The small Irish town known as ‘Little Brazil’

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gort in the west of Ireland is known by the nickname ‘Little Brazil’ because it’s home to so many Brazilians.

They first came to Ireland in the late 1990s to work in the town’s meat factory.

Lucimeire Trindade was just 24-years-old when she and three friends arrived in the town, unable to speak a word of English or Irish.

Nearly 25 years later, Lucimeire considers Gort her true home.

She tells Vicky Farncombe how being in Ireland changed her outlook on life.

“I learned that a woman can have their own life, especially going to the pub alone without their husbands!”

(Photo: Traditional Brazilian carnival dancers strut their stuff in Gort. Credit: John Kelly, Clare Champion)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm John Ronson and I'm an invisible enemy.
0:05.0	That changed people psychologically.
0:08.0	Words can be dangerous if you don't know the context.
0:12.0	We were told to stay at home.
0:15.0	We lived with an invisible enemy,
0:17.0	with only the internet for company.
0:19.0	That changed people psychologically.
0:21.0	I'm John Ronson, and I'll be unerthing the roots of the culture
0:24.8	wars that engulfed us then and still do now.
0:28.8	The award-winning podcast, Things Fell Apart, Returns.
0:33.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Vicky Vancombe.
0:47.0	I'm going to tell you about a small town in the west of Ireland,
0:52.0	where the street signs are in Portuguese as well as English and Irish
0:55.4	and you're just as likely to see people samba dancing as performing an Irish reel.
1:00.8	The story of how Gorte became known as Little Brazil started 25 years ago.
1:07.6	It's 2006 and the sleepy town of Gorte has been transformed into a Brazilian carnival as you can hear in this RTE report.
1:21.0	Gort is wonderful and it's fabulous, look at the Brazilians, it's just
1:26.0	I've been in Brazil, it's at the carnival in Bahia, they're the best carnival in the world,
1:30.0	look, it's fabulous.
1:39.0	Every year we would have the quadrilla and people would dance and they switch. Everyone was very happy and even the Irish people dancing as well with us.
1:45.0	It was a huge moment.
	...

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