How do I get dc Irish citizenship?

[Juicesausagecake]

DH has been registered on the register of foreign births. He was born in Britain but his family are Irish. I am British. We have since had two dc.

Can anyone help me understand what I might need to do to get dc Irish citizenship?

Your children need to have an Irish grand parent. If your husband registered on foreign births it suggests his grandparents were Irish but not his parents. If it was one or both of his parents your husband is automatically Irish. If he had to apply to the register then it was a grandparent who was Irish.

if your children have great parents who are Irish, they are unable to claim citizenship unless they live in Ireland for 5 years.

I can't speak for the OP but amongst other things I wanted/needed EU citizenship as although I was born in the UK and am a British citizen I live in the EU (Ireland) and have lived here for most of my childhood and all of my adult life.

An Irish passport = EU citizenship!

And - assuming you are not being disingenuous about Brexit and its effects - you can live in Ireland as a British citizen and travel freely between the two thanks to the Common Travel Area - no Irish passport needed. But that is now not the case for other countries in the EU.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/common-travel-area-guidance

It gives you EU citizenship, and the freedom of movement and establishment that goes with it.

That is not strictly true @Lesina - if a parent is on the Foreign Birth Register due to having Irish grandparents then that person's children will also be entitled to gain Irish citizenship through themselves being registered on the FBR - but as many others have pointed out in this thread already - the parent must be on the FBR before that child is born.

Ireland is in the EU. There are benefits to being an EU citizen that are sadly no longer available if you’re merely British. The right to live and work in EU countries, for example. The right to study at EU universities, in some cases for free. The latter will save them about £30-40k!

Ok. in summary you must have a parent who was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth.

If you have a parent born in Ireland you are automatically an Irish citizen and eligible for an Irish passport. You simply apply same as you would for a British one.

if a grandparent was born in Ireland, but your parents weren’t, although your parents are citizens (as above) you aren’t. You can become an Irish citizen by applying to the Foreign Birth Register.

Your children are also eligible if you registered before they were born. If you are not on the FBR you are not an Irish citizen when they were born and they are not eligible. That continues down the generations- any children born to parents on the FBR can also apply, but if it isn’t done before birth the citizenship is lost.

FBR is currently processing applications from Jan/feb 2020. So prepare for a wait. Best to order copies of birth/marriage/death certs to send.

if you are pregnant you can call them to expedite your application so you are on the register when the baby is born, and they also become eligible for FBR registration.

in short- parent born in Ireland or you’re a citizen via FBR- get your kids on the FBR asap. It’s cheaper u18 too!

Ahahahahahhaha the irish, shur always know them cos they're drinking 🙄

Ignorant pig.

@Juicesausagecake best of luck with it, thought it was lovely to see that you thought the right to the irish citizenship claim was a privilege, I always think that when I see other countries with a similar policy. I'm only sorry Brexit cut ye off from the rest of Europe. I hope it all Gets sorted for ye soon. Don't forget to post in Craicnet board if you have any questions too.

What an idiotic and ignorant response. 😏

im the only one now without an Irish passport!

@Maltester71 can you apply to get one then through your husband? Or does it not work through spouse?

You can't get Irish citizenship through your spouse. I think that's the same for most countries. I have a friend who got a Dutch passport through his father. I only goes down one generation so his children can't claim Dutch citizenship, not can his wife. But he's not going to dump them and leg it to Rotterdam!

Thanks for this … I’ve been meaning to get DC on the FBR for a while and it’s been suspended during covid. I’ve just looked and they’ve restarted but got a huge backlog so advising it can take up to 2 years (!). Does anyone know of you can apply for more than one DC at once? Or if they copy & send the original documents for the Irish born grandparent back on receipt? I would feel bad keeping their birth cert for 2 years and not great to have to complete one 2 year long application before having the documents back to start another one…..?

yes you can apply for siblings at the same time. Make it clear- send each person’s documents in a plastic wallet with the relationship clearly marked.

they keep your documents. It’s easy and cheap to go online and order certified copies from the general register office.

