Got 'Spouse of Irish citizen' stamp

As I reported a while ago I gave up with the whole EU-1 fiasco and got myself an Irish passport (my mum is Irish).
We revisited the guards and got the stamp easily enough, notwithstanding the normal rudeness and inefficiency we've come to expect. We have to go back in a year to get the stamp renewed. Don't know if we'll bother now though. We are now quite disillusioned with Ireland and considering our options.
Anyway, the point of this post is if you absolutely want to stay in Ireland don't even waste your time with EU-1 if you have any Irish ancestry. Get yourself an Irish passport. The Irish government only takes from the EU what suits them and just ignores anything they don't like.

I probably won't be posting here again but I'll be keeping tabs here to see how this thing turns out. I wish all of you the best.

Hi Kev,

Thanks for the info. I am a dual UK/Irish citizen (My grandmother was Irish). My Chinese wife has got a Family Permit to come into the UK using my Irish citizenship. Later we may well move to Ireland.

I would be grateful if u could anser some questions...
What documentation did u have to provide for the Irish spouse visa?

Did u apply in Ireland or another country?

How long did it take for them to process it?

Thanks in advance. Limey

limey wrote: What documentation did u have to provide for the Irish spouse visa?

I took everything I could think of (bank statements, letter from employer etc) but the only things I can remember the guard looking at were the Irish passport and the certified translation of our Japanese marriage cert. We were not even asked if had health insurance. I thought we would be.

Did u apply in Ireland or another country?

We applied here. I have been living here a few years and my wife joined me in March. We originally applied for EU-1. Incidentally we got the rejection letter for that last week so it's just as well I got the Irish passport.

How long did it take for them to process it?

It could have taken 10 minutes but as the guard was making and taking calls that had nothing to do with me, (he even brought somebody in and gave them a visa extension) during our 'interview' it took an hour.

Hope this is of some help to you. Let me know if you want to know anything else.
Kevin

Kev, thanks for your reply. Much appreciated.

Good luck in the future to you and your wife!

My wife's grand-grand-father was Irish... wonder if that means anything though.

Even more important, I wonder how you'd even bring sufficient proof of a claim like that...

Ark: You can only claim citizenship going back as far as grand-parents and you need tobe able to prove the link with birth/marriage/death certificates.