Ireland to open third diplomatic mission with new English consulate
No date announced as yet, but Embassy confirms new consulate will open in the north of England
The new consulate, first promised by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Manchester last year at a