Claiming Irish citizenship to attend university

J77

I know someone who was born in the US and has lived there for his entire life (20 years) excluding summer trips to Ireland. He is hoping to claim Irish citizenship on the grounds that his Father was born in Ireland and lived in Ireland for about 25 years prior to moving to the states and marrying an American citizen.

First question is would he be successful in this claim and approx how long would it take and how would he go about it?

Second question, would he then immediately be entitled to attend an Irish university as an Irish citizen? (1.5k a year instead of over 20k)

Thanks!

coylemj

First question: Yes, if his father was born in Ireland, the son can claim Irish citizenship. How long the father resided in Ireland is irrelevant. The first thing he will need is his father's birth cert, he also needs his own birth cert.

Tell him to start here: http://www.embassyofireland.org/

Second Question: Depends on the university, there may be residency requirements over and above citizenship. Based on the number of people born in foreign countries to Irish parents I doubt if it's as simple as getting an Irish passport.

J77

Thanks coylemj.

Would he be able to retain his American citizenship while gaining Irish citizenship?

Our man in Havana

Yes.

munchkin_utd

interesting,

Free fees
In order to qualify for free fees:

• You must be an EU national or have official refugee status and
• You must have been living in the EU for at least 3 of the 5 years before starting your course

.............etc etc etc

so no

he will have to live in Ireland or part of the EU for a minimum of 3 years before starting a course!

SOURCE: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/education/third_level_education/fees_and_supports_for_third_level_education/fees.html

about citizenship,
Why wouldnt he be able to keep both?
There are problems in certain cases where naturalisation in certain countries requires proof of giving up the old nationality.
In your mates case though, he IS irish already. Always has been. His dad is irish so he is irish. Its nothing to do with the US authorities, they dont need to know nor do they care.
Just apply for the passport.

heres what the yanks say about dual nationality just for the record
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753.html

coylemj

+1 There was a thread on dual citizenship a while ago and in the course of answering a question I discovered that the US government dos not ask you to renounce your US citizenship when taking out citizenship of a second country.

Wisco

Not sure of processing times for Irish citizenship apps either- for those unfortunately without Irish ancestry the wait is around 2 years, although I'm pretty sure it's significantly shorter when applying via his route. Of course if it did take 2 years, he'd be a lot closer to that 3 year residency rule for getting EU fees....

Our man in Havana

There is no processing time. He is already an Irish citizen. He just needs to apply for a passport.

blueythebear

To the OP,

Long story short, your mate is an Irish Citizen as his father is an Irish Citizen (born in Ireland) and he should apply for a passport at the Irish Embassy in Washington ASAP. This also means he should get free fees in college regardless of residency in Ireland. He is also allowed to have dual nationality.

seamus

As pointed out above, he will not qualify for free fees unless/until he has lived in the EU for 3 years.

He will however qualify for reduced fees on the basis of being an EU national.

He could probably bluff his way past most questions and claim that he's an Irish national born in Ireland, but he will need to supply Leaving Cert results and a PPSN, which he doesn't have.