My wife and some friends want to visit Ireland for St. patrick’s day. I’ve been told by one friend that I need to have a valid US passport to go there, but on other trips in Europe i’ve used my military ID and travel orders. Is Ireland different or does anyone know for sure?
I’ve never heard of that. Were you travelling to Europe on US military business, or under personal steam? Was it a long, long time ago?
I’d put good money on you needing a regular passport if you’re there under personal auspices. Here you go - from your own government:
Roger – You can generally travel on your military ID to countries that have Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) with the U.S. In general, when one visits other countries, one should have a passport. I recommend that you get one if you intend to travel outside the US.
Where the other European countries you visited on your military ID part of NATO? That seems to be the basis of the agreement that Radegast referenced.
Ireland is not a member of NATO and has no US military presence here(apart from the embassy). I’d get a passport if I were you.
Well, that and all the bombers refuelling in Shannon…
Don’t get me started 
It’s GQ though not the PIT.
Oh and enjoy yourself BTW. Lots of stuff happening aroudn that time.
Well, I’m not going to get a passport made in time, but I’ve been to Spain, Italy, Holland, France and Germany with my ID. I’m in Germany right now, actually.
The travel agency told me that it should be ok, but gave me a number to double check. Its after 5 here so no one answered that phone. If its a no go I’ll just have to find somewhere else to go.
You can get a UK or Irish passport in 72 hours if you use the express service, surely there is a similar service so you can get a US passport in a hurry?
You’ve got 2 months, isn’t that enough time?
Are you traveling from a European airport to get to Ireland? Then it may be possible. A question for Ireland Dopers (or others) is if flights originating within the EU get checked by passport control or if you walk right off the plane into the terminal.
It is even more likely you don’t need one if you are traveling by train or car. In 1995 when I went by ferry from Wales to Ireland no one checked for my passport at the time. (Being a US citizen I showed it at Gatwick when I flew in to England.)
I would recommend getting a passport as soon as you can in any case, just to be safe for future travel.
Good luck.
Do bombers refuel there as well? I thought it was just transport aircraft.
When we flew to Dublin from Edmonton, Alberta via Heathrow in 2005, we transferred from Air Canada to a British Midlands flight for the Heathrow to Dublin leg. We had to go through passport control at Dublin, but there were two queues: one for Irish and EU nationals, and one for all others, including Canucks and Americans. We had to show our passport and get it stamped, explain the reason for the visit, and so on. I assume others in that queue, such as Americans, would get the same quiz. People in the Irish/EU queue seemed to be going through much more quickly.
You can pay extra for expedited service. I got my passport in about three weeks. If you go in person to the consulate, they can do it even faster.
Honestly, if you put a little effort in during the next eight weeks, you could save yourself ruining your holiday. I don’t see why you’d be so resistant to getting one… it must be cultural - to me it’s a vital piece of “life kit”. And it’ll be useful should you ever leave the military.
From the US embassy in Germany:
No idea what a PSB is, but maybe you should give them a call.
I have a cousin who is an Immigration garda at Dublin Airport. Last year, he was actually in the booth as I went through (I must have gone through there a zillion times without ever encountering him) so he invited me in for a chat. While I was in the booth distracting him, I suspect several hundred people may have sneaked in illegally…
If he saw an Irish or other EU passport, he just waved the people through. He was only really looking for non-EU passports - and nobody came through with such while I was with him.
I’m not hesitant about getting one, but I don’t have my birth certificate. Obviously I can’t go back to the US to get one on short notice and I doubt I’ll be able to get a new one from the state with a seal through the mail on short notice. (I honestly thought it was packed away with my marriage liscense, but its not. Looked all over and its not here).
I don’t have any family that can actually help with anything in the US, so I’m outta luck there. I’ll get it and a passport, but it won’t be in time for this trip.
I’ll double check tomorrow to see if its possible for me to go on the trip w/o a passport, but if not, oh well, I guess.
Personnel Services Battalion.
I’m going to do some checking tomorrow, Mycroft. When I flew to Amsterdam this past August I had my ID and travel forms ready but guy in the booth didn’t even seem interested. He just waved me on and said “Have a nice stay”. (I did. :))
In that queue you just get waved through on showing the EU member passport. You don’t really even have to stop, just do one really slow step while walking.
All of the above countries are parties to the Schengen Agreement, which effectively erases borders between countries marked in light blue on the linked map. That’s why, once having legally entered Germany with your military ID, you’ve been able to get around continental Europe with no ID problems.
Note, however, that Ireland and the UK are not in the Schengen zone, so (in theory at least) you will need to provide suitable ID (i.e. a passport in most cases) when you enter either of those countries from the Schengen zone. It’s not primarily a matter of whether the countries involved are EU members (e.g. Norway is Schengen but not EU, Ireland is EU but not Schengen).
As Mycroft H. found out, travel between the UK and Ireland by ship may be less restrictive than flying (although his case was in 1995), but you’d still need to get into the UK first; in short, you’re going to run into passport control either way.
So, I vote with many others above and say that you will need a passport.
You may be able to get one without a birth certificate, given that you have eight weeks to try. The US military knows that you’re a US citizen, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they could twist the State Department’s arm to issue you at least a short-term passport. People lose birth certificates all the time, and yours is effectively “lost” to you.