To ask you clever people how dual nationality works??

[ethelfleda]

Posting shamelessly for traffic (and can't find the answer online!!)
DS is 4 weeks old nearly - DH is Irish and has an Irish passport. We would like DS to have a dual passport (for obvious Brexit related reasons) do we literally just apply to Dublin passport office for his Irish passport and UK for his UK passport so he has two??
Thank you!

I'm not Irish, I am another nationality. But, yeah, that's how it works.

It depends, where do you live in uk? If your partner was born in Ireland then you apply to the Irish consulate in London. If your partner was born in uk you may have to apply to have the birth registered in Ireland first.

You can get the information from the Irish embassy website.

First step is foreign birth registration
www.dfa.ie/passports-citizenship/citizenship/born-abroad/registering-a-foreign-birth/

Yes, for UK passport apply by post. Irish passport contact embassy/consulate.

Just one thing: Irish citizens (unlike other EU citizens) are not affected by Brexit as their rights come from different laws. So just having one Irish passport would give you all the rights in Britain as well as in Ireland. Clearly, just a British passport will not give you any rights anymore in Europe after Brexit. So either get both, or just Irish.

^But are there not other countries which are visa-free for Brits but not Irish? I’d apply for both.

I’m dual nationality Australian/British and I have a passport for both. I put British on forms as it saves complications.

Apply for both.

Apply for both. Work is already preparing for the eventualility that when the Northern Ireland solution occurs, it will be the rights of ROI passported residents on the mainland that will impacted (not NI) ie a similar solution as per Northern Cyprus.

Then passport thing is bit of red herring. You don't need a passport to be a citizen of a country and it is expensive to have two.

My DCs were born in the U.K. with one British parent which makes them British and their first passports were British. DH laterwent to the Irish consulate and provided proof of his nationality (and his parents since he was born in the U.K.) and we got paperwork confirming they were Irish citizens. Now one DC has an Irish passport and the other still has a Brit one, although that might change when the current passport expires.
The only family members I know who routinely held two passports simaltaneously were living illegally in the US so if they ever got kicked out on one passport,they could re-enter using their other one. I am happy to say that was a long time ago now and they are all now law abiding American citizens travelling on American passports whilst remaining English or Irish or both. It's all very confusing.

Thanks all. DH was born in Dublin so would I still need to register DSs birth in Ireland?

You can do it online, but you need your DH's long form birth cert to send off along with your DS's. The passport can be got anytime once the birth is registered.

A PP has posted the link for you above.

MIne have joint US and UK. They were born in the US. I made sure that I not only got them UK passports but also registered their birth abroad. So they have a UK birth certificate as well as a US one. The officials said it was technically unecessary, but my feeling was that there are circumstances when you need a birth certificate not a passport, and what happens if you loose your passport, not living at home with mum anymore etc.

I was born in Ireland so after my Dd was born we just applied for an Irish passport for her and got it. As an FYI I also held another countries passport from childhood and only got my Irish passport as an adult (waaay before Brexit though) - the Irish don't (or didn't!) ask if you hold nationality in another country whereas some other countries do ask, and care.

Then passport thing is bit of red herring. You don't need a passport to be a citizen of a country and it is expensive to have two.

Yes, this confused me when i wanted to immigrate to the UK at the age of 21. I knew I could apply for a British passport, despite having never set foot in the UK, as my father was British. I thought getting a UK passport would make me British. At that point my father told me "but you are British" and produced my consular birth certificate. (In addition to my local birth certificate, I had a British one signed by the "H.M Vice Consul.")

It was only then I realised that getting a British passport didn't make me British, but that being British enabled me to get a British passport.

(And having the consular birth certificate didn't make me British either, it was just a means to prove a legal status I would have had anyway.)

Do the foreign births registration thing, if you've not done so already.

Then get whichever passport is more practical for your day to day lives now.

If we do actually leave the EU/EEA (and I still harbour hope that common sense will prevail at least in relation to EEA status), and they later need an EU passport eg to study or work in a European country, they can apply for the Irish passport then. This assumes we won't need Schengen visas for holidays.

It's expensive to have two passports if you don't need them.