Back in 2016 I and many others were shocked when the UK voted to leave the European Union. It was so obvious that the UK greatly benefitted from the EU membership in so many ways, not just economic. And similarly the EU had benefitted from (back then) the maturity of the UK’s government system. The UK had become along with France and Germany a leader and architect of the EU’s overall model and a major contributor to its geopolitical influence.
Looking back the leave vote was primarily about immigration and sovereignty, and the terrible Brexit debate was led by cartoon characters that lied and lied, and the BBC sadly failed to hold anyone to account.
As an Englishman with an Irish business, living in Ireland since 2001, married to a Irishwoman the vote was a wakeup call. My own situation was that my residence is governed by the Common Travel Agreement between the UK and Ireland. Given the nonsensical Brexit debate, the obvious lack of understanding of the EU, I felt that I couldn’t rely on the UK any more for my continuity of residence.
So I embarked on the process of to become an Irish citizen. In the event it turned out to be more of a journey than a process. But today I am pleased and proud to say I received my Irish Passport.
By 2020 I had produced all the considerable documentation required and then the inevitable happened, a) Covid and b) the Irish Naturalisation Department changed the old manual system to a computerised equivalent. The initial version of the new system was not great. In the post Covid era I got bored, and figured I would come back when they had bedded down the system and created a usable process.

I restarted the process in 2024. The system was still tricky. The system lacked simple things like email confirmation of process steps. The menu structure at that still early stage was confusing to incomprehensible, and one had to experiment with obvious risk of losing already submitted data, or worse. Further the Naturalisation Department made it very clear that applicants must not attempt to contact the department. So having completed a stage of the process, one was a) unclear as to whether the submission was good, let alone accepted, and b) left in limbo to await further communication. As I progressed I did note some system changes, but they were small and still far from perfect.
However, in the end I came through the process and in November 2025 was invited to attend the Citizenship Ceremony in Killarney on the 1st December. Along with some 3000 successful applicants I made the oath and sang the Amhrán na bhFiann, and actually felt quite emotional about it all.
And today, some 9 years after making the decision and 3 years of serious process involvement I received my Irish passport! I’m now a proud Irishman!

Last Night at the Poms

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