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Comment by nephihaha | Hacker News Reader

Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. Wales was more mixed.

Northern Ireland got the best deal of the three. Thanks to the Good Friday Agreement, people there can get Irish (and therefore EU) passports.

This is a perennial issue in Scottish politics, but Scotland, unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.

My personal hope was that the UK would remain in the EU, but both the EU and UK would take a look at themselves. Instead both are heading more and more towards censorship and heavy control of their citizens.

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The Good Friday deal doesn't entitle everyone born in NI to Irish Citizenship. (anymore). It's a little more complicated than that for people born in the last 20 years.

> Since 1 January 2005, if you are born in Northern Ireland, you can claim Irish citizenship if your parent (or parents) are either British or Irish citizens, or one of them has lived on the island of Ireland for at least 3 out of the 4 years immediately before your birth.

> unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.

NI's Land Border with Ireland is a "special" border. Ireland isn't in the Schengen Area (IIRC Cyprus is the only other EU country that isn't Schengen), and as a result of that has passport checks at all arrival areas - this is _because_ of the border with NI already. It was already special cased, and thankfully hasn't ended up with a UN buffer zone as a result of this mess.

That said, I agree with you 98%!

Of course there aren't passport checks on planes or boats between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, but that only applies to Irish and British citizens.

On planes/boats between Northern Ireland and Great Britain there aren't passport checks, but they can and do check your passport.

> Of course there aren't passport checks on planes or boats between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, but that only applies to Irish and British citizens.

And the only way to enforce that is to not enforce it all, or to check everyone for documents. Both cork and Dublin airports have a manned border check for all inbound flights (can’t speak for other airports) but a passport isn’t required. If you fly between European countries there’s no border check _at all_. (Your airline may check but that’s different).

> On planes/boats between Northern Ireland and Great Britain there aren't passport checks, but they can and do check your passport.

That’s a domestic flight so yeah. Anecdotally I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped for a passport check in 15 years of flying between the Uk and Belfast.

> If you fly between European countries there’s no border check _at all_. (Your airline may check but that’s different).

On the flip side I was asked for a passport on a train from Denmark to Germany last year, Schengen allows them to demand passports. Previous time I went to Denmark (2011) I went to Malmo for the evening and again was asked for a passport on the train.

> Anecdotally I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped for a passport check in 15 years of flying between the Uk and Belfast.

I haven't been asked for a passport on a Belfast-London flight, but I have been asked for ID by the police on a Belfast-Liverpool ferry

Legally you do not have to have a passport or identity card to travel from GB to Ireland as a British/Irish citizen, although it will make things easier to prove your citizenship. This is the same as when you take a train from Denmark to Germany.

The UK and the Republic of Ireland make up the Common Travel Area [1], the lack of passport checks didn't happen automatically.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area

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