Those in search of a lift for the soul might take a look at an Irish citizenship ceremony. Thousands of people dressed in their best, floating in a wave of joy and hope, facing the flag and proudly taking the oaths of fealty to the Irish State and nation. “Congratulations. You are now fellow citizens of Ireland,” the presiding officer declares to the kind of thunderous sustained applause most performers can only dream of.
The Army No 1 Band might blast out a rendition of the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy; a garda may sing Amhrán na bhFiann with the Garda Band; there may be a harpist to play a merry O’Carolan’s Welcome and an Army colour party presenting arms with impressive pomp and ceremony before marching offstage with the flag. In between there may be memorable speeches. In 2017 retired judge Bryan McMahon advised the new citizens that memories of their own country, people and traditions “are not contraband... We are a nation of emigrants. We understand immigration. We understand the plight of immigrants.”
A thoroughly furious Hilary Mantel burned bridges with the news that she intends to apply for Irish citizenship (by virtue of Irish grandparents)
Well over 125,000 people from some 180 countries have been naturalised in the 10 years since the then justice minister, Alan Shatter, noted that the State needed to do more to formally mark the significance of the granting of citizenship. Before that the deed was done in an often-rackety local district court and the certificate of naturalisation arrived by post.
Now these formal ceremonies have come to represent the best of us, acknowledging the courage, tenacity, blood, sweat and tears of many of our new citizens with all they have left behind and the future they hope to forge among us.
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Granny grab
That arduous route to citizenship came to mind during the latest eruption about the great Irish granny grab phenomenon of the Brexit era. At the weekend a thoroughly furious Hilary Mantel burned bridges with the news that she intends to apply for Irish citizenship (by virtue of Irish grandparents) and “become a European again”.
Meanwhile a viral image of a Portuguese airport queue was doing the rounds. While the EU passports channel had a woman and child at the desk, the “all passports” line was long and crammed, mainly with passengers from British flights presumably needing their non-EU passports stamped. Get yourself one of these bad boys, gloated a Birmingham lad, flashing an Irish passport.
Birmingham lad’s pristine passport may well have been among the 422,000 issued between 2016 and 2020 to applicants resident in Great Britain (ie not including Northern Ireland where 25 per cent hold an Irish passport,according to NI Statistics and Research Agency estimates). Last December the London Evening Standard ran a helpful piece about applying for an Irish passport, noting that it was rated the seventh most powerful in the world in 2020 – “one place ahead of the UK... the lowest-ever ranking for a British passport”.
A 60-something English friend proudly untethered from EU “shackles” describes attic searches for ancestral documentation in the way you might root around for an old recipe.
Now the indiscreet possessor of an Irish passport, he boasts that he didn’t even have to hum a few bars of Ireland’s Call (being “a Swing Low man myself”) or fill an 85-page form to get his hands on it, and even got a nice letter of welcome from us. Time waits for no man at the airport, he booms.
Streams of privilege
Swing Low Man is profoundly annoying but honest. He is entitled to his granny’s Irish passport blessing; it’s his birthright. We are also entitled to be irritated by him and by the streams of privilege evident online between dual passport holders discussing how to leverage their treasure – could they use the Irish one for ease of arrival in certain foreign lands and the UK one for the return because “who wants to be stuck in a queue for hours trying to get back into the UK after a 20-hour flight?”
People who have recently acquired one shouldn't take to social media and wave it about as an 'I beat Brexit' story
The general annoyance can perhaps be distilled by John Cotter, now a UK-based law academic, who recalls chatting to several students in Maastricht when Brexit came up and an English student said, “I will have to hold my nose and apply for an Irish passport.”
Cotter is very clear about what he finds grating about that and none of it is related to immigration or birthright or right to freedom of movement or to passports for sale. It is about the use of the passport as a status symbol in the context of the Brexit culture war. It is about the acquisition of it as a purely facilitative document and a Brexit avoidance ticket when the applicants wouldn’t be interested otherwise. In short, people who have recently acquired one shouldn’t take to social media and wave it about as an “I beat Brexit” story.
The counter argument is that among those legions of Brexit-avoidance ticketholders there are bound to be some who might want to identify a little more with Ireland on foot of the new passport, people who might create bonds that could pay dividends down the line. That could happen but it’s a separate point.
Right now, some sensitivity and decorum wouldn’t go amiss among some. Take a minute to remember those citizenship ceremonies and check your privilege.