Hugo Paes Gomes de Souza had wanted to live abroad for years, but growing up in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where he was raised by a single mother, wanting to leave and being able to afford to were two very different things. He left home at 18 determined to make his own future and, by his mid-20s, that future appeared to be taking shape in Rio, where he and his partner invested everything they had in opening a restaurant. They renovated the premises themselves, and opened in 2020, just as the pandemic was about to upend it all.
“It was a crazy time. Of course we had to close,” Hugo says. “We had to sell everything, all the equipment, and I soon realised that I needed to make a new plan.”
The new plan brought them to Dublin in 2023, where his partner returned to restaurant kitchens and Hugo enrolled in an English-language course, only to discover that the English he had studied in Brazil had not prepared him for the version spoken by Dubliners. “When I first came to Ireland, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, how am I going to learn this English?’ I had studied English with teachers in Brazil, but arriving here and trying to understand everybody was completely different. There are so many different accents.”
Food offered its own, smaller culture shock. In Rio, he says, lunch and dinner ordinarily mean rice, beans and chicken or meat; in Dublin, people seemed to consider soup or a sandwich as a meal. “I like soup and sandwiches, but for me they are more like a snack,” he laughs. “They do not really feel like lunch or dinner.”
Three years later, Dublin now feels familiar. Hugo has made Irish friends, a business of his own and a social life that recently included joining a largely Brazilian crowd to see pop star Pabllo Vittar perform a sell-out show in the city. “I think Irish and Brazilian people are a very good match,” he says. “We have the same kind of energy. If you ask someone to go somewhere, they normally say yes rather than no.”
His first job in Dublin was cleaning. Before long he began taking on private clients of his own, often through Brazilians who passed on his number or recommended him in Facebook and WhatsApp groups such as Brasileiros em Dublin, where more than 100,000 members swap job leads, accommodation tips, recommendations, warnings and practical advice for newcomers. What began as extra work to help cover the rent gradually became HG Cleaning.
“I started the cleaning business by myself and slowly it just got bigger and bigger,” Hugo says. “The Brazilian community is very big in Dublin and everybody helps each other. We have to.”
For Hugo, Ireland’s appeal was not simply higher wages or easier access to the rest of Europe, but a sense that the work he puts in can lead somewhere. “In Brazil, you can work very hard every day and still struggle to save money or travel,” he says. “In Ireland, we can have a good life, a good quality of living and travel more easily.”
Hugo Paes Gomez de Souza: ‘The Brazilian community is very big in Dublin and everybody helps each other.’ Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
His experience is far from unusual. For much of the past two decades, Brazilians have come to Ireland with plans that sounded temporary: learn English, work while studying, travel around Europe and eventually go home. For many, Dublin ended up becoming home instead.
Census 2022 recorded 27,338 Brazilian citizens living in Ireland, almost twice as many as in 2016 and more than six times the number counted in 2006, although that still misses thousands of Brazilians living here on Portuguese, Italian and other European passports. Recent research commissioned by the Brazilian embassy estimates the community at about 60,000, with more than six in 10 living in Dublin; almost two-thirds had originally come to study English, six in 10 had since changed their immigration status and more than 40 per cent said they did not intend to return permanently to Brazil.
[ ‘I tell all my Irish friends that Ireland is the Brazil of Europe’Opens in new window ]
The change can be seen along Dublin streets that would once have offered little to a homesick Brazilian. Around Capel Street and the north inner city, pão de queijo and coxinhas are sold at Padoca, Brazilian groceries fill the shelves of Real Brazil Shop and Made in Brazil Market, while Brazil House, Brasileirinho, Brasa and The Ribs serve everything from feijoada to rodízio. On Harry Street in Dublin 2, Brazilian chef Viktor Silva’s Amai by Viktor has entered the Michelin Guide, while every September (on Sunday 6th this year), Brazil Day Dublin fills the National Stadium with samba, pagode, forró, capoeira, food stalls, artists, families and Brazilian businesses.
Julio Cesar arrived for a month to study English in 2019 with no intention of staying. He had originally wanted to visit the US, but when his visa application was refused he began looking for another English-speaking country that was easier for a Brazilian to enter.
