Passport application

vixengland

hi,  i am applying for my first adult passport. I was born in northern ireland in 1978. I was told i can apply for an irish passport. Is this true ? And which is better to have a brittish or irish with brexit on the horizon and the benefits an eu passport holds compared to a british after brexit, as this will be a 10 yr passport. Both parents are from england i was just born there .

Thank you for any advice

Vix

bradders1983

I would go for an Irish one, likely to be quicker getting through passport controls when passing through EU countries, although if you are travelling with people on non-EU passports you would have to hang around for them anyway. Also some airports in the EU are likely to dump passengers from UK flights straight into the non-Schengen channel, especially after a bus transfer, regardless if there are EU nationals on board. They like doing this at LPA for instance, and would save you no time at all.

Sandtree

Generally speaking you can apply for either/both if you were born in Northern Ireland to British parents. 

At the moment the two passports are considered almost equal to each other, from memory there is only one country where there is currently a difference but I cannot remember offhand where it was (not a normal tourist hot spot). Obviously a lot will depend what agreements are struck with the EU but a betting person would probably say the Irish passport will be easier in Europe from 2021 onwards. It could also potentially help with moving to an EU country and brining non-EU family members with you (eg a british spouse from 2021 on) though technically this is based on nationality rather than passport).

An Irish passport however is certainly easier to get than a British one. You will fill in some forms and at some later point the passport turns up - or at least that happened to me when I claimed my Irish nationality. For a British passport however you will have to sit an interview. The interview isn't hard at all but its a faff... its an advanced ID check really but they ask questions like "which supermarket do you go to?", "tell me how you get there?" which in theory you can answer easily if you are who you say you are (they don't check your answers, they are looking at body language etc). My wife, a naturalised citizen, did hers 9 years ago or so and at that point on a single person had failed (though the process is deemed a success as applications are down and proportion of fraudulent applications were down - ie its acted as a deterrent)