Irish Passport History: 1924 to the New 2026 Design
The Evolution of the Irish Passport: From 1924 to the New 2026 Design
I still get a small thrill every time I hold an original green Saorstát Éireann passport in my hands, because that little booklet marks the moment a young nation insisted it could speak for its own citizens on the world stage. The Irish passport’s story is not a straight line of gradual bureaucratic tweaks: it’s a century of tug of war between Dublin and London, a rebranding from Free State to Éire, a color change dictated by Brussels, and now, in the summer of 2026, a complete reinvention built around an Irish wolfhound. Let me walk you through it.
The Irish Free State Finds Its Feet
The Irish Free State came into existence in 1922 as a dominion within the British Commonwealth, modeled directly on Canada’s arrangement with London. Dominion status sounded impressive on paper, but it was a narrow kind of independence. Even though the Free State Constitution referred to “citizens of the Irish Free State,” those rights only applied within the Free State’s own borders, which meant that on the international stage, the question of what an Irish citizen actually was remained wide open.
April 3, 1924: The Day Ireland Issued Its Own Passport
Ireland issued its first independent passports to the public on April 3, 1924, and the description printed inside was already a diplomatic compromise. Back in 1923, Dublin had informed the UK government of its intention to introduce Irish passports, initially proposing to label holders simply as “Citizen of the Irish Free State.” The very first practical use of an Irish passport actually predates that: an Irish delegation traveled to the League of Nations in Geneva in August 1923 on Irish passports, the first time such documents had ever been used. London objected to the citizenship wording, insisting that “British subject” was the only correct designation given the Free State’s Commonwealth ties. Dublin took the objection seriously, and the Governor-General eventually proposed a middle path: “Citizen of the Irish Free State and of the British Commonwealth of Nations.” No formal agreement was ever reached, yet the Irish government issued its first passports on April 3, 1924 with exactly that wording.
London Refuses to Play Along
Britain’s response was to instruct its consular and passport officials worldwide to refuse Irish Free State passports unless the holder was also described as a “British subject.” That created real headaches for Irish travelers, many of whom found themselves carrying a British passport alongside their Irish one just to avoid trouble at a border. In some cases, British consular officers physically confiscated Irish Free State passports, something Dublin officially called “highly embarrassing.”
The 1930 Compromise That Finally Stuck
The dispute over wording was finally settled in January 1930 through a compromise first suggested back in 1926 by the Irish Minister for External Affairs, Desmond Fitzgerald. Irish authorities agreed that passports would be issued by the Minister for External Affairs in the name of the king, using his full title, and would describe the bearer as “one of His Majesty’s subjects of the Irish Free State.” Anyone who wasn’t a subject of the king would have that noted explicitly. It was an awkward sentence to print in a passport, but it ended the standoff.
Éire Replaces the Free State
Ireland dropped every reference to the king and the British Commonwealth from its passports in 1939, two years after the 1937 Constitution of Ireland renamed the state simply “Ireland.” As a courtesy, Dublin gave London advance notice of the redesign. In a memorandum dated March 1, 1939 titled “The Form of Eire Passports,” the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Thomas Inskip, reported on the changes to his own government. Until then, Irish passports carried two markers of Commonwealth affiliation: the king’s full title on the request page, and the words “British Commonwealth of Nations” printed beneath “Irish Free State” on the cover in Irish, English, and French. Dublin’s proposal was to replace “Irish Free State” with “Ireland,” strip the king’s name from the request page, and remove the Commonwealth reference entirely.
Inskip’s own recommendation to London was one of regret, warning that dropping the king’s name would “leave a negative impression in the UK” and widen the perceived gap between Éire and Northern Ireland. Dublin went ahead regardless, and “Citizen of the Irish Free State and of the British Commonwealth of Nations” became simply “Citizen of Ireland,” the description that has held ever since. Today’s Irish passport still labels the holder a “citizen of Ireland” on the request page, with nationality shown as “Éireannach/Irish” on the data page.
