British nationality law and the Republic of Ireland

This article is about British nationality law in respect of citizens of Ireland. The latter is referred to in British nationality law as the "Republic of Ireland" and was previously referred to as "Eire" (sic) between 1937 and 1949 and as the Irish Free State between 1922 and 1937. (This article does not discuss Irish nationality law).

When the Irish Free State left the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland) in 1922, the existing status of "British subject" was, from the point of view of British nationality law, left unaffected. Broadly speaking, this was because, as a dominion within the British Commonwealth, the Irish Free State continued to form part of "His Majesty's Dominions".

This British theory of "British subject" nationality was not fully shared by the Irish and as early as the 1920s was discussed in Ireland in the following terms:

The meaning of 'citizenship [in the Constitution of the Irish Free State, which was approved by the British] is defined only to the extent of saying that the citizen shall 'within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State enjoy the privileges and be subject to the obligations of such citizenship'. There appears to be here a suggestion that the status of citizen of the Irish Free State carries no privileges or obligations outside the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State: that the Irish Free State citizen when he goes to France has no 'privileges or obligations' as such. This may not have been intended at all: on the other hand it may have been deliberately inserted in pursuance of a British theory that the citizen of any Dominion, once he gets outside his Dominion, must rely for support on his 'Imperial' status as a 'British Subject'

According to Article 3 of the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State, "Every person, without distinction of sex, domiciled in the area of the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) at the time of the coming into operation of this Constitution who was born in Ireland or either of whose parents was born in Ireland or who has been ordinarily resident in the area of the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) for not less than seven years, is a citizen of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) and shall within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) enjoy the privileges and be subject to the obligations of such citizenship [...]". The same Article also stated that "the conditions governing the future acquisition and termination of citizenship in the Irish Free State" were to be "determined by law". However, no such law was passed until 1935.

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