Has anyone got their Irish passport since Brexit?

[NaturalBlondeYeahRight]

Both DH and I have Irish parents. FIL died a long time ago and his birth cert is barely holding together and barely legible. My mum is still relatively young and I could use hers but I've heard the process takes ages and it might get lost.
Has anyone applied using a birth certificate and how long did it take? The form does look complicated.
Secondly, our DD's also would like one- if I get mine as the child of an Irish citizen are they then considered first generation rather than second?

I did. Had to get my mum’s birth certificate from the county office as hers was actually a photocopy, cost like 10-15 euro. The online application is actually a lot better than the old postal application and meant the process didn’t actually take too long (I started pre covid with old system). Your children will be same as mine, grandchildren to the Irish relative (as in, they claim through the grandparent not the parent, despite being passport holders ourselves, but English born) so you have to register as a foreign birth as a PP wrote, and start the process after that. That apparently does take a long time, looked into it after DD born and said it was years! Hopefully sped up since then xx

Newsflash! Irish passports don’t exist to allow English born people convenient access to the EU as EU citizens. Even Irish people born in Ireland have to register their children born abroad on the register of foreign births to get them Irish passports.

My mother was born in Ireland so I was considered to be an Irish citizen and didn't have to register a foreign birth. I got my passport in a couple of months. Slight delays due to UK postal strikes. Also, your application has to be witnessed by someone who knows you and this person must have an approved occupation from Irish passport office list. They need a work phone number for the witness and they ALWAYS phone them to check your application. Because my witness was on holiday when they phoned, the passport office paused my application and and asked me to make a partial resubmission with an option to choose another witness. Something to keep in mind when choosing your witness.

A friend who had an Irish grandmother has been told online that her foreign birth has been registered - took about a year - but she hasn't had the paperwork through yet. She will then have to apply for her passport.

I can obtain Finnish via my late father....quicker and cheaper, from what i read you sit on the 2 year register before even applying for the irish passport...

Do that then? The Irish government doesn’t have to make it easy for English people to get Irish passports, especially where the applicant has minimal interest in Ireland bar their eligibility for a passport. I know that’s not true for all and many applicants have and maintain close ties to Ireland but Irish citizenship is a privilege, one indeed that many people died to establish. Sorry it’s a bit expensive and time consuming for you to obtain it to bypass a queue at the airport.

No, they don’t. Children born to irish citizens born in Ireland are automatically irish citizens and are eligible for an Irish passport.

children born abroad to an Irish citizen not born in Ireland must apply to the foreign birth register.

if you are an Irish citizen before your own children are born, they are eligible for Irish citizenship too.

I have paid for mine but didn't want to send because of postal strikes and now can't find any reference numbers etc
Does anyone know if there is someone I can talk to? Don't want to be without my passport now as I am going away in April

Two of my brothers are Irish passport holders and had to register their American born children as foreign births before applying for Irish passports for them.

Because its expensive !!

You're applying for your child to be a citizen of another country they weren't born in, it's not going to be free. There's a lot of admin involved. It's not "nonsense", it's a similar process to any country.

I applied for my own registration on the foreign births register in April 2019 and it came through in July 2020. It cost a fee of about 240 euros, plus I needed to assemble lots of birth/marriage/death certificates, passport copies etc to apply, which cost a fair bit of money too.

were your brothers born in Ireland?

if not, then yes their children need to apply to the foreign birth register for citizenship.

doesn’t matter if they have a passport or not, if your parent was born in Ireland and is an Irish citizen you do not need to apply to the FBR.

@Eyerollcentral it's not just about access to Europe. When I was born children were on their mum's passport instead of having their own, so I was on my Irish mum's. Then when I got my own as a teenager, we lived in England, so my parents got me a British EU passport. It never made any difference until our bastard government messed everything up, but now I would like to identify away from them. My partner has an EU passport from a different country, which the kids think is cooler, so they will probably choose that one. Much to my annoyance as I would rather they picked Ireland!

I am English born to Irish parents so am classed as an Irish Citizen. I haven’t got an Irish passport (yet) but my son wants one (all his grandparents are Irish). He sent off his form with all my documents to get himself registered on the Foreign Births Register and they have only just recently been returned with his Irish citizen certificate. That bit took about a year. Now he can apply for the passport. There’s a big backlog of applications we hear, so I expect this will take another year to complete.

Listen I am not dissing anyone who decides to take the opportunity to get an Irish Passport. I am very much dissing anyone who thinks that the Irish state needs to make it easier or cheaper for them. Irish citizenship is a privilege. Ireland didn’t cause Brexit.

Yes, in Belfast. We are entitled to Irish citizenship the same as anyone born in the 26 counties.

Maybe it’s different for NI then as I’ve just been through this process and I did not need to apply to the FBR as my parent was irish and born in Dublin.

my children do though as I was not born in Ireland.

