According to the Irish Independent, the number of Americans requesting Irish passports has increased by 14 percent since their Scottish cousin Donald Trump joined the presidential race last summer. Correlation doesn’t mean causation, of course, but more than a few people have remarked upon the coincidence.
Off the coast of Mayo, the island of Inishturk is putting out the welcome mat for possible incomers to the quiet, beautiful, and underpopulated island. Inishturk’s Development Officer Mary Heanue recently invited potential Trump exiles, saying “they’d be given a huge welcome and they’d find this is a fantastic place to live and bring up children. . . . the teacher to pupil ratio is nearly one-on-one.” (Since the population of Inishturk is at present 58, and there are three students in the school, this sounds persuasive. And yes, she did say “huge.”)
According to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, someone with an Irish-born, Irish-citizen parent is automatically an Irish citizen. It gets more complicated: If your mother is an Irish citizen born outside Ireland, or your father was a naturalized Irish citizen at the time of your birth, for example, you are entitled to become an Irish citizen when you complete pertinent registrations at the Department. This registration is also open to qualifying descendants of Irish grandparents and some others. Unsurprisingly, the process becomes more complicated the further one is removed from the qualifying citizen, but in many cases it’s still possible. (More information is here, if you’re thinking about it.)
Restive Americans aren’t the only applicants. Qualifying persons who live in the United Kingdom have begun to ask for Irish passports as well, as the possibility of a Brexit looms ever closer. When the date of the referendum was announced, applications reached a three-year-high. If the UK leaves the European Union, holding an Irish (or other EU) passport, applicants think, will facilitate freedom of movement and allow passport holders to travel, live, and work in any other part of the European Union.
On the other hand, applications for British citizenship have risen at the same time, as EU nationals living in Britain react to the possibility that a Leave vote will imperil their ability to remain in the U.K., where many of them have lived for decades.
