Applying for Irish Citizenship through Descent
In the past two years we have seen our Irish citizenship service grow significantly. This is, of course, expected when you look at the tumultuous circumstances many people find themselves living in, in both the United States and Great Britain.
We have been contacted by many people, mostly from the UK and US, who were hoping to locate their Irish parents or grandparents’ birth record. Thankfully, for the majority of our clients we have been able to fulfil our service and aid them in applying for and obtaining their Irish citizenship status.
Our service is straightforward, if we have your parents or grandparents name and approximate date of birth we can carry out a search of Irish birth records. Sometimes we may need to order other records to corroborate information, such as marriage records, death records or indeed parish records. We carry out this service through our assessment form which is free to submit. Once we locate and order the required document then we can then walk you through the application with regard to other records required for your ‘Irish citizenship through descent’ application.
As you can expect, a paper trail of official documents from your country of residence is needed that leads from you- the person applying for an Irish passport and Irish citizenship- to your Irish parent or grandparent. Requesting and receiving the additional records to create this paper trail of records from government offices can be somewhat tricky and can take a bit of time sort out, especially in the current climate. However, using the service provided by Oak Ancestry, this means that we will always be there to liaise with you until your application is complete.
Reasons for Applying
This citizenship service is certainly a little 
different from our usual family research requests. In the past, we would often receive requests to locate birth and marriage records of parents or grandparents born in Ireland with the hope that our client could one day apply for, and gain, Irish citizenship. This was often done because the client felt such a deep connection with Ireland that they wanted to cement that feeling in an official manner. Their primary drive to research their ancestry was to know more about where they came from, and who their people were. Obtaining an Irish passport and applying for Irish citizenship was secondary to knowing and connecting with their family history through genealogical research. Their connection with Ireland was strengthened by researching their family history. The main reason was rarely for business, travel or political reasons. We can see that this is now changing and for most clients nowadays obtaining an Irish passport to travel around the EU, and the world, more freely would appear to be the driving factor in applying.
Speaking with our own clients over the past year or so, they have told us that Brexit is the main motivator in applying for Irish citizenship. If your work involves international travel then one can certainly understand why things may become a little more difficult. It is unfortunate that these are the circumstances that would push people to apply for an Irish passport, however, there is something comforting in the fact that we in Ireland can provide people with a type of safe haven.
For so long Ireland has been a port of departure for so many. Ireland had been a country with so much potential but one which has lost many wonderful people to the benefit of other great countries be they England, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Through our family research and genealogy, we were used to enriching a person’s knowledge of their Irish ancestry because being Irish and knowing where your ancestors came from, their names, their occupations, was something that was important to them.
We weren’t, however, used to locating records for the sole purpose of helping a client apply for an Irish passport. This is something we had to adjust to and at first it seemed a little cold and somewhat procedural. But every cloud has a silver lining, and while a person’s initial motivations may be driven by travel reasons and politics, we have encouraged our clients to explore their Irish ancestry in a deeper manner and thankfully this has been received really warmly.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with researching your Irish ancestry for the primary purpose of obtaining Irish citizenship as it is every eligible person’s right to do so. However we would encourage all who do pursue this right to look beyond the passport and official documentation and to explore the country and relatives they once knew little about. It will open up a world that may become far more important to you as years go by.
