I didnt vote for it, so please help me get out of here. Foreign Birth Advice Required.

avcentraltias

Hello Everyone,

As with so many Brits that have jumped on the Irish Citizenship bandwagon since the (dopey Billy feckin') Brexit referendum I too find myself on the DFA website and collecting birth certificates for family members who are sadly no longer with us.

My grandmother and grandfather were the last of my family to be born in Ireland. As far as I can tell that means their child, my mother, born in Britain is automatically an Irish citizen and can apply for an Irish Passport. Have I got that right? Is she likely to hit any snags when applying for an Irish Passport without first registering her birth?

When I go to apply to register my Irish Citizenship by decent im asked for the date of my mothers foreign birth registration. Does this mean that if I want to register my foreign birth my mothers foreign birth has to be registered first before I can start mine, even though she is automatically entitled to citizenship? If not, what else can I do?

There seems to be huge backlogs in the department for seemingly obvious reasons of Covid pressures and a massive amount of new applications, and Ive heard stories of the applications taking as long as two years to process. Does that really mean that im likely to have to wait four years until I can become an Irish citizen?

Hoping someone can shed some light on this situation. Looking forward to hearing from you.

cnocbui

My son's application for foreign birth registration was recently finalised and it took 23 months. Covid is a great excuse, but his application was lodged months before that existed. It's unreal and unreasonable to have important identity documents out of your reach for two years.

avcentraltias

Thanks for that. May I ask what your status is, or the status of the parent he's obtained his registration through?

rock22

OP, It might be worth posting your query in the legal discussion forum

Manach

Mod Note:

This is not really a history forum question and as suggested, it might be worth posting on another forum.

However, this thread will be left open for a while longer in case anyone else can assist the OP before I close it.

avcentraltias

My apologies, I thought this was a genealogy issue and I hadnt actually noted the legal forum existed. Thank you for pointing that out.

Hermy

Try the genealogy forum which is a sub-forum of the history forum.

If you or your child are looking for passports, you may not need a foreign birth registration. Go into the website and check.

pinkypinky

You should apply on the strength of your grandparents, rather than your mother. That will avoid the foreign birth part.