Required To carry an Irish passport When in Northern Ireland????

Glib!

Thousands of people cross the border daily. They do not need to carry any identification.

I don't see why he wouldn't have an Irish passport if he is so worried. But the rest f us never bother for travel over and back, as we are not required, by law.

This

And this

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx24x47qp8no.amp

And your passengers? Or someone cycling, or out walking the dog?

If they have to prove their identity, same as if if they were from NI, and they could only prove Swiss residency and citizenship there would be issues.

Not needing to carry ID doesn't mean you may need to prove it, and the OP can't. Unless they just renew their Irish passport

The screenshot I posted above, the last two sentences would suggest so.

Also the news article that I posted.

No need for a passport when travelling between North and South.

However, "Immigration authorities may also require you to have valid official photo identification which shows your nationality." - That's from gov.ie.

So what's that official photo identification going to be?

If the OP's Swiss driver's licence or ID card specified a place of birth (like the Irish DL does), then that may be sufficient.

However, the problem that he then has is with his wife/partner who I believe is Swiss. Then there are the kids as well.

I used to travel Dublin - Belfast at least 3 times a month, usually by car but sometimes by train. Usually not a problem. However, since Brexit and with the high rate of asylum seekers entering, GNIB have introduced checks and so too has NI.

On the NI side, what happens if he is involved in a crash? Id's will be asked for.

It's seemingly random (the checkpoints)

The OP has a couple of options from 05 March/ 02 April - apply for a UK ETA for everyone in the family at a cost of £10 each, fly into Dublin and drive or bus or train it up North.

Or sort out Irish Passports for the whole family which will allow travel to GB&NI, and anywhere else in the world for the next 10 years. An option he doesn't want to avail of because of cost (€600) and time.

Or apply for Swiss passports for everyone and get ETA's. Again, an option he doesn't want to avail of.

And insults seem to be what you are contributing. Clearly you have not spent much time in NI or had many dealings with the police there. We are not required by law to carry a passport. He will not be asked to prove his Irish citizenship.

There's no way you can say any of that with certainty. Absolutely none.

The primary one is that there are now frequent checks on border crossings, and he has no documents that will suffice to enter.

But it has about as much chance of happening to him as anyone else living in the north, would you give them the same advice?

The random checks are by Irish immigration officials for people entering from Northern Ireland.

The real question here is whether Irish officials would waive through someone with a Swiss national ID. I think they would as they're looking for non-EEA citizens. Note that these checks are NOT "passport control".

On a slight tangent, the OP posts this question as if it concerns a journery for him alone. It's not clear whether his wife and children would be accompanying him, but if so that does raise another point: are they all travelling under the same (sur)name?

I have witnessed first hand individuals and families being stopped and significantly delayed at UK entry points because a child had a different surname to the parent with whom they were travelling. In all cases, the problem was aggravated by the fact that the parent could not provide any written proof that the child was theirs, or if it wasn't, that they had the authorisation of the parent to travel.

Having a passport wouldn't (didn't) change those situations, but it's the kind of thing that, in the right/wrong circumstances, raises and eyebrow, then a flag, then a whole string of falling dominos. One minor incident with one of the children (if they're part of the travel plans) could trigger a whole series of uncomfortable questions for the OP, questions to which he would be obliged to give the "wrong" answers.

As a fellow-continental, I would agree with the OP that Irish people don't appreciate the full inconvenience of Brexit, as the CTA and GFA mitigates a lot of it. Also, because Ireland doesn't have an ID card, but everyone wants to leave the island as often as possible, so having an in-date passport is a "no brainer"; but most of the rest of Europe gets by perfectly well with an ID card and no passport, ever.

In the context of his query the OP's Swiss citizenship, and his Swiss identity card, are giant red herrings. They are irrelevant.

The situation is this: As an Irish citizen, he is entitled to enter the UK without an electronic travel authorisation.

If he travels directly to the UK from outside the CTA: He'll have to establish at the UK border that he is an Irish citizen. The usual way to do this is with a passport; he doesn't have a current passport. However the border force officer just has to be satisfied that he is an Irish citizen, and he does have a measure of discretion about this. If the OP looks and sounds Irish, that's a good start. If, in addition, he carries his expired Irish passport that also helps; he must have been an Irish citizen when the passport issued and it is very, very unlikely that he has ceased to be one since. Get the officer on a good day, and the OP will probably be OK.

If he enters the UK from within the CTA (in particular, if he crosses the IRL/NI Border): There are no border controls, so the OP can enter freely. It is theoretically possible that he could be asked to establish his Irish citizenship in NI but in practice this is very, very unlikely. If he is, the same rules apply; if the officer is satisfied without the production of a valid passport, he is satisfied.

If the officer isn't satisfied, it's not a disaster. The only sanction for being unable to establish that he is an Irish citizen is that he is liable to be told to leave. No fine, no penalty, no court appearance; nothing like that. He will just have to return to IRL, where he will be no worse off than if he had never entered NI in the first place.

Yes, Brexit is a shít-show. This is just a tiny little fleck of shít in the great shítty mess that is Brexit. In the scheme of things, it's not a big deal.