Dual Nationality - British / Irish Passport - CONCERNED

[Endymion]

Hi All,

Frankly I'm in a bit of pickle here and don't know how to explain it all other than this..

I live in Northern Ireland; which means effectively from the day I was born - I am automatically entitled to both a UK and Irish Passport (a positive thing for such a dark history!). Anyway, me and family - have always decided to take advantage of having 2 passports - so as a family as I was growing up; we always had 2 passports. I'm 25.

Now, when I moved over to London when I was 18, I decided to change my name legally to the 'nickname' I had for many years before. Within a few months of moving over there, being in England - I only kept my UK Passport (the Irish passport was left in parents home back in Northern Ireland)-- I decided to change my name - ONLY WITH MY UK PASSPORT.

Did everything as planned - did the british deed poll, changed my UK Passport, changed the name on bank accounts, change the name on my national insurance number, informed university, informed employer, did everything. Everything went fine - the whole thing took about 2 months (it was an expensive 2 months!). I did all this, without my parents knowing about it.

About a year into this (when I was 19), it was time to renew my Irish Passport - didn't want to tell my parents about my name change (for some silly reason back then) so they renewed everything for me - under my old 'first name'. Technically, there was nothing else to do - as Northern Ireland was part of the UK - so I didn't have to change any bank accounts, inform employers, anything, etc.

However, there was some family trips organised, and we did under the Irish Passport at the time - so I did infact (19,20 years old) travel under my old name using my Irish Passport with my family to various countries in Asia over this period.

It is only now (when a friend was talking about renewing his dual passports) that I figured it must be time to renew my passport, or close to.. and then it hit me.. (ONLY NOW!) that I had 2 different first names in 2 different passports and I had travelled on both of them (never together, always seperate when travel - I figured it would be good to always have the 2nd at home).

I realise what I did was in the past was a silly silly mistake, and literally the only connection I have to the Republic of Ireland is indeed the passport, but do you think when i ring the Passport Service for them, they would understand?

Technically I did the deed poll under a UK Deed Poll and I realise in Ireland it is slightly different...

Please please please don't give me grief, I just need some friendly and honest advise - I can't believe what a silly and stupid mistake I did, and honestly - why I thought it would of been ok in the past!!!

Ughhh I feel so stupid. Please give me advise!

[Obie]

Show the Irish authority the Certificate of deed poll and everything will be fine and your newly acquired name will be transferred to the Irish passport..