An Irish passport () is the passport issued to citizens of Ireland. An Irish passport enables the bearer to travel internationally and serves as evidence of Irish nationality and citizenship of the European Union. It also facilitates the access to consular assistance from both Irish embassies and any embassy from other European Union member states while abroad.
Irish passports are issued by the Passport Office, a division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. All Irish passports have been biometric since 2006. In 2015, the Irish government introduced the Passport Card, which enables Irish citizens who already possess a passport to travel throughout the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. An Irish Passport Card is intended for travel and identification purposes and functions similarly to an EEA national identity card.
Both Irish passports and Irish passport cards allow Irish citizens to travel, live, and work without restriction in any country within the EEA, Switzerland and the Common Travel Area. Irish citizens have visa-free or visa on arrival access to 193 countries and territories; the international access available to Irish citizens ranks third in the world according to the 2024 Visa Restrictions Index.
, Irish citizens are the only nationality in the world with the automatic right to live and work in both the European Union and the United Kingdom.
History The Irish Free State was created in 1922 as a dominion of the British Commonwealth, modelled explicitly on the Dominion of Canada. At the time, dominion status was a limited form of independence and while the Free State Constitution referred to "citizens of the Irish Free State", the rights and obligations of such citizens were expressed to apply only "within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State".
The Irish Free State first notified the UK Government that it proposed to issue its own passports in 1923. The Irish government initially proposed that the description they would give citizens in their passports would be "Citizen of the Irish Free State". According to a report from The Irish Times the first time that Irish passports were used was by the Irish delegation to the League of Nations in August 1923. The British Government objected to this. It insisted that the appropriate description was "British subject", because, inter alia, the Irish Free State was part of the British Commonwealth. The Irish government considered the British viewpoint. The Governor-General subsequently informed the British government that the description that would generally be used (with some exceptions) would be "Citizen of the Irish Free State and of the British Commonwealth of Nations". Without reaching agreement with the UK, the Irish government issued its first passports to the general public on 3 April 1924, using this description.
The British Government was not satisfied with this compromise. It instructed its consular and passport officers everywhere that Irish Free State passports were not to be recognised if the holder was not described in the passport as a "British subject". This led to considerable practical difficulty for Irish Free State citizens abroad, with many having to obtain British passports in addition to their Irish Free State passports. The British consular officers would also confiscate the Irish Free State passports, a practice the Irish authorities regarded as "very humiliating".
The stalemate as regards Irish passports continued until January 1930 when the Irish authorities reluctantly accepted a compromise formula originally suggested by the Irish Minister for External Affairs, Desmond Fitzgerald, in 1926.'Irish Nationality and Citizenship since 1922' by Mary E. Daly, in 'Irish Historical Studies' Vol. 32, No. 127, May, 2001 (pp. 377-407) The Irish authorities issued a circular letter to British consular and passport authorities agreeing that Irish passports would be changed so that they were issued by the Minister for External Affairs in the name of the king using the king's full title; would describe the bearer as "one of His Majesty's subjects of the Irish Free State"; and if passports were issued to persons other than subjects of His Majesty, that fact would be stated. This formula settled the thorny issue.
In 1939, two years after the adoption of the Constitution of 1937, which formally renamed the state "Ireland", the Irish government decided to make significant changes to the form of Irish passports. As a courtesy, the Irish authorities notified the British authorities. In a memorandum dated 1 March 1939 entitled "The Form of Eire Passports", the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Thomas W. H. Inskip, informed his government of developments which had recently taken place "regarding the form of passports issued by the Government of Eire".British Archives, Memorandum to Cabinet dated 1 March 1939 by Thomas WH Inskip
In the memorandum, the Secretary of State reported that "hitherto [the passports] (which have not, I understand, been amended since 1936) have borne two indications of relationship to the British Commonwealth of Nations". These, the memorandum noted, were the reference to the king including his full title in the "request" page; and a front page, where underneath the words "Irish Free State" (in Irish, English and French) appear the words "British Commonwealth of Nations". The proposals notified by the Irish authorities included replacing the reference to "Irish Free State" with "Ireland"; amending the "request" page to drop reference to the king; and dropping the reference to the "British Commonwealth of Nations". The Secretary of State proposed that he reply to the Irish authorities in terms that "His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom greatly regrets the proposed elimination of the king's name from Éire passports; that in their view, the omission, when it comes to be known, is bound to create a bad impression in the UK and to widen the separation which Mr de Valera deplores between Éire and Northern Ireland".
