Warning: mktime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 119
Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 247
Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 251
Warning: strftime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 252
Sunday, 02 May 2010 10:03 |
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The question: Which nationality can be both a British citizen and British subject?
A surprising answer; guess what? It involves Ireland! In summary: to be considered both a British subject and British citizen, you must have been born in Ireland prior to 1949. You can Google conversations on the topic and discover that many citizens of Britain assume that they're also subjects--subjects of the crown; it's actually a little more complicated that it may first appear. In it's most simple form, a citizen has rights, while a subject has privileges. The term "subject" is a pretty strange concept to most Americans, but it has been defined and refined in British law over the ages. For many years, the assumption that British citizens were also subjects was accurate. In the 1940s, the term was replaced by Commonwealth Citizen in many of the former colonies. The term was given its most recent definition in the British Nationality Act of 1981, which came into law on January 1, 1983. Under this law, a British Citizen is no longer a British subject. The term now refers to the group once called "British subjects without citizenship." As you have probably guessed, there is one exception−wouldn't you know it, it involves Ireland! Under section 31 of the Act, the only exception that allows a person to be both a British subject and citizen is someone "connected with Ireland," specifically, a British subject connected with Ireland who isn't a British citizen. If that person obtains British citizenship through registration or naturalization, he or she will remain a British subject while being, simultaneously, a British citizen. Section 35 of the Act covers all other nations, other than the Republic of Ireland, and expressly states that subject status for this larger group is lost upon obtaining British citizenship. Ireland is the exception. The definition of "connected with Ireland" is pretty specific. It harkens back to the British Nationality Act of 1948, which came into law on January 1, 1949. It applies to those born in the Republic of Ireland before 1949−the year in which Ireland became a Republic−who didn't obtain citizenship of Ireland or any of the other British Dominions. It also applies to such people born in Ireland before 1949 who applied for British subject status, defined as "British subjects without citizenship," after 1949. This status of British subject, unlike citizenship, is something that cannot be inherited. So it is a legal status that will ultimately become extinct. The last British citizen who is also a British subject will be somebody born in Ireland before 1949. Given the stringent requirements together with the small population of the island of Ireland, the number of people, alive today, who are both British subjects and citizens is likely very small--probably fewer than one hundred.
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