{"id":424048,"date":"2026-04-07T07:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/424048\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:48:10","slug":"move-to-waterford-from-budapest-followed-school-curriculum-changes-in-hungary-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/424048\/","title":{"rendered":"Move to Waterford from Budapest followed school curriculum changes in Hungary \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marton Bisztrai (44) met an Irish person for the first time while travelling around the Middle East<\/a> in 2003. Two decades later, he and his wife chose to move to Ireland when school curriculum changes in Hungary<\/a> prompted them to leave their homeland. <\/p>\n

\u201cI met an Irish backpacker in Jordan. We spent a few days in the same hostel and travelling together,\u201d says Bisztrai, who is coordinator of the Show Racism the Red Card campaign for the Immigrant Council of Ireland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His next interaction with Irish people was during the three years that he lived in Palestine<\/a> in the mid-2000s. He had moved to the West Bank to do field research for his work as a cultural anthropologist. <\/p>\n

\u201cI lived in a Christian Palestinian town called Beit Jala, and I studied the relations of the Muslim Palestinian and Christian Palestinian communities and the impact of the Israeli occupation,\u201d he says. \u201cI did a lot of research on the premarital romantic relations, because that was a taboo in that society.\u201d<\/p>\n

With friends in Beit Jala, many of them Irish, Bisztrai formed a rugby club. \u201cWe received a boxful of rugby kits from Munster Rugby Supporters club because we met some of them when they were visiting Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Club members were also invited to visit the Irish Representative Office in Ramallah and presented with a cheque for more than \u20ac2,000 for the team. <\/p>\n

\u201cI always had this good impression of Ireland, especially because of my time in Palestine, the solidarity they showed and their love of rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n

The importance of showing solidarity towards the marginalised was instilled in Bisztrai from an early age. Growing up in Budapest, his pacifist parents were strict believers in the Catholic Church but also strong critics of its hierarchy. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were about following the New Testament and taking things like \u2018do not kill\u2019 literally. I grew up in an environment where many people refused to serve in the army and because of that they went to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bisztrai and his wife, Anna, have been together since they met at the Central European University in Budapest. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a historian, too. She was also studying cultural anthropology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

My Irish friend was completing the viewing and said: \u2018This is a decent home. You won\u2019t get anything better.\u2019 I got on the aeroplane and paid the deposit. Two months later, we moved<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In 2015 Bisztrai moved from working as a cultural anthropologist to non-profit groups who work with migrants and asylum seekers. <\/p>\n

The move came after he stepped forward to help when a big influx of people began arriving in Hungary from the Middle East in the 2010s. He began in his spare time by using the Arabic he had picked up in Palestine to assist them in any way he could. <\/p>\n

\u201cI volunteered and did some interpreting for people who were stuck on the streets of Budapest. I helped out with different organisations and went to hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n

He worked for the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, and SOS Children\u2019s villages, who support children without parental care and families at risk. This was at a time when Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a>\u2019s right-wing government was becoming increasingly authoritarian and hostile to immigration. <\/p>\n

\u201cHumanitarian workers were targeted by the government. Many of my colleagues\u2019 names, and my name, [were] listed in a newspaper just before the 2018 election, saying that these people work for George Soros,\u201d he says, referring to the Hungarian-born billionaire whose support for liberal causes has drawn frequent attacks from Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

Bisztrai and his wife welcomed two children. Changes to Hungary\u2019s school curriculum propelled them to consider moving abroad. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife and I decided together that we do not want our children to grow up under a regime that is not just against different opinions but is changing how teachers think about life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MartonMarton Bisztrai: ‘Humanitarian workers were targeted by the Hungarian government.’ Photograph: Tom Honan <\/p>\n

They settled on Ireland for a number of reasons, among them the fact that Bisztrai had connections with Irish people he had met over the years; the Republic is in the EU and is only a short plane trip from their families; and because Bisztrai and his wife are both fluent in English. <\/p>\n

The couple were then faced with the harsh reality of the housing crisis. \u201cWe were sending hundreds of emails. One of them from Waterford replied,\u201d Bisztrai recalls.<\/p>\n

He asked a friend from Cork to attend the viewing for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was completing the viewing and said: \u2018This is a decent home. You won\u2019t get anything better.\u2019 I got on the aeroplane and paid the deposit. Two months later, we moved.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was in 2023. While moving away from loved ones has not always been plain sailing, Bisztrai says the family have ended up in a lovely neighbourhood and see themselves staying there for the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur kids are outside all day, playing with other kids from the neighbourhood. That\u2019s the best for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has noticed many cultural differences, but the one that really stands out is the difference in how people here deal with a runny nose. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn Hungary you would get a tissue and blow your nose, put the tissue back in your pocket. This is a big thing in Hungary,\u201d he says. \u201cI remember as a child when I was sniffing a little bit my mum would be constantly chasing me with a tissue and shouting at me to blow my nose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bisztrai recounts, with a laugh, being told as a child that he would be taken to the GP who would \u201ccut off your face and some other terrible things will happen to you\u201d if he didn\u2019t blow his nose. <\/p>\n

His work frequently takes him into schools, where he gives antiracism workshops. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hear teachers and sometimes students sniffing, just taking back their snot rather than going to get a tissue. From a Hungarian perspective this is very bothersome because we have different norms.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Quiet desperation: Why no one speaks up about racism in IrelandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com<\/a> <\/b>or send us two lines about yourself using the form below. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marton Bisztrai (44) met an Irish person for the first time while travelling around the Middle East in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,118215,6,25126,11,12,15,16,78074,5,72,7,8,26163,5049,1918,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-424048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-george-soros","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-hungary","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-new-to-the-parish","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-palestine","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-viktor-orban","25":"tag-waterford","26":"tag-west-bank","27":"tag-world","28":"tag-world-news","29":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116362327143934027","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}