gets a little bit easier. Sometimes I have supported Pollianna and sometimes she supported me, so the dynamics worked fine.”
But the pandemic also allowed him to pursue a new passion. He completed a silversmithing course at St John’s Central College of Further Education and Training in Cork.
“I like design in general. I don’t know if I stopped liking IT because I discovered jewellery! I don’t know what happened first, but the fact is once I stepped my foot into St John’s Central College I fell in love with it. Me at my place. The workbench, creating, crafting jewellery. It was quite inspiring when I tried the first time.”
He completed the course while working part-time and afterwards studied further online on a one-on-one basis with jewellery designer Luciana Preuss in Brazil. Her guidance was “really helpful to show me how I could put into practice my vision, my creation, in dynamic and practical design”.
“Every element I put in any piece I make, there is a meaning behind it, there is an intention. It could be the colour, the shape, it could be geometric forms. Every element contributes to the cause of the piece.”
He met a community of makers in Cork and joined BenchSpace creative hub (where he has since become a tutor too) and Cork Craft and Design, which celebrates its 15th Cork Craft Month in August. It helped guide his craft and start up a business. It was also a ready-made group of friends.
“I’m grateful for the chance to be part of this vibrant circle. I hope my journey inspires fellow immigrants and anyone looking to follow their passions, reminding them that every challenge can be a stepping stone to something beautiful and rewarding.”
Oliveira’s sustainable jewellery company is Mo Ghrian (moghrian.com). He describes it as wearable art made from silver, gold and precious natural gemstones. He likes working on one-off pieces with clients, and also sells through his website, at craft fairs and in some shops in Cork, including Aoife Lifestyle.
“My inspiration is a mixture of art nouveau, nature-inspired and visionary art and essential human feelings. I’m guided by the music that fills my space – from calming, poetic Brazilian songs to enchanting traditional Irish music. Most of my journey was self-taught.”
He called the company Mo Ghrian (“my sun”) because he wanted to use Irish “as it was where everything started”; because he comes from a sunny, tropical place which helped make him become who he is; and because jewellery-making is like a “sun in my life”, recharging him.
“I’m quite a sociable person. I found it quite easy to make friends, because Irish people are open, polite. So I felt very welcomed ... after I managed to learn a little bit of English I was able to talk, share my ideas, make new friends. So I have a good bit of Irish friends. And of course people from other places as well. Cork is quite multicultural.”
He loves living in the city: it’s where he works and where his circle of friends are based. He has “a very big family but my close family [in Brazil] is just me, my mother and my stepfather. My father passed away when I was very little. Most of my life was just me and my mother the dynamic at home.”
She has visited him twice and he tries to go home every two years. “The heart gets very homesick,” he says.
But “I will stay in Cork for now. I don’t have plans to move, at least yet. I have all my work partners, my friends and people that I consider family all based around Cork. Not only Cork, Ireland in general. I don’t see my paths far from Ireland.”
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
