A Run on Irish Passports

August 18, 2017 9:02 AM

The Irish Passport is a newish podcast about about the culture, history and politics of Ireland, by Naomi O’Leary and Tim Mc Inerney. The newest episode is about The Brexit Irish - the people who have rushed to turn their notational Irishness into a physical passport post the Brexit referendum.

The applications from the UK jumped by 50%. Which has lead some people to offer advice to the new passport holder.

As the podcast discusses, there are some controversial aspects to this - especially in the light of the 2004 referendum, which removed the automatic right to citizen by birth if you don't have an Irish parent.

posted by hfnuala (19 comments total)

I had a couple paragraphs written about my feelings about Irish citizenship, from the point of view of an American who also holds Irish citizenship. (Both my dad's parents were born and raised in Ireland, and we applied for citizenship in the 80's.)

However, in attempting to add a fada to a letter to properly type an Irish word, I accidentally reloaded the page and the whole thing went away.

This seems like an apt metaphor, somehow, though for what I'm not entirely certain.

Suffice it to say, though I hold Irish citizenship, and speak some bits of Irish, and am a certified Irish Dance teacher, and play guitar in a band that plays trad music, I'm not really Irish. I'm not a product of current Irish society, but of the American diaspora version of Irish culture. I'm American. If I go to Ireland, I'm not going to fool anybody. I'll be a Yank.
posted by curiousgene at 9:42 AM on August 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Oh hey, this FPP is very relevant to me. I've not managed to listen to the whole podcast yet, but there's a bit in the start where the Irish ambassador to London says, "demand has kept up since the brexit vote", which seems... apt. Because if there had been a part of the negotiations where the UK side had looked like it had a clue, then demand would have dropped off. Suddenly getting Irish looks like a good plan when your government is revealed as being a bunch of useless cockwombles
posted by The River Ivel at 10:05 AM on August 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

FYI, on the passport thing, if anyone's interested. If you've an Irish grandparent, you're in like Flynn.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:10 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

My dad told me I dig like a Protestant a couple of years ago, so I guess I'm going to have to add that to the list of advice for new passport holders. But I was touched by the positive response from the Galwegians -- I lived there briefly as a kid and have very fond memories of my time there.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:14 AM on August 18, 2017

digging like a Protestant means you dig using the shovel goofy-foot, fwiw
posted by en forme de poire at 11:26 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

though I hold Irish citizenship, and speak some bits of Irish, and am a certified Irish Dance teacher, and play guitar in a band that plays trad music, I'm not really Irish. I'm not a product of current Irish society, but of the American diaspora version of Irish culture. I'm American.

I want to push back on your comment a little bit, even though nationality is weird, and I don't have any relevant knowledge on Irish diaspora or your actual life to give me better input than you here, and I don't want to derail the thread away from the discussion of Ireland specifically.

But. There are so many ways that nations use citizenship as a political tool that it's worth considering how to keep that tool available to the people who need it without it being used as a weapon against the people who don't. "You're [legally / not legally] a citizen but you [shouldn't / should] be because [political / cultural reasons]" gets complicated.

In the U.S. conservative racists have been screaming over "birth tourism" from pregnant Chinese women visiting the USA to give birth to babies with American citizenship. "Anchor babies!‼" That accusation gets thrown against Mexican-American immigrant women too.

In the battle of dual-citizenship, is a hypothetical baby born in the U.S. but raised in Chinese culture as entitled to American citizenship as a hypothetical curiousgene born in the U.S. but raised in Irish diaspora as entitled to Irish citizenship? Why or why not?

