OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
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Get your Irish on

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

You’ll still have to go kiss the Blarney Stone to get the gift of the gab, but the benefits of ascending to Irishness are multiple.
An Irish citizen’s passport is a European Union passport, and as such allows the holder to reside in any EU country, find work, take advantage of healthcare, education and other public services and also confers property-owning rights. Some countries, like Italy, have strict rules for buying property, putting that villa in Florence out of reach – unless one is an EU citizen.
Currently, there are 15 EU member states: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Twelve more European nations will join the EU in the next few years.
The right of descendants of Irish citizens to restore their Irishness has been available since the birth of the Irish Republic, although the rules were tightened in the 1990s. But an Irish government spokesperson said recently that anyone who is eligible is heartily encouraged to apply.
What may seem like a daunting process involving the filling out of complicated application forms is actually quite simple, the spokesperson said, adding that the process takes three to six months.
And, if you still prefer not to face the fine print, a new business based in Seattle and Vancouver offers to do the work for you – Garreth Westwood, a Londoner by birth with Irish parents, has started DualCitizen.net.
Westwood started helping friends restore their Irish citizenship and saw a chance to create a business. About a year ago, he quit his job and formed Dual Citizen as a company.
“Basically, I had been doing it as a hobby for friends and it kept getting bigger,” he said speaking by telephone from his Vancouver office. The process of finding the necessary birth certificate sometimes involves a bit of genealogical research, which he enjoys.
“I get about 30 serious inquiries a week of about half of which are ineligible,” he said. “Fifteen or so will go forward.”
For the child of Irish parents, it’s relatively easy to get one’s passport. Westwood charges $75 for the process, which does not include the fee charged by Irish consulates or embassies to process the application, or the cost of getting long-form U.S. birth certificate.
If your Irishness extends back to a grandparent, then U.S. citizens are required to get a copy of their long form birth certificate, issued in different formats depending on which state you were born in. That will cost $175.
The long-form birth certificate indicates your parents, their place of birth, and the same for your grandparents.
“I’ll find all missing documents,” said Westwood, “marriage, death certificates, long-form birth certificates. Some people are quite busy and don’t want to have to take the time to do the research themselves.”
Westwood plans to have a booth at the South Bay St Patrick’s Festival in Hermosa Beach, California, next March. But his business is open anywhere, all the time, at Dualcitizen.net.
“Half of my clients are doing it for sentimental family reasons,” he continued. “And half are taking advantage of life in the EU – working opportunities, education, healthcare, buying property.”
U.S. law does not prohibit American citizens from holding dual citizenship, but a Department of Justice web page notes that the U.S. government “does not encourage it as a matter of policy.”
A U.S. embassy web page further notes that U.S. citizens who hold a second citizenship must always re-enter the U.S. using their American passport and must “…maintain allegiance to the U.S.”

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