Happy 5th Birthday Gorey.pl
On April 16, 2015, a group of people decided to make a difference and establish Gorey.pl Polish Cultural Association. Our fifth birthday became an opportunity to sum up actions.
The beginnings were difficult as Gorey.pl was supported only by membership fees and didn’t have any contact with local authorities, the Polish embassy in Dublin or other entities that could support the establishment. However we had the ambition to make the association recognizable in Ireland by organizing great cultural events!
Gorey.pl Association is a non-profit organization, based on volunteers and always open to people who are interested in spreading culture. After five years, we can confidently say that from a group of strangers we have become a harmonious team, where everyone knows each other’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to preparation, implementation and reflection on the events.
In 2015, a movie director from Silesia, Radek Markiewicz, happened to live in Gorey and thanks to him we were able to get in touch with actor Marian Dziędziel. We decided to try our luck and invite this unique, award-winning actor for PolskaÉire Festival to Gorey. To our surprise and great joy, Marian agreed to come with the Irish premiere of the film “These daughters of mine”. At the same time, a laureate of the prestigious World Press Photo Award – Chris Niedenthal joined the group of exceptional artists who answered our invitation to Gorey. When the festival was over, we knew that nothing was impossible and the contacts we have made would help us invite other amazing personas such as Robert Więckiewicz.
Over the years, we tried to maintain a high level and variety of events: culinary evening, photography and acting workshops, exhibitions, picnics, folk evening, artistic performance; many music, dance, film and sport events; events addressed only to children/adults or to the families; we took part in St. Patrick’s Parades in Gorey and many events supporting charities in Gorey and in Poland. All of the above were of varying interest, some gathered lots of people and some were less popular but we wanted and still want to give people the opportunity to choose.
A great step for Gorey.pl was signing of the agreemnet of cooperation between the Puck District and the Gorey Municipal District. The results of the cooperation so far are the exchange of photo exhibitions ” My home your home” by Joseph Dixon and “My Kashubia” by Dr. Jan Dettlaff and a visit of representatives of Gorey Municipal District in Poland and a visit of Puck District representatives in Ireland. This cooperation has great potential and bodes well for the future.
The current activity of Gorey.pl Association was thwarted by the spreading Covid-19 virus. A few weeks ago we were at the preparatory stage of this year’s edition of the PolskaÉire Festival. Unfortunately the festival won’t take place but that the most important thing is for everyone to be healthy and get back to normal life quickly.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all people who contributed to the creation of Gorey.pl, those who were members of the Association and who supported Gorey.pl for these five years.