Greetings All,
I came across this site today when I was attempting to google a question I have about immigrating with my family in a few years. My husband will retire from the military in 5 years or so, and will receive a pension from that time. The plan is to buy a home in rural Ireland with cash, and immigrate there with our youngest child, who will be 14 and will need to finish high school there. (Our oldest child may join us as well, and choose to finish his secondary education there.) From what I've been able to gather, we don't need visas since we are retiring there and will need to register with the local garda when we arrive. Will our child need a visa or any additional documents? Will we be allowed to enroll her in school when we get there, or is there a legal process we will have to go through? It is my understanding that most immigrants with children also have employment in Ireland, so it has been hard for me to find information for our case.
Thanks in advance for any answers and resources you can direct us to!
Hi Meg
I'm guessing you mean as a non-EU national, right?
If so you'd probably fall into the "Stamp 0" category of immigrants. Have you read the recent blogpost on that here.
Liam
Thanks Liam,
I just read the blog post you linked to, and I found a discussion on the matter at another website. Thank you, it has been helpful. I think for the moment our best plan going forward will be to continue to save and research, and we will have to keep ourselves open to the idea of retiring to another country if the current rules do not change, or if we are unable to save the amount of money required in time.
Look into your family history. It is possible either you or your husband can qualify for dual citizenship based on genealogy. For example even though I was born in the US, my father was born in the UK, and naturalized as a US citizen. I still qualified as a UK citizen.
Thanks, Dave. Unfortunately that route won't work for us--my family's been in America for centuries, and we know enough about my husband's to know that his parents and grandparents were all born here. We're also turning over the idea of immigrating to work there for 5 years, and then becoming citizens through naturalization.
Some countries it is only if your parent was born there, and a citizen (UK for example). Some it is Grandparent (Ireland and Italy), but others it is a year regardless of generations (Poland is the most prominent example). Others it is proving a link regardless of years (Lithuania). In addition it doesn't necessarily apply to their current borders. Some regions have swapped back and forth between countries over the years, and linking ancestry to one of those regions may apply different rules. NOTE: Countries cited are examples and not necessarily the only ones.
I was led to believe in the mid-90's that I did not qualify. So we started researching my wife. We never pursued it but she might be eligible for either Polish, Lithuanian or both. However, once my citizenship within the EU was established we didn't follow-up on either of those.
That's good to know. You've made me more curious about my husband's roots. We'll look into that, thanks!