Acquisition and Loss of Nationality: Irish and European Perspectives

Legal questions relating to the acquisition and loss of nationality and citizenship are very much a modern-day judicial concern. This article, which is based on the 2019 Annual Brian Walsh Lecture, explores how the two European courts have thus far broached questions relating to nationality and citizenship. It examines, firstly, whether the legal approach and philosophy of the Strasbourg and Luxembourg courts in relation to questions of nationality, citizenship, allegiance and integration are similar or distinct. Secondly, as those courts have engaged increasingly in recent years with a domain which was previously considered part of States’ sovereign reserve, the article contrasts how different national competent authorities and courts, in Ireland and other EU Member States, have reacted. Thirdly, the article suggests that the interaction between European and national courts in a field such as this provides a basis for us to reflect more generally in the years to come about the manner in which our national courts seek to engage with and influence the development of European law, writ large, and with the two European courts whose job it is to interpret that law.