Ireland passport

An Irish passport (Irish: Pas Éireannach) is the passport issued to citizens of Ireland. An Irish passport enables the bearer to travel internationally and serves as evidence of Irish nationality and citizenship of the European Union. It also facilitates the access to consular assistance from both Irish embassies and any embassy from other European Union member states while abroad. Contact us if you want an Ireland passport for sale.

Irish passports are issued by the Passport Office, a division of the Department of Foreign Affairs. All Irish passports have been biometric since 2006. In 2015, the Irish government introduced the Passport Card, which enables Irish citizens who already possess a passport to travel throughout the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. An Irish Passport Card is intended for travel and identification purposes and functions similarly to an EEA national identity card.

Both Irish passports and Irish passport cards allow Irish citizens to travel, live, and work without restriction in any country within the EEA, Switzerland and the Common Travel Area. Irish citizens have visa-free or visa on arrival access to 185 countries and territories; the international access available to Irish citizens ranks 5th in the world according to the Visa Restrictions Index. As of 2021, Irish citizens are the only nationality in the world with the automatic right to live and work in both the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Physical appearance

Irish passport booklets use the standard European Union design, with a machine-readable identity page and 32 or 66 visa pages. The cover bears the harp, the national symbol of Ireland. The words on the cover are in both of Ireland’s official languages, Irish and English. The top of the cover page reads An tAontas Eorpach and the equivalent in English, European Union. Just above the harp are the words Éire and its equivalent in English, Ireland. The identity page on older Irish passport booklets was on the back cover of the booklet. Newly issued passport booklets have been redesigned with additional security features. The identity page is now a plastic card attached between the front cover and the first paper page (the “Observations” page). Ireland passport for sale

The ePassport or biometric passport, was launched on 16 October 2006 with the first ePassports presented that day by the minister for foreign affairs.^[29]

• Photo of passport holder, printed in greyscale.
• Type (P)
• Country (IRL)
• Passport number
• 1. Surname
• 2. Forename(s)
• 3. Nationality (Éireannach/Irish)
• 4. Date of Birth
• 5. Sex
• 6. Place of birth (county of birth if born on the island of Ireland (all 32 counties), 3 letter country code of country of birth if born elsewhere.)
• 7. Date of issue
• 8. Date of expiry
• 9. Authority
• 10. Signature

The information page ends with the machine readable zone starting with P<IRL.

Request page

Irish passport booklets contain a note on the inside cover which states:

In Irish:

Iarrann Aire Gnóthaí Eachtracha agus Trádála na hÉireann ar gach n-aon lena mbaineann ligean dá shealbhóir seo, saoránach d’Éirinn, gabháil ar aghaidh gan bhac gan chosc agus gach cúnamh agus caomhnú is gá a thabhairt don sealbhóir.

In English:

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland requests all whom it may concern to allow the bearer, a citizen of Ireland, to pass freely and without hindrance and to afford the bearer all necessary assistance and protection.

Formerly, the request was also made in French, but this has been discontinued as newer versions of the passport were introduced. Ireland passport for sale

Languages

The data page/information page is printed in Irish, English and French. Each detail includes a reference number (e.g. “1 SLOINNE/SURNAME/NOM”). This reference number can be used to look up translations into any other EU language, as all EU passports share a standard text layout.

Security features

The latest Irish passport booklets have security features designed to make them difficult to forge or be mistaken as forgeries. They have also been optimised for machine reading.

The identity page of the passport booklet has been moved to the front of the passport and is now printed on a plastic card. This allows easier machine reading of the passport, as the official has to spend less time finding the identity page in the passport. The top-right corner of the passport booklet contains the biometric chip, which contains a copy of the information contained on the identity page, and a facial scan of the holder. To prevent unauthorised parties remotely accessing the information stored in the RFID biometric chip, the machine readable zone of the identity page must be scanned to unlock it.^[30] This safeguard is known as Basic Access Control. Ireland passport for sale

The title of the identity page “Éire/Ireland/Irlande” “Pas/Passport/Passeport” is printed in colour-changing ink, which varies from light green to gold-red, depending on the angle of the light shining on it. The background of the identity page is a complex celtic design, with the words “Éire Ireland” occasionally woven into the design.

The identity picture is now greyscale, and is digitally printed onto the surface of the page, rather than the actual photos sent by the applicant being pasted onto the page. The Irish harp is superimposed as a hologram onto the bottom right corner of the photograph. The words “Éire Ireland” are embossed several times into either side of the identity page. This embossing partially covers the photograph as an added security measure. A likeness of the photograph of the applicant is pin-punched into the surface of the identity page, and can be viewed when the identity page is held to light.

Under UV light, fluorescing fibres are visible on every page except the data page. The first sentence of Article 2 of the Irish constitution is visible under UV light and is printed in both Irish and English on alternate pages. Ireland passport for saleThe 2013 version of the passport also reveal a topographical map of Ireland on the observations page. Later pages include such landmarks as the Cliffs of Moher, the Samuel Beckett Bridge and the Aviva Stadium; there are excerpts from poems in Irish (by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill), English (by William Butler Yeats) and Ulster Scots (by James Orr) and from the score of the national anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann, (Irish for ‘The Soldiers Song’).^[31]