s.6(5) Re-acquisition After Declaration of Alienage (island-born)

Eligibility for s.6(5) re-acquisition is tightly bounded by the section text and is NOT a discretionary or residence-based pathway. Three cumulative conditions: (1) the person was BORN IN THE ISLAND OF IRELAND (the unit at Constitution Art 2 and INCA 1956 s.6(1), expressly including Northern Ireland, the State's islands and seas) — non-island-born former citizens are categorically excluded; (2) they previously made a DECLARATION OF ALIENAGE UNDER s.21 (which required the renouncer to have been an Irish citizen of full age, to be or be about to become a citizen of another country, and to have been ordinarily resident outside the State at lodgment — s.21(1)); and (3) they now make a fresh declaration 'in the prescribed manner' that they are an Irish citizen. s.6(5) preserves a LATENT ENTITLEMENT ('shall remain entitled to be an Irish citizen') that never lapses — the island-born renouncer is not in the position of a stranger seeking naturalisation. The mechanism does NOT restore citizenship lost by s.19 Ministerial revocation (see IE-RST-02), and does NOT assist a non-island-born former citizen, who must re-naturalise under s.15/s.16.

The sole genuine statutory re-acquisition mechanism in INCA 1956 (No.26 of 1956) is s.6(5), which provides verbatim: 'A person born in the island of Ireland who has made a declaration of alienage under section 21 shall remain entitled to be an Irish citizen, but shall not be an Irish citizen unless, in the prescribed manner, that person declares that he or she is an Irish citizen; and such person shall be an Irish citizen from the date of the declaration.' (s.6(5) substituted 1 Jan 2005 by INCA 2004 (38/2004) s.3(b), S.I. 873/2004.) The predicate loss event is s.21 (renunciation by declaration of alienage; operative text substituted by INCA 1986 (23/1986) s.7, in force 1 Jul 1986). REFRAMED per VC-IE-jus_soli_s6-02: the v1 label '§6A(2) Resumption' is WRONG — §6A(2) is the jus-soli EXEMPTION list, not a resumption power, and INCA 1956 contains NO general statutory resumption section (Part IV ss.21-25 = renunciation + consequential/savings only). s.6(5) restores citizenship to an island-of-Ireland-born former citizen who renounced via s.21, and to that cohort only.

The controlling authority is statutory and primary: INCA 1956 s.6(5) (re-acquisition) and s.21(1)-(2) (predicate renunciation), as consolidated on revisedacts.lawreform.ie and verified against the eISB effects table (updated 29-May-2026). The s.6 text was substituted by INCA 2001 (15/2001) s.3(1) (eff. 2 Dec 1999) and further by INCA 2004 (38/2004) s.3 (eff. 1 Jan 2005, S.I. 873/2004); s.21 was substituted by INCA 1986 (23/1986) s.7 (eff. 1 Jul 1986). The decision-maker split is LOCKED: citizenship-declaration functions sit with the MINISTER FOR JUSTICE (S.I. 418/2011 transferred them from Foreign Affairs), administered through ISD; the Foreign Births Register (a separate descent mechanism, not engaged here) is kept by the DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS — do not normalise into a single authority. NO reported Irish case law construing s.6(5) specifically has been located (a narrow, rarely-invoked provision) — one reason this route is tiered T2 rather than T1: the operative text is primary-source verified but the absence of judicial gloss and the unresolved prescribed-manner regulations leave residual interpretive uncertainty. There is no statutory right of appeal for citizenship declarations; any dispute is by judicial review in the High Court (Mallak [2012] IESC 59 reasons-duty applies to discretionary refusals generally, but s.6(5) is framed as an entitlement realised by declaration).