I’m Irish!
It turns out that I am an Irish citizen. Ever since I was born, I have had dual Irish and New Zealand citizenship and I didn't realize.
I knew that because Dad was Irish that it was somehow possible for me to get an Irish passport, but for some strange reason I never made the mental connection that to get an Irish passport would require that I was an Irish citizen.
Every country has their own rules on exactly how people become a citizen of the country, but it is generally some combination of these three ways:
- jus soli (right of soil) means you gain citizenship by virtue of having been born in the country
- jus sanguinis (right of blood) means you gain citizenship by virtue of being a blood descendent of the citizen of the country
- naturalization means you gain citizenship sometime after birth by meeting certain requirements laid down by the country
The rules can be quite complicated. It can depend on whether your descent is via male or female relatives, the marital status of your parents or grandparents, the length of time any of your ancestors spent in the country vs out of it, and all sorts of combinations thereof. These days many countries don't allow citizenship through jus soli only. A baby born in the country will often only get citizenship in the country if one of the parents was a citizen or a permanent resident.
Different countries also have different stances on whether they permit their citizens to simultaneously be citizens of other countries. Some encourage it, some allow it, many are indifferent and some prohibit it altogether. In Australia a while back, simply applying for citizenship of another country was considered to constitute you revoking your Australian citizenship.
Luckily for me, Ireland has very simple rules. Any child of an Irish citizen is automatically an Irish citizen, and Ireland has no problem with multiple citizenships. If I could have chosen any countries in the world to have citizenship in, I don't think I could have done better than New Zealand and Ireland.