The Secretary of State noted in his memorandum that to "say more than this might raise questions [relating to whether or not Ireland was still in the Commonwealth] which it was the object of the statement of the 30th December 1937, to avoid". This was a reference to the communique published by Downing Street noting the adoption of the Irish Constitution, stating that in their view Ireland continued to be part of the Commonwealth and affirming the position of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.
Ultimately, the Irish proceeded with their plans including that the term "Citizen of the Irish Free State and of the British Commonwealth of Nations" would be replaced with "Citizen of Ireland". This has remained the description up to present time, with current Irish passports describing the holder as a "citizen of Ireland" on the request page and giving the holder's nationality as "Éireannach/Irish" on the information page.
The evolution of the physical description of the passport utilised by Irish citizens from 3 April 1924 to 1 January 1985 (when the new European passports were introduced) was one of change. Prior to the first usage of an Irish passport in 1924, Irish citizens were issued with a 32-page British Passport, which had a navy blue hardcover with an embossed British coat of arms. Above the coat of arms the identifier "British Passport" was printed, while below the coat of arms the inscription "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" was printed. It also contained two cut-outs in the cover, which allowed the bearer's name and the passport number to be displayed. The first Irish passport, issued to the general public from 3 April 1924, contained a green hardcover with the Irish coat of arms, the harp, embossed in the centre. The passport was bilingual in Irish and English whereby, encircling the harp was the national inscription of and "Irish Free State", while above the coat of arms the identifier "Pas" and "Passport" was printed. It also contained a cut-out for the bearer's name.
Following the enactment of the Irish constitution, the physical appearance of the Irish passport changed again. While it retained the green colour and the embossed harp at the centre, the number of languages on the cover changed to three, with French joining Irish and English. To the left of the harp, the national inscription "Éire", "Ireland", and "Irlande" was printed in a row, while to the right of the harp, the identifier "Pas", "Passport", and "Passeport" was printed. The 1970s saw a slight change to the document: while the national inscription was made bigger in the three languages, and moved to the top right corner, the identifier "passport" was also enlarged, and moved to the bottom left corner of the cover. On 23 June 1981, during the council meeting of the member states of the European Communities (now the European Union), a resolution was agreed to make all member state passports more uniform.Resolution of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States of the European Communities, Meeting Within the Council of 23 June 1981 . Official Journal of the European Communities. C 241. also EUR-Lex - 41981X0919 - EN This change, which included changing the colour of all member states passports to burgundy was to see the first European passports from 1 January 1985. However, only three member states (Denmark, Ireland, and Italy) had implemented this change on the specified date, with all other member states complying later. Irish citizens in possession of the old green Irish passports could still make use of their passports until they expired.
"Sale" of passports in 1988–1998 A 1988 scheme was designed to draw foreign investment into Ireland, described in a 1998 Seanad debate as the "Passports for investment scheme" Each had to invest $1,000,000 and live in Ireland for varying periods. The scheme was scrapped in 1998. Before long it was being described as the "sale" of passports in the media, but only 143 passports were passed on under the scheme. Notable applicants included some of the Getty family, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz and Khalid Sabih Masri. Masri had lent IR£1,100,000 to the pet food company of Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.
Another was Norman Turner from Manchester, whose proposed investment was to build a casino in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Turner had entertained Bertie Ahern and had paid £10,000 in cash to his party, and received his passport later in 1994. The matter was revealed during the Mahon Tribunal hearings in 2008; Mr Ahern commented that Mr Turner had an Irish mother, and that in 2007 some 7,000 other passport applications were assisted in some way by politicians.
The 2006 Moriarty Tribunal report covered the grant of passports to a Mr Fustok and some of his friends. Mr Fustok had previously bought a yearling horse from Taoiseach Charles Haughey for IR£50,000. The tribunal considered that "The explanation advanced for the payment, namely that it was in consideration for the purchase of a yearling, is highly unconvincing and improbable".
Passport-granting officials have also sold passports illegally, notably Kevin McDonald while working in London, who had sold "hundreds" of passports to criminals for up to £15,000 each in the 1980s, grossing $400,000. McDonald was prosecuted in 1989 and was sentenced to 21 months in jail.
Increased demand following Brexit After the UK's Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016, tens of thousands of Britons as well as many residents in Northern Ireland, applied for an Irish Passport.