Last week I had the privilege
of attending a Naturalization Ceremony in Dublin. My friend had been living in Ireland for
almost ten years, and had finally been granted Irish Citizenship.
Despite arriving an hour
early, we still queued for about forty five minutes or so, in a lovely Irish
downpour, before being allowed into the convention center.
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| The Convention Centre Dublin, where the ceremony took place. You can tell I greatly admired the tilted cylinder thing... |
The ceremony was short and
sweet, with just the right amount of pomp and circumstance, but the coolest
part was when all 1,000 future citizens stood to make their oath of loyalty to
the Republic of Ireland.
For people like my friend, they had waited years for this moment. After
they had all sat down, this time as Irish men and women, there was an air of
relief, joy, and most of all, patriotism.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt or seen genuine patriotism and it was very heartening.
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| View from the top balcony where the +1s were seated |
After asking everyone to both remember to vote and to support Ireland in a soccer match taking
place later that evening, our hosts dismissed the 2,000 occupants of the
auditorium. We weren’t able to fully appreciate my friend’s accomplishment
after the ceremony since we literally had to run to catch our bus back to my
friend’s house, but he’s still on cloud nine and is applying for his Irish
passport later this week.
It was a great experience for everyone I'm sure, especially for the 3,000 individuals who became Irish citizens throughout the day on June 14. A hearty congratulations to them all!