“To be honest, I had never heard much about Ireland before that,” he says. “When I arrived, I felt the energy of the Irish people. Somehow, I felt that this was my home.”
He had read that Dublin had a large Brazilian population, but the reality still took him by surprise. “I was not expecting that big of a Brazilian community, but here we are. There are a lot of us and we are everywhere.”
Julio Cesar: ‘I want to show that it is possible to make a life here, but it takes time and work.’ Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
For the month he was studying, Julio tried to avoid other Brazilians as much as possible; he had paid to improve his English and did not want to spend his short stay speaking Portuguese. The stranger experience came after he returned to São Paulo. “When I went back to Brazil, I didn’t really feel at home there any more,” he says. “I thought, ‘Maybe I need to go back.’”
When Julio returned in 2022, Brazilian students had to show access to €3,000 in savings. The requirement for a standard eight-month English course has since risen to €6,665, before course fees, flights and the cost of finding somewhere to live are taken into account. For somebody earning and saving in Brazilian reais, he says, the total can make the move seem impossible.
“When people first see the final amount they need to save to move to Ireland, they get scared,” he says. “But then you break it down step by step. You save the first amount, then the second and then the third. It takes time, but it’s manageable with a good plan.”
That experience has since become something of a second career. Alongside his work as a carer, Julio has built an audience of 70,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, many of them Brazilians considering the same journey. He posts about English and Dublin expressions, college, home-care work, employment permits, driving licences, wages and the cost of living, and has even created a downloadable worksheet to help his followers work out where their money is going and how long it might take them to save before the big move.
“The first step is always money,” he says. “You need control over your finances. You need to understand what you are spending money on and where you can reduce your spending.”
Some of the messages he receives come from younger followers who want the process to move much faster than it realistically can. “They do not want it tomorrow; they want it yesterday,” he laughs. “I did not have much money when I moved. I was not rich, and I’m still not rich. I want to show that it is possible to make a life here, but it takes time and work.”
Julio’s next goal is an Irish passport. “Somehow, I feel Irish inside,” he says. He says Brazilians sometimes call the Irish “the Brazilians of Europe”. “We have the same energy when it comes to going out, being friendly and being welcoming. And I’m not only talking about beer.”
His mother, Sandra, was approaching 60 when she travelled outside Brazil for the first time to visit him, getting a passport because her son had made a life thousands of kilometres away. “Imagine if I had not been here,” he says. “When would my mum have travelled abroad? Maybe she never would have because there would not have been a reason.”
“When you live abroad, particularly in Ireland, you are not only creating opportunities for yourself,” he says. “You are also creating opportunities for your relatives.”
I’d like to see [Ireland] continue removing barriers so that talent, ambition and potential, not a person’s country of origin, determine a person’s educational opportunities
— Paula Castro
At Tia Maria on Dublin’s North King Street, red-and-white checked tablecloths sit beneath a mural of samba musicians and Rio’s Lapa arches, while the words Não deixe o samba morrer (don’t let the samba die) run across the wall above them. The menu offers picanha with rice, beans, farofa and vinaigrette, feijoada with pork and black beans, coxinhas, fried cassava and Parmigiana; a caramel-topped pudim sits in the display cabinet and, at weekends, there is live Brazilian music.
The premises was a Mexican restaurant when Tatiana Aragão began working there; after the pandemic it became Tia Maria, and the change in menu brought a different relationship with its customers. Irish regulars have acquired a taste for the picanha, feijoada and Parmigiana, she says, but many Brazilians come for something more familiar.
“Even if somebody isn’t earning very much, maybe they’re doing deliveries or working as a cleaner, at some point during the week they want a home-made meal,” Tatiana says. “They want the food they grew up with.”
Albert Oliveira and Tatiane Esporte at Do Chef Oliveira in Portmarnock. ‘We had great, great support from the locals.’ Photograph: Tom Honan
On a sunny Saturday in Portmarnock, Maria Gadú’s Ne Me Quitte Pas is playing through the open doors of Do Chef Oliveira as customers move between the tables outside and a counter crowded with coxinhas, pão de queijo, brigadeiros, chicken pies and thick slices of corn-and-guava cake.
