Syrian refugees living in Ireland face many challenges including family separation, the trauma of war and poor English language skills, all of which make it difficult to get a job and integrate.
One man living in Carrick-on-Shannon is trying to overcome these difficulties by sharing his native music.
In the living room of their Leitrim home, Mohammad Syfkhan and eight-year-old Noor perform a Kurdish song.
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Mohammad has brought his bouzouki and his music from Syria – one joy that the brutal seven-year civil war could not take from him.
"I lived in Raqqa, the capital city of ISIS," he told RTÉ’s This Week.
"There I loved two things very much, my job and my music."
Mohammad had his own band in Syria. Playing music provided relief from his job as a surgical nurse. His wife Huda worked as teacher and they had five children.
But tragedy struck when their son Fadi was killed by ISIS in the northern town of Kobane in September 2014. A caller claiming to be ISIS phoned Mohammad on his son’s mobile phone to deliver the news.
"He says I am ISIS and I killed your son."
The caller said that Fadi, a lawyer, died because he was a Kafir - an Arabic term for an unbeliever.
On his phone, Mohammad has a photo of a tall handsome young man. He swipes to a photo of a white headstone in Kobane the Kurdish stronghold near the Turkish border. The inscription says that Fadi was born in Aleppo in 1992, and died in Kobane in 2014.
Mohammad needed to get his family out of Syria. But as they had three other sons, all six could not leave together. Smugglers wanted $300 per person.
"Everybody three hundred. One thousand eight hundred. I did not have the money."
So Mohammad’s three sons left first. They are now settled in Germany.
"One son goes to university in Germany. One goes to school and the other works at a school. My sons speak Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and English and now German."
Mohammad, Huda and Noor followed the boys out of Syria. They spent ten months in Greece before coming to Ireland in December 2016 on the refugee resettlement programme. They spent another seven months at the Mosney reception centre in Co Meath before being relocated to Carrick-on-Shannon where Noor attends school.
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"My teacher’s name is Ms Cahill and my favourites are Irish and maths," Noor said as she listed off her new friends at Scoil Mhuire in Leitrim’s county town.
Noor acts as the family’s translator. She says her mother likes Leitrim because "the house is quiet and the people are nice". But Huda also misses her three sons in Germany and speaks to them several times a day.
Mohammad and Huda are here for Noor. They would like her to be a doctor. Both parents attend English classes twice weekly to try and gain proficiency to be able to work in Ireland.
"I don’t like sitting here. I want to work in a job," Mohammad said. For over 30 years he was a theatre nurse in Syria. He wants to work in an Irish hospital but needs proficiency in reading and writing English. "I need more help."
Mohammad’s music provides a bridge between the Kurdish community in Ireland and the local community. He has played at Leitrim’s Dock Arts Centre and at Kurdish events across the country.
"I play in Dublin and in Sligo and at parties," he said. Mohammad performs with local musicians and has picked up some Irish tunes on the bouzouki.
Seven years into Syria’s civil war, Mohammad and Huda fear their country is being carved into pieces by Iran, Russia, America and the proxies operating there.
"Syria is not good. Maybe after five or ten years it will be good, but not now."
The daily news brings little comfort and Mohammad confides that he has lost four family members in the fighting.
"Yes I watch the news from my country, but it is not good."
Over Christmas, the family plans to visit Germany so Noor can celebrate her birthday with her older brothers.
