Posted by
AJH on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 9:36:18 AM
With the formerly highflying Irish economy now in an even deeper tailspin than the American one, the Irish prime minister’s annual St. Patrick’s Day visit to the United States has an unusually somber feel about it.
In a speech at the American Irish Historical Society in Manhattan, Prime Minister Brian Cowen of Ireland, in a move to woo Irish-Americans, proposed measures to make it easier for Americans to claim Irish citizenship, reversing a restrictive course the Irish government took in 2005.
“The connections between Ireland and America remain strong,” Mr. Cowen said, “but we cannot take them for granted.”
Mr. Cowen was cheered Sunday, at least in some quarters, for his proposal to ease naturalization by allowing Americans whose nearest Irish ancestor is a great-grandparent to qualify for citizenship, provided that they have spent considerable time studying or working in Ireland. Under current law, the most distant forebear an American could claim and still qualify for Irish citizenship is a grandparent.
“There’s an awful lot of Irish-Americans who feel very cut off by the ‘grandfather rule,’ ” said Niall O’Dowd, the former chairman of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and a founder of the Irish Voice newspaper in New York as well as of the new web site, Irishcentral.com. “This would open up Irish citizenship to a whole new generation of Irish-Americans.”
The number of Americans with Irish ancestry has been estimated to be as high as 40 million, and millions of those people have no closer blood tie to Ireland than a great-grandparent.
The immigration proposal grew out of a “strategic review” of Irish-American relations Mr. Cowen ordered up last year, the first such review performed by the government since the 1930s, he said.
Of the loosened requirements for Irish citizenship, a Mr. Neely, who had a maternal great-grandfather born in Ireland, said, “I think I actually could take advantage of that. It’s not something I’ve ever thought about, but now that the opportunity could be available, I’ll think about it.”
AJH