The corn cake tends to provoke the most questions from locals. “They look at it and say, ‘Corn is a vegetable. Why is it in a cake?’” laughs co-owner and chef Albert Oliveira. “Then they try it and they are surprised. The cake is very moist, and the guava works very well with it.”
Albert grew up working in his family’s restaurant in Mogi Guaçu, in São Paulo state. After moving to Ireland with his wife, Tatiane Esporte, seven years ago, he began supplying Brazilian savoury dishes to businesses in Dublin. “I said to Tatiane, ‘Why don’t we open a coffee shop?’ My dream was to create something like what my family had in Brazil, but here in Ireland.”
Tatiane had been a personal trainer in Brazil and was working as a childminder for an Irish family in Portmarnock when she noticed the empty premises nearby. The family she worked for encouraged them to take the chance. “I saw the ‘To Let’ sign and said, ‘Let’s try.’”
Their earliest customers were mainly local, with Brazilians taking longer to discover a cafe well outside the concentration of Brazilian businesses in the city centre. “We had great, great support from the locals,” Tatiane says. Word has since spread and they now have Brazilian customers travelling across Dublin and, on occasion, from as far away as Wexford.
Albert says he has no interest in making the cafe exclusively Brazilian, preferring to put foods familiar to Irish customers alongside things they might never have encountered. “We want Brazilian people to find flavours they recognise, but we also want Irish people to feel comfortable coming in and trying something new,” he says. For a first taste of Brazil he recommends a coxinha (a common street snack made of shredded, seasoned chicken wrapped in dough and shaped like a teardrop); pão de queijo (cheese bread) and chicken pie are among the most popular choices with Irish customers.
The business has already grown beyond the original space, with more tables outside and a larger kitchen upstairs. Other cafes have approached them about supplying food or teaching them how to make some of their products. Catering is also in the plans. “We have lots of plans and dreams for the future,” Tatiane says. “We love being here. We are living our dream.”
Paula Castro in Trinity College Dublin: ‘You meet engineers, veterinarians and other professionals working as delivery drivers or in hospitality because they’re starting their lives over again.’ Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
While the Brazilian food people leave behind can be reproduced in a Dublin kitchen, the professional lives they leave can often be harder to recover. Research commissioned by the Brazilian embassy found that 85 per cent of Brazilians arriving in Ireland had third-level qualifications, even though many spent their first years in Ireland doing work far removed from the careers they had trained for.
Paula Castro arrived in Dublin from Pelotas in southern Brazil in 2014 with a degree in English teaching and several years’ classroom experience. After completing the Cambridge qualification required by language schools here, she found work almost immediately, although her hours could range from full time one week to just two or three the next.
Seeking greater stability, she moved schools and rose from teacher to director of studies over four years, only for the pandemic to close the school three months after her promotion. She went on to complete a master’s degree in educational leadership at Trinity College Dublin, returning to a place she remembered walking through during her first weeks in Ireland more than a decade ago. “I remember thinking, ‘Imagine studying here one day,’” she says. After graduating and working at the National College of Ireland, she eventually returned to Trinity, where she now teaches and contributes to curriculum and assessment design.
“Now not only have I studied there, I’m employed there as well,” she says. “It’s surreal.” Her journey has made her wary of judging migrants by the work they do on arrival. “You meet engineers, veterinarians and other professionals working as delivery drivers or in hospitality because they’re starting their lives over again,” she says.
“Ireland offers many educational opportunities, and many Brazilians have built successful careers here. At the same time, access is not always equal.” The obstacles can include language, financial pressure, unfamiliarity with the Irish education system, visa issues, limited access to financial support and difficulty in having Brazilian qualifications recognised, as well as what she calls “the psychological impact of starting over in a new country”.
Paula became an Irish citizen in 2024, although she still describes herself as “90 per cent Brazilian and 10 per cent Irish”. “Maybe that percentage will grow over time,” she says.
“I’d like to see us continue removing barriers so that talent, ambition and potential, not a person’s country of origin, determine a person’s educational opportunities.”
