Why no citizenship test?

100% agree that citizenship should be tied to a baseline level of language proficiency.

In terms of testing for Irish cultural literacy, it's more of a 'nice to have' rather than a pre-requisite. I work in the tech sector; ca. 50% of my colleagues are from abroad, some of whom are in the process of taking out Irish citizenship. Frankly, the majority of them have little interest in Irish society, culture, or dare I say, Irish people. Most live in an ex-pat / immigrant bubble and rarely interact with Irish people outside of work. I would prefer that they showed more interest in their host society and didn't view an Irish passport in such a transactional manner. However, that's not for me to mandate.

It's their loss at the end of the day. As long as they are gainfully employed, pay their taxes, do not engage in crime, and speak enough English to communicate effectively, I couldn't care less how they live their lives. In truth, most of my Irish colleagues are equally as disinterested in them on a personal level, so it's pretty quid pro quo.

When it comes to a citizenship test, we are describing a test for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to meet the conditions to turn out for the Irish football team if they were good enough. Which are loose enough to accommodate Tony Cascarino. To be honest, why would we be concerned if such people were "Irish" or not? By any measure they would only be nominally Irish. They might hold Irish passports or Irish citizenship, but never be ethnically Irish. The ethnic Irish might be concerned with the English, or the Famine, or Michael Collins because that is the story of our own people. People who hold Irish passports/citizenship but are not ethnically Irish might correctly view that as a foreign peoples history. We need to differentiate between ethnicity and citizenship, because they are not one and the same in the modern world.

What does it prove? How little interest you have in the national story of the country in which you reside / resided. If you’re borderline disrespectful to the country you choose / chose to call home, that’s on you.

You’re pretty much identical to my colleagues described above. This is why I believe that a citizenship test is futile. Instead, we should insist on the fundamentals of economic self-sufficiency, language, and refraining from criminality.

Just curious, did you ask as part of your enquiry, how much its costing these people to apply for citizenship, I know many wonderful people from various countries who've gone through the process having lived and worked here for over 10 years, personally, most seem to know more about Ireland than actual Irish Citizens. Anyone, who spends years, working and living in Ireland and is prepared not just to go through a complex citizen application process but an expensive one, gets a pass from me, Citizen Test or no test.

I work in an MNC where almost 50% of the staff are non-Irish. I’m also a people manager, so interact with a lot of different folks.

The majority know very little about Ireland or the culture of this country, contrary to your assertion. In fact, one Brazilian chap is noteworthy for the time he has taken to understand his surroundings and to forge friendships with Irish people.

It scarcely registers for most of the others. They mostly see Irish citizenship in purely utilitarian terms and make no bones about it. As for cost, it’s a small price to pay to be afforded the privilege of citizenship of this wonderful country that our forebears have handed down to us.

1. ’Hang-up’? Not at all. I’m simply countering your assertion that apparently many foreigners living here know more about this country than actual Irish people. Fun fact. I manage people from the Indian sub continent and Latin America who have zero idea of the identity of the Taoiseach, that the Irish language isn’t English spoken with an Hiberno accent, and that Belfast lies in a different jurisdiction. Many of these folks are on the citizenship track. They’re simply clueless about where they choose to live. This bleeds into their personal lives where they inhabit bubbles of their own nationality. Does it affect their work performance? No. Do I care how they conduct their lives? No. Does it cheapen the value of Irish citizenship? Debatable.
2. ‘A basic level of English’? It takes more than a basic level of English to be economically self-sufficient. That’s the bottom line. Have these people acquired a sufficient grasp of the language to be economically active. Preferably, they should also have the ability to engage with the majority population, but if they choose not to do so, that’s on them.
3. I say this as somebody who lived in another EU country for a decade without having any intention of taking out citizenship. I made damn sure to learn the language fluently and to blend into the local culture, by learning something of the national story and taking an interest in local sporting and cultural events. For me, it’s about showing some interest in and respect to the country you have chosen to call home.

It is certainly not the case that most foreigners living in Ireland for more than 10 years know more than "actual Irish Citizens".

It may be that the "actual Irish Citizens" you know and hang around with are particularly ignorant

Re Point One , And ????

RE Point Two , you know exactly what I meant about an understanding of the English language.

RE Point Three, I take your point about learning a language fluently if an intention was to stay very long term , however I respectively suggest English would be far easier to learn as a language than for example Indian with its numerous dialects, indeed some European languages extremely complex and Scandinavian languages also. Helpfully most of these have English as a second language.

I'm sensing a slightly concerning different narrative to the original question raised in OP so, I leave my contribution at that and my opinion still stands .

I was just going to post that

ah now thats not exactly true, those nationalists be nationalisiting!

It doesn't make any sense really. A test of 'Irishness' isn't really possible. Knowing how many counties there are achieves nothing.

By all means, have conditions that must be met for citizenship to be granted (time period living here, no criminal record, etc), but an actual test does nothing.

And even then, those who don't meet the conditions for citizenship can live here anyway without citizenship as long as they qualify for a visa, so it's not really an immigration issue either.