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What country would you say?

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  • 08-10-2015 12:40am
    #1
    HiSir!
    Registered Users Posts: 7 ✭


    I want your opinion's or feedback on a question I have always wondered about -what country was my late grandfather born in?

    - He was born in the now defunct 'Greater Lebanon' in 1933.

    - At that specific time, it was ruled by France under the 'French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon'.

    - People from 'Greater Lebanon' who wished to travel around that time were issued with French Passports.

    The place is now Lebanon but like I said, my grandfather was born there prior to independence as lots of websites I looked into on it deemed it a French Colony and part of the French Empire.

    So was he technically born in France? Or could you say he was born in both France and Lebanon?


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    #2
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,444 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    No, he wasn't born in France, any more than someone born in Palestine at the same time could be said to have been born in the UK.

    The territory your grandfather was born in was mandated to France by the League of Nations. France was supposed to be providing "administrative advice and assistance" until such time as the country was able to stand alone as an independent nation. That didn't make it part of France.

    Even if it had been an outright French possession (like Algeria at the time, say) that still wouldn't have made it "part of France".

    Your grandfather was born in the Lebanon, a country which at the time of his birth was under French administration.


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    #3
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    The only way you could have been born in France is if France annexed Lebanon & incorporated it into their national territory. Like Britain did with Ireland in 1800 or like what Nazi Germany did with Austria & other places on Germany's borders were there was German speaking people.


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    #4
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    DarkyHughes wrote: »
    The only way you could have been born in France is if France annexed Lebanon & incorporated it into their national territory. Like Britain did with Ireland in 1800 or like what Nazi Germany did with Austria & other places on Germany's borders were there was German speaking people.

    That still wouldn't mean he was born in France. When Ireland became part of the UK, if you were born in Ireland you weren't also born in Great Britain - an impossibility. Same with Germany in WW2 etc


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    #5
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    Jesus. wrote: »
    That still wouldn't mean he was born in France. When Ireland became part of the UK, if you were born in Ireland you weren't also born in Great Britain - an impossibility. Same with Germany in WW2 etc

    Ok, so I guess he was born in a defunct country.


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    #6
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,444 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    No, he was born in a defunct state. The country, the Lebanon, was around before the state was established, and is still around. Nothing defunct about the country.


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    #7
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    No, he was born in a defunct state. The country, the Lebanon, was around before the state was established, and is still around. Nothing defunct about the country.

    Edward Carson was born in Dublin as British, but when he died the part he was born in what became the Free State. I'm not sure if he was alive for Dev's constitution but would Carson have died British or Irish.


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    #8
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,444 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Carson was Irish, and to his dying day identified as Irish. He was an Irish Unionist. He also identified as British; he would not have seen "Irish" and "British" as mutually exclusive categories.

    In terms of legal citizenship, Carson was born a British subject and remained one all his life. After 1922 it was possible - indeed, common - for a person to be both a British Subject and a Citizen of the Irish Free State. To be a citizen of the IFS, you had to:

    - have been born in Ireland; or

    - have at least one parent born in the island of Ireland; or

    - have been ordinarily resident in the island of Ireland for at least seven years

    and be domiciled in the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922.

    Carson ticks all the boxes; having been born in Dublin and never having acquired a new domicile he was still domiciled in the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922, even though had actually been living in England since late 1921. So he became a citizen of the Irish Free State. Under Article 3 of the Free State Constitution he had a right to "elect not to accept the citizenship hereby conferred", but I don't believe that he ever took steps to do that.


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