Louise Abrão first walked into Brazilian Aesthetics in Dublin’s north inner city carrying her CV. The salon had only recently opened and there was no position for her. “I’m so sorry I can’t give you an opportunity now,” owner Priscilla Becker told her, “but I’d like you to be on my team.”
Louise returned the following month as a customer and continued coming for treatments until, about 10 months after their first conversation, Priscilla called her. Louise now manages the salon.
Priscilla had worked in beauty in Brazil but began again in Ireland with babysitting and cleaning, eventually offering eyebrow treatments and micropigmentation from a room in Swords. When the room became too small, she chose to spend her savings on a salon rather than put them towards a house. Brazilian Aesthetics opened in December 2023; six months later she opened a doorway into the adjoining unit and rented that too, while a second branch has since opened in Portugal.
Irish, Spanish, Ukrainian and African customers now settle into the velvet-green chairs alongside Brazilians, while the staff have taken their work to Grafton Street, offering pop-up eyebrow treatments, haircuts and colour to passersby. “Our idea from the beginning was to bring Brazilian treatments and Brazilian beauty here, to make people feel better about themselves and also to make Brazilians feel a little bit at home,” Louise says.
The clientele has broadened as the business has grown, but inside the salon the Brazilian character remains strong. “We always say our team here is like a family,” she says. “We feel like we’re together and we support each other, both at work and outside work.”
Louise had not expected to find such a large Brazilian community when she moved to Ireland three years ago. “Especially in summer, I feel like I’m at home here,” she says. “Sometimes I literally feel like I’m in Brazil. It’s crazy because the community is so, so big.”
For her, the attraction of Ireland has always been as much about people as work. “I would say Ireland has its doors open,” she says. “It’s like a warm hug when you come in.”
Thais Gimenes Tambalo: ‘Ireland will always be the place that gave me an opportunity and showed me how big the world is.’ Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Thais Gimenes Tambalo came to Dublin four and a half years ago with her Brazilian husband, having never lived outside Brazil and wanting, as she puts it, “another point of view on life”. Two years later the marriage ended, and because her immigration status had depended on her husband, she wrote to the Minister for Justice explaining that she wanted to remain.
“Even when I got divorced here, I never felt that I wasn’t home,” she says. “I never thought, ‘I need to go back to Brazil.’ I was already home. My life was here.”
She was allowed to stay and later met Burak Rencberoglu, who had moved to Ireland from Turkey. Their daughter, Melanie, was born in Dublin six months ago. Her experience of the Irish maternity system was entirely positive. “I would give it 10 out of 10. Everyone was very kind to me and I felt protected throughout the whole experience.”
After years working in hospitality, motherhood changed how she spent her time in the city. Summer days now involve picnics and playgrounds, while Melanie has Brazilian, Turkish and Irish friends. English has become the official language Thais and Burak speak to one another at home, although neither arrived in Ireland speaking much of it.
What Thais misses most is not Brazil itself but the family life she knew there. Her mother now lives in Portugal, but in the Brazil of her childhood grandparents and relatives shared the everyday work of bringing up a child.
“In Brazil, we tend to raise children together as a family,” she says. “Here, I feel very alone.”
Burak has been offered a job in Portugal and they are now preparing to leave Dublin. Thais hopes to look after Melanie herself until she is four or five, something she cannot see them affording comfortably on one income in Ireland.
Thais Gimenes Tambalo, from Brazil, with her partner Burak Rencberoglu, from Turkey, and their six-month-old daughter Melanie. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
“If my partner wanted to support the whole family here alone, he would need to work two or three jobs,” she says. “He would never see his daughter.”
“Ireland will always be the place that gave me an opportunity and showed me how big the world is and how much your life can change,” she says. “My daughter was born here, so I will always have good feelings about this place.”
She laughs and sounds, for a moment, unmistakably like a Dubliner: “I hate Dublin, but I love it too at the same time. That is the feeling.”
For Julio Cesar, the clearest measure of Dublin’s influence comes whenever he returns to Brazil. “Every time I go back, people tell me: ‘You have changed.’ I say: ‘Thank God I have changed. Imagine if I were the same person I was four years ago.’”