This Irish state does not distinguish between Irish citizens born in either jurisdiction on the island of Ireland.

I have paid taxes to the Irish state for over 20 years, and if I wanted to get Irish citizenship it would cost me something like €1500 and a boatload of paperwork. Kind of irritates me that people who have never stepped foot in the country can basically get a passport for (I assumed previously) nothing.

Glad to hear they have to pay something, even if it is a tiny fraction of what I would have to pay.

Oh well. I am eligible (by descent) for another EU passport, not sure I would get that one, or how much that would cost, would rather get the passport of the country I actually live in.

Yes, Irish citizenship isn’t a freebie for anyone not born in Ireland, nor should it be. I personally know kiwis living in London for 20 years and paying tax who have had to pay 5k plus to obtain UK citizenship. I totally get people on this thread want to take the opportunity to get access to the EU for them and their children but I find some of the entitlement I read deeply offensive given the sacrifices made over generations to re-establish Ireland as a sovereign nation. Rant over!!!!

I agree, I'm from an EU country, work in a related field and I'm seriously annoyed by the people who apply just to get the passport but couldn't give a rat's ass about the country. Most of them don't even speak the language. I'm glad I don't work in the actual passport office as having to speak to so-called "fellow citizens" in a foreign language would make my blood boil. Learning some of the language is just basic decency (never mind the country's culture and history...🙄)

Citizenship is lost if it's not been used (i.e. no passports applied, no marriages/births registered, etc) for 50 years or more, which helps limit some of the entitlement fest... But only some.

Yes I totally understand. The rules are the rules and that’s fine but it makes me so angry to see people treating the hard won independence of countries like Ireland and the citizenship that derives from it as a flag of convenience now (sometimes with zero interest in the country) and complaining that they have to go through the necessary processes to establish it. I don’t mean to derail the thread. If anyone is entitled to apply for a passport and wants to obtain one it’s of course their right to do so, but fgs at least try to exercise a bit of sensitivity when discussing this. There are many Irish people on this site as well and those of us who were born in N. Ireland in particular have had to defend their right to be recognised as Irish in a place where that was derided for decades.

@NaturalBlondeYeahRight

I applied for my Irish passport last summer, and got a new copy of my dads birth certificate by applying online. It is very easy to do and I paid extra for fast postage, so it didn’t take long to come. If you are going to be applying for 1 or more children too, get multiple copies.

From my passport application being sent off, to receiving passport was 2-3 months, can’t remember exact days and not at home to check!

My young adult children have now applied to be added to Foreign births register, by virtue of an Irish grandad. They had to send more documents (their own, as well as mine and my dads) but the application was smooth, we got email confirmation of application received and now wait up to 2yrs for their Citizenship certificate, then they can also apply for their passports.

How much n earth do you get birth certs of grandparents if you need them?

I agree @Eyerollcentral . You are aptly named for what I've been reading on this thread.

The irony of the situation playing out is staggering.

Just to point out to anyone looking to get an Irish passport that there are 27 EU member states that you can try to become a citizen of and get a passport for. There are clearly different rules and regulations around getting one for the other 26 member states but it would be possible in time.

Or you can lobby your politicians on finding a way to bring the UK back into the Common Travel Area & Schengen Area.

Or you could just get used to queuing in airports and elsewhere like so many many many other citizens have to that are not part of the EU or in the Schengen agreement.

@TheIsleOfTheLost - It's your bastard electorate that messed everything up.
For all of his failings, and there were quite a few I'd wager, Cameron had the referendum based on requests from the electorate to have one.
The People voted.
The British Government implemented the vote.

If you want to point the finger, point it at the % of the Great British public that don't vote in matters like this but complain about the result; point the finger at the 52% of the people who DID vote and voted to leave the EU without a clue as to what that actually meant; point the finger at the people in the UK who spread lies (£300m per week for the NHS - how is that going by the way?); point the finger at the people who spread racism and hatred for people from any other country that doesn't look like them because they were 'taking their jobs' except they weren't.

There are WAY more people involved in messing this up for the people in the UK than just the British Government.

Oh, and I do hope you'll look to the country that your kids feel is 'cooler' than Ireland for your passports if it is just to get a passport. If you want to actively contribute to the Irish economy and to Ireland, then you're most welcome.

The Uk was never iin Schengen and is still in the Common Travel Area. The good news is that any UK citizen (you don't need Irish ancestry) still retains the right to come and live and work (and vote in most elections) in Ireland, just like 3 years ago. You don't need a visa or even a passport (except on %&(&^$ Ryanair) if flying to Ireland.

This is why I have not gotten Irish citizenship, it is expensive and there is very little benefit for me, since i plan on staying in Ireland.

I do have longer passport queues than before in European airports.