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  1. #1

    Default Irish Citizenship - a cautionary tale!

    I was born in 1942, the illegitimate child of an Irish father and an English mother. Recently, I applied for an Irish passport. I was able to provide my father's birth certificate, copies of his RAF service record and that of my mother's WAAF record to show that they had served together at the "pregnant" moment, and a court record showing that my mother had named my father in a claim for maintenance, but my application was rejected on the grounds that my father's name was not on my birth certificate! I did suggest that very few illegitimate children would have a birth certificate containing the name of the father but was told that them's the rules.

    Bureaucracy rules.

  2. #2
    Knowledgeable and helpful
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland
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    627

    Default

    The issue was perhaps more to do with the fact that your parents weren’t married, rather than that the father’s name wasn’t on the birth certificate. It was the same in the UK until 1983. You could only claim citizenship through your father if the parents were married.

    I think the UK and Ireland both follow a similar system with registering illegitimate births which is that the father can only be named on the certificate if he attends the registration and acknowledges paternity. (Otherwise a mother might name anyone with obvious potential difficulties later). Whereas with a married couple there is a presumption of legitimacy, and so the husbands name will appear routinely, regardless of who was present at the registration.
    ELWYN

  3. #3

    Default

    Thanks, Elwyn, that's interesting. However, the official in the Dublin Passport Office assured me that if I can get my father's name added to my birth certificate, my application would be accepted, and she was aware that he was no longer alive.

    Pete

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