That's fair enough @midsomermurderess. I feel bad for pp who's the only one without in the family though

“If you were born in Ireland you are automatically an Irish citizen.”

This isn’t true. You are not automatically an Irish citizen if you are born in Ireland. This hasn’t been the case for 15+ years.

Its a great unfairness there are children who have been born in, and have grown up in Ireland, who are not citizens. Whereas others can gain citizenship having never stepped in the country, though a grandparent who may have lived there 100+ years ago!

Many of us are part of the Irish diaspora and know and have visited our families there. And have lived in a country where we have not always felt entirely welcome. And if there are people born there not entitled to citizenship, your gripe is with the state, not with us.

And the huge Irish diaspora gives Ireland a heft, an influence in the world that few such small states have. While some Irish people might resent us having citizenship, I doubt the state itself would change that. Anyway, over time the demographic entitled to claim citizenship while born externally will of course decline.

Yes, sorry @cheerfulpanda you are right that this only applies before 2005. However for the purposes of this discussion, which is about citizenship through parents or grandparents, it’s almost certainly true as the oldest person born in Ireland without an automatic right to citizenship will be 17.

Why was that change made?

Does anybody know if there is a way of applying through an Irish grandparent if you have no access to original documents like their birth certificate. My grandfather's was lost a long time ago.

You can apply for a copy of the birth certificate through the register office in Dublin, which holds records for the entire country. Obviously you would need to know key info like full name, place and date of birth, etc.

Does anybody know if there is a way of applying through an Irish grandparent if you have no access to original documents like their birth certificate. My grandfather's was lost a long time ago

have you put in a request to the Irish registry? I obtained my dad’s birth certificate by sending name, dob and area of birth. Do you have any other documentation- marriage, death cert?

@cheerfulpanda yes children born in Ireland are no longer automatically entitled - and there is a certain unfairness to it - but those children can still apply for Irish citizenship through naturalisation if they are resident for a certain period of time so there are still opportunities for them to gain citizenship - in the vast majority of cases at least. I think the unfairness is related to the fact those children are then dependent on the adults in their lives to organise that for them - and some parents are simply not able to or are misinformed - and then the children have to deal with the impact of that through no fault of their own. For example, I was told by a parent I had Irish citizenship as a child and I only realised that wasn't true as an adult!

Thanks for replying! I haven't started the process yet as I have a lot going on. No marriage certificate, I hadn't even considered it! He died in England so although I don't have the certificate I'm guessing that wouldn't be a problem to find.

Thanks! That's helpful!

There were fears women would travel to Ireland to give birth as a way to gain a right to stay within the EU. If you had a child who was an Irish/EU citizen, you by extension had a right to stay as primary carer.

I don’t begrudge anyone obtaining citizenship by descent, I have mine through my Irish parents despite not being born there! I do feel a responsibility as a citizen by descent to be an active citizen.

There were fears women would travel to Ireland to give birth as a way to gain a right to stay within the EU. If you had a child who was an Irish/EU citizen, you by extension had a right to stay as primary carer

I vaguely remember a thread where a woman was planning to hop over to Belfast to give birth. Some sort of trend among well off mums to gain dual citizenship for their kids.

@cheerfulpanda Ah I see. I suppose Ireland must have been pretty unique pre 2005 to have automatic citizen rights for anyone born there, even if it were, say, to parents who were simply on holiday. And I can see that there could be concerns that could be exploited (although wonder if, like the brexit debate, much of that is based on fear mongering?).

@99redballoonsgobyy To put it bluntly, an Irish citizen living in the UK now has more rights than a UK citizen living in the UK. In so much as an Irish citizen has all the same rights as a UK citizen (we are not just talking about the right to residency that say, a French citizen may have if they have applied for the settlement scheme), and then all the rights of an EU citizen in terms of freedom of movement across the EU.

Sunlit uplands hey.

Thx. It's not simple as I'm not in contact really with my mother so decided to get my passport so I can travel on it too