Recent Irish kilt question

[O'Callaghan]

Anyone born anywhere on the island of Ireland is, under Irish law, entitled to Irish citizenship and, thus, an Irish passport. As far as I am aware the Passport Office down on Molesworth Street does not ask any citizen if he/she holds a UK passport as a condition of issuing an Irish Passport. To my sure and certain knowledge there are a great many individuals in NI who hold both UK and Irish Passports, and indeed a fair number in the Republic as well.

It may be that in the less than three years I have resided in the United States Irish (or EU) laws may have changed, but as far as I am aware there is no general prohibition on people in NI holding both passports.

The law in Northern Ireland is quite clear in that it says you may only claim either British or Irish citizenship but not both if you are from there. However, as always with dual citizenship, the laws of the two countries seldom agree, and this produces odd results. I have no doubt that the Republic of Ireland don't give a fig what other citizenship you hold, so they would of course issue an Irish passport to someone from NI regardless, although I do understand that they require you to specify which of the six NI counties you were born in, despite the fact that all of these counties were abolished some time ago, LOL!

The mills still make tartans for the six counties, for that matter, and I suppose people figure out somehow which one they should wear, even if they can't find it on a map. That's the only part of this post that relates to kilts, folks.

So, I suppose in practice you are right and such a person could hold both passports, because although it is against British law it is not prohibited by Irish law, and as you say, the EU doesn't care if you are a citizen of more than one member state. As I noted, though, even British law has nothing against it unless both claims to citizenship are based on NI, as opposed to the Republic or other parts of the UK.

There is a similar situation regarding the US, in that US law states in one place that dual nationals must choose between US and foreign citizenship when they turn 18, although in other places the law does recognise that dual citizens who are not minors actually exist. This is because the US cannot prevent anyone from obtaining foreign citizenship, only the other country can govern that, and according to the legal precedents, US citizenship is only forcibly revoked if you are only a naturalized US citizen and you voluntarily join either the armed forces or the civil service of your other country of citizenship after obtaining US citizenship.

I don't know your citizenship, but I do know that you live in the US and have been an Irish civil servant. If, for sake of argument, you were Irish and became naturalised as an American, and then joined the Irish civil service, that would be grounds to revoke your US citizenship, but it would not be automatic, the US government would have to file suit against you, and they would have to have some reason to do so. Of course, I imagine you were in the Irish civil service before going to the US, so none of that would apply.

To take another example, if someone were Irish, emigrated to the US and became a US citizen, then moved back to Ireland, they could remain a dual national as long as they didn't voluntarily join the armed forces or the civil service. This is actually not that uncommon. Sometimes they even have kids who are born in Ireland but qualify for US citizenship if the parent has enough years of US residence, and the kids then emigrate to America on a US passport.

I say 'voluntarily' because some countries (not Ireland) still draft people, and that doesn't affect their US citizenship.