To ask if you have 4 British Grandparents?

[ThornInMySide84]

In conversation with friends last night about the perks of still having an EU passport I discovered I was the only one with all 4 Grandparents being British.

DH also has 1 non British Grandparent and now when I really think about it so do a lot of my other friends. I would say the majority have an Irish Grandparent but also Spanish, Indian, Chinese, Polish, Maltese and Italian amongst my close friends.

I recall reading somewhere that 25% of British people could get an Irish passport so I guess I’m now wondering if having all 4 British Grandparents are not being entitled to any other nationality is actually quite uncommon?

An Irish grandparent won’t help you unless your parent had the foresight to get themselves on the foreign births register before you were born. Which many won’t have done, because who could have predicted the shit show that is Brexit? An Irish parent is the holy grail.

Thankfully my dad is Irish so I can get an Irish passport for me & the kids.

He's about 3/4 elsewhere isn't he?

My kids have been pinning their hopes in the Irish grandparent thing.

Oh well, we're going to have to cancel Brexit and get our rights back aren't we?

Nothing else for it.

No, that is not the case. You are indeed automatically an Irish citizen if you are born to an Irish parent. However, you can get citizenship by descent if one of your grandparents was Irish. In this situation, you need to claim your Irish citizenship before you can get a passport.

https://www.dfa.ie/citizenship/born-abroad/registering-a-foreign-birth/

3/4 British (although I think my granny’s parents were Irish and moved to Scotland before she was born) and 1 Polish.

You’re right @Cailleach1 I thought my kids claimed citizenship through me (my dad is Irish & born in Ireland so I’m
automatically a citizen) but it can be done via an Irish grandparent.

@verdantverdure get those hopes pinned again!

What if my DH claims his Irish citizenship based on his Irish parent? Does that help my kids get an Irish passport? Does anyone know?

I have 2 Scottish, 1 English & 1 South African. Sadly not eligible for an EU passport. 2 great grandparents are Irish, (and I believe 1 was Dutch born), though, so just not quite generationally close enough to get that lovely burgundy passport back...

I believe it's Irish born, so your husband gets it based on his parent, and your kids could qualify, if your DH gets his passport. It's two generations, if I understand it correctly. So, your grandkids wouldn't qualify.

@verdantverdure , according to the DFA website I linked above, your children can claim by descent if their grandparent was born in Ireland.

If you were born outside of Ireland, you can become an Irish citizen if:

1. One of your grandparents was born in Ireland, or;
2. One of your parents was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth, even though they were not born in Ireland.

In these cases, you can become an Irish citizen through Foreign Birth Registration. Once a person is entered onto the Foreign Births Register they are an Irish citizen and entitled to apply for an Irish passport.

My paternal grandfather was Romanian, but also a 'bad lot' who skipped out shortly after my father was born, so I never knew him.

All of the others are Scottish and, in fact, that generation is a bit of an anomaly, because apart from that, we're all of Scottish / Irish birth (with a few English thrown in every now and again) for eight generations, which is as far back as I've gone.

Yes, four British grandparents - 2 Northern Irish and 2 English. See British Nationality Act 1981 should anyone attempt to argue against this.

The NI grandparents died before I was born and not long after. The two English ones died much later in my life - teenage years and my 30s.

Only British passports or none for us.

Lots of people have non British non EU grandparents- sure people have already replied this.

I have an Italian grandparent and Italian citizen mother but you can’t get any sense out of the consulate so don’t have my citizenship yet either

Let's hope we've kicked Brexit into touch by the time I get grandkids then @HollaHolla

Thank you for this. I know I need to look into it all properly, but the eldest is properly pinning his hopes on it since Brexit so I had a flap.

Well technically all of my Grandparents would have considered themselves British, but as they were all born in Northern Ireland (as am I) then I, and my children also hold Irish passports.

All four of my grandparents were British

If only there was a way of giving EU passport privileges to those who voted to Remain and banning people who voted Leave from having them, rather than it being random luck eh!

Or furthermore, EU passports only to people who voted to stop Brexit in the last General Election, by voting LibDem.

All four grandparents born in England. Two of my great-great grandparents was Irish, but not sure that counts for much. Two of the others were German. There's some Scottish ones a long way back as well.

Yes, I had 4 British grandparents. 2 English (although one was born in Wales) and 2 Welsh grandparents.

Well presumably they wanted to renounce their EU rights if they voted to leave the EU so I don't think anyone could object.

I think if you were born in NI you can still get an Irish passport - wasn’t that one of the things in the Good Friday Agreement? My MIL is from Strabane and has both an Irish and British passport.
On this basis we’re applying for an Irish passport for my DH and our two children. Doesn’t help me but it’ll help the kids in the future.

Re the Royal Family: no. Charles' father, Prince Philip, was Greek. William thereby has one non-British grandparent.

The late Queen Elizabeth's parents and grandparents were all British; but if you go back to her great-grandparents and beyond, there was significant German ancestry.

The GFA has nothing to do with it. Anyone born in NI has always been entitled to either or both.