Sixty Years of Green: How the Passport’s Look Evolved
Between April 3, 1924 and January 1, 1985, when the first European-format passport arrived, the Irish passport went through several visible transformations while never once losing its green cover. Before 1924, Irish citizens traveled on 32-page British passports: navy-blue hardcovers embossed with the British coat of arms, labeled “British Passport” above and “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” below, with cut-outs revealing the bearer’s name and passport number. The first Irish passport replaced that with a green hardcover, the harp embossed at its center, bilingual text in Irish and English, and the national names “Saorstát Éireann” and “Irish Free State” flanking the harp. After the 1937 Constitution, French joined Irish and English on the cover, with “Éire,” “Ireland,” and “Irlande” on the left of the harp and “Pas,” “Passport,” and “Passeport” on the right. A further tweak in the 1970s enlarged the trilingual state name and moved it to the top right corner, while “Passport” grew larger and shifted to the bottom left.
1985: Ireland Turns Burgundy
Ireland switched to a burgundy passport cover on January 1, 1985 as part of a European Communities agreement to standardize member state travel documents. The decision itself was taken on June 23, 1981, but implementation lagged: only Denmark, Ireland, and Italy actually had the new burgundy design ready by the 1985 deadline, with the rest of the bloc following over subsequent years. Existing green Irish passports remained valid and usable right up until their individual expiry dates, so the two colors circulated side by side for a while.
Brexit Triggers a Surge in Demand
The 2016 Brexit referendum set off a genuine rush for Irish passports among Britons and Northern Ireland residents alike. Applications from Great Britain had run at a fairly steady 46,229 in 2015, the year before the vote. That jumped to 63,453 in 2016, then 80,752 in 2017, with 44,962 already filed by mid-2018. Senator Neale Richmond, who chaired the Seanad’s Brexit Committee, noted in October 2018 that embassy officials expected 2018 to be the busiest year yet. He was right: Great Britain accounted for 98,544 applications in 2018, a 22 percent jump on the year before, while Northern Ireland applications rose 2 percent to 84,855.
Who Actually Qualifies for an Irish Passport?
Irish nationality law extends to the entire island, which means anyone born in Northern Ireland is automatically a British citizen at birth and entitled to, but not automatically holding, Irish citizenship until they apply for the passport themselves. Anyone born anywhere on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland included, before January 1, 2005 is entitled to Irish citizenship outright. For anyone born on or after that date, entitlement depends on a parent’s citizenship or residency status: at least one parent must be Irish or British, entitled to live in Ireland or Northern Ireland without restriction, or have been legally resident on the island for three of the four years immediately before the birth.
The Wolfhound Arrives: Ireland’s New 2026 Passport
Ireland’s next-generation passport officially launched on June 26, 2026, and it keeps the familiar burgundy cover while completely reimagining what’s inside. Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee unveiled the design at the Passport Office in Balbriggan, describing it as combining “some of the world’s most advanced security technology with a design that proudly reflects who we are as a nation.” The redesign followed a genuinely public process: more than 15,000 people took part in a nationwide consultation on the imagery, and the Irish wolfhound, appearing throughout the booklet, emerged as the clear public favorite. Other animals featured include the Connemara Pony, Irish Goat, Atlantic Salmon and Red Deer, taking the holder through the seasons of the Irish year via native wildlife, flora, and landscapes, with a golden harp on the cover and Celtic knotwork threaded through the pages.
On the technical side, this is genuinely groundbreaking: the document uses embossed artwork, metallic ink and tactile raised ink, along with hidden illustrations that only appear under ultraviolet light, and is bound with tricolour thread. According to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, several of these security features are being used in a passport for the first time anywhere in the world, and the production also leans on environmentally friendly security inks as part of Ireland’s sustainability goals. If you’re holding an older green or burgundy Irish passport right now, don’t panic: existing passports remain fully valid until their printed expiry date, and the new design only applies to passports issued from June 26, 2026 onward. For a collector, that overlap window, old design still circulating alongside the wolfhound edition, is exactly the kind of transitional period worth documenting while it lasts. The Irish Post
For anyone curious about earlier Irish travel documents up close, I’d point you to the passport of James Joyce, issued nearly a decade before Ireland’s own passport even existed.
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
Featured by CNN, BBC, Newsweek... Awarded by the U.S. Dept. of State
Ask | Recognition | Books | Set as preferred source