How do you keep people from "abusing" paths to Irish citizenship without cutting off people in real need using the same path?
posted by nicebookrack at 11:51 AM on August 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

They do actually mention the awful "birth tourism" argument in the podcast above.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:55 AM on August 18, 2017

What are the odds of a Northern Ireland unification, do you think?
posted by anthill at 1:22 PM on August 18, 2017

I have a friend who got Irish citizenship through her grandfather. It wasn't frivolous, she eventually moved there as well as several of the rest of the family, but at the same time I think it's a bit depressing that someone whose family moved away a half-century or more ago was entitled to citizenship and people who were actually born in Ireland wouldn't be.
posted by tavella at 1:35 PM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I had already left by the time of the 2004 referendum, safe in the knowledge any future kids of mine would be Irish but I totally agree with you tavella, if I'd still lived there I'd have been campaigning strongly against it. The podcast touches on it but the way refugees are treated in Ireland interacts with this law very badly.

On the flip side, some parts of Ireland have made great strides integrating as shown in this video.
posted by hfnuala at 1:43 PM on August 18, 2017

Until the day I die I will lament the fact that my Irish grandparents-having mother did not obtain Irish citizenship before I was born. I would be out of America so fucking fast.
posted by Automocar at 2:20 PM on August 18, 2017

nicebookrack: In the battle of dual-citizenship, is a hypothetical baby born in the U.S. but raised in Chinese culture as entitled to American citizenship as a hypothetical curiousgene born in the U.S. but raised in Irish diaspora as entitled to Irish citizenship? Why or why not?

That word, "entitled". That's a slippery one. Legally, of course I was entitled to Irish citizenship, and I claimed it. And I plan to register my children as well, and my wife, if I can manage it. (Her grandfather, a Russian or possibly Lithuanian Jew, was born in Limerick. Her family lived through the Limerick Boycott. Somehow, I found an Irish Jew to marry.) Aside from the strictly legal question, though, who is and isn't entitled to citizenship probably has as many answers as there are people to ask. America is deeply divided on that question. Here, the word "entitlement" is almost a curse nowadays.

Automocar: I would be out of America so fucking fast.

We're thinking about it. White nationalists and goddamn Nazi sympathizers holding elected office and wandering the street in soldier cosplay is bad. And it doesn't matter who they come for first, they come for the Jews eventually. Unless we manage to flip the Senate, and at least some House seats in 2018, I think the only conclusion to draw is that our kind (my wife and kids, anyway) maybe isn't wanted here any more.
posted by curiousgene at 4:32 PM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I got mine just in case. In case of last week. That is all I can really say.
posted by oflinkey at 7:52 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

He's never looked so sexy.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:30 AM on August 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ireland will give you a passport even if your grandparent considered themself a loyal British subject, as long as they were born in Ulster before partition.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:03 PM on August 19, 2017

I had no idea obtaining an Irish passport was so easy.
posted by nealeg at 2:02 AM on August 20, 2017

Ireland will give you a passport even if your grandparent considered themself a loyal British subject, as long as they were born in Ulster before partition.

After partition counts too! All Irish citizenship rules are based on the whole island of Ireland, not just the Republic. Which has led to fairly surreal headlines like "Ian Paisley Jr urges Northern Irish citizens to apply for Republic of Ireland passports" in the wake of Brexit.
posted by scorbet at 3:53 AM on August 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

nealeg, I think the point is it is easy if you meet certain very specific criteria and difficult for pretty much everyone else. I've known US/Canadian folk use this for simple access to the EU working world all my adult life but I've never seen so many people doing it en mass because of their government's choices.

When I was young spouses could get Irish nationality without ever living in the country, but after the London passport selling scandal the rules changed. Which means there is no way for me to pass my Irish nationality to my SO through marriage without us living in Ireland, which, well, we have daughters so that isn't happening unless things get much worse in Scotland.
posted by hfnuala at 1:35 PM on August 20, 2017

What are the odds of a Northern Ireland unification, do you think?

Perhaps 10:90, so about as unlikely as Brexit was thought to be five years ago.

... and then along came Boris Johnson to have his cake and YOURS too.
posted by sour cream at 5:13 AM on August 21, 2017 [1 favorite]