I studied abroad in London during my Junior year of college. My parents took me to Ireland for 2 weeks before school started. It was eerie how familiar it all was. I hadn’t been since I was only 2 years old and the sounds and smells remained with me all that time.
Fast forward, and I’m an “adult” working at a firm in DC. On rare occasions, I get to travel to Europe and I tend to include a weekend in either London or Ireland. I pop over and rent a car for a long drive across the country to the family farm in Kerry. I’ve done it so many times, I’ve lost count.
In fact, we decided to make a trip to Ireland and christen our daughter in the same parish in which my Mother was raised. We learned on that trip that my husband would be eligible for Irish Citizenship through me, because I had it. Excellent news. We started the application immediately upon our return home. And, two years later, we found ourself back at the same church, with the same priest, and a new little baby boy getting christened, also a future Irish Citizen. So now, all of us are citizens by foreign birth, but citizens nonetheless. For me, this is immensely big, I wrote my college thesis on the EEC and 1990. Finally, we are able to live and work anywhere in the European Union without the red tape associated with visas, travel permissions, etc. Now, I want to help you navigate the system, if you are eligible for the same benefits and advantages I enjoy.