like much of Europe, there are lots of foreign visitors in Ireland. immigration policies in the early 00s heavily favored Eastern European workers — especially from Poland — and the demographics of the country changed dramatically and permanently. immigrants of that sort, however, seem to stay out of the tourist trade areas, for whatever myriad reasons. that said, countless people I encountered working in hostels and cafes were not Irish; rather, the majority of them were Aussies or Kiwis. most of the hostels i stayed in, in fact, were run by ex-pats of some ilk. the ones in Derry were just wrapping up several months of managing the hostel with plays to travel through some of Europe before heading back to the other side of the planet and continuing their studies (one planned to go into nursing, and I can’t recall what his girlfriend intended to do).