Dual Passport Query

Ellis Dee wrote: »

I have never experienced anything like that, although my Irish passport expired about two years ago and I haven't gotten round to renewing it yet. One official, seeing my very Irish surname, commented, quite good humouredly, "**** is a good old Finnish name" when I showed him my Finnish passport.


I think I'll just show the new credit-card-sized ID card, which is valid in all EU countries, when I next pass through the airport the day after tomorrow.

You are at the mercy of the officials. If he believes that you are an Irish national, he can decline to admit you on the basis of your Finnish nationality (though in fact it's very unlkely that he will). From this point of view, even an expired Irish passport is better evidence of Irish nationality than a current Finnish ID card or Finnish passport (since it shows that you were an Irish national at one time, and it's extremely rare to lose Irish nationality) .

Carawaystick wrote: »

Just playing devils advocate.
If you were born after the citizenship referendum, then being born here is no guarantee of citizenship?

But if you were born here before the Good Friday Referendum, then the meaning of Ireland to the state workers is different, no? i.e. at the time it meant the island of Ireland

So you could be a former unionist after taking up the citizenship of another country (the Netherlands?), born in Ireland, not an irish citizen...

Irish nationality law was changed in 1999, but with retrospective effect, so the same rules apply regardless of whether you were born before or after 1999.

When I said that it was possible to be born in Ireland and not to have Irish nationality I was actually thinking of the relatively straightforward case of the child of a diplomat. If, say, the Swedish ambassador to Ireland has a child born in Ireland, that child is a Swedish citizen but not an Irish citizen, and in later years will have Swedish passport showing his country of birth as "Ireland".

But, as you point out, it's also possible to be born in Ireland and not to be an Irish citizen if you are born with another citizenship, and never take up the Irish citizenship to which you are or (if born after 2005) may be entitled.

Victor wrote: »

Isn't there a right of election with this?

Only for people born within a fairly small window - between 1999 and 2005, if I remember rightly, but I could be wrong about the dates. They retain their right of election but anybody born before of after that window never had a right, and still doesn't.