Several years back I developed an interest in applying for Irish citizenship through ancestry. Ireland provides the children and grandchildren of Irish citizens the ability to apply for Irish citizenship and I’d very much like to have dual citizenship. I spent a little time on this a few years back but became totally discouraged with the amount of documentation needed, my estimate of how much work it would take for me to get it, and the processing time of the Irish government. My mother has graciously agreed to help me in getting this document, so I’m going to lay out the activities here during our collaboration.
I’ve had trouble finding a crisp list of requirements on an official web page of Ireland. But a couple of third-party web sites (such as about.com and progenealogists.com) have pretty similar rules so I’m starting from there.
Unfortunately, neither of these mentions the required documentation in the event that a parent has divorced and remarried in the time between my birth and today. But its logically consistent that documentation of these events must be provided to show the difference between my Mom’s name at my birth and her name today. Plus, I feel certain I read about this on another page the first time I went through this investigation.
So, here’s the list of required documentation:
- My grandmother’s “full, long-form Irish birth certificate”. Presumably this will be a certified copy from the registrar.
- An official copy of my grandmother’s marriage certificate.
- An official copy of my mother’s birth certificate. Both of the above pages state that this document must include my grandparents’ names, their places of birth, and their ages at the time of my Mom’s birth. I don’t recall this type of information being on my birth certificate, so I don’t know how it will be on Mom’s.
- A certified copy of my grandmother’s death certificate.
- An official copy of my Mom’s marriage certificate to Jim.
- An official copy of my own birth certificate with the same information on my parents as requested in the previous birth certificate.
- An official copy of Mom’s divorce documentation to Jim.
- An official copy of Mom’s marriage certificate to Larry.
- A notarized copy of Mom’s current ID.
- A notarized copy of my passport.
- Notarized copies of three current IDs for me, one of which must have a photo. OK, driver’s license here is the obvious one, but what am I doing to do about the other two?? I don’t even have my social security card and I don’t know what would qualify as a third form of ID with my passport already being above.
- Copy of a utility bill showing my current address.
- Two recent passport photographs (this is the easy part!)
The hunt begins!
When they ask for that many forms of ID, sometimes it can be as simple as a utility bill or tax bill with your name and address on it. Dont forget that the passport photos may be different size from US ones. Josh has had to do this twice (for Talia’s birth registration abroad and my recent passport renewal) so he can tell you how to do it with photoshop magic.
“Unfortunately, neither of these mentions the required documentation in the event that a parent has divorced and remarried in the time between my birth and today.”
My wife completed her application for the Foreign Births Register in February. It was a little embarrassing because her mother, an Irish citizen, has been through three divorces. We watched as staff at the consulate general’s office in Chicago flipped through all the juicy details of the divorce proceeedings just to make sure of all my mother-in-law’s name changes. Anyway, we were sweating it until the consulate worker said everything was acceptable and in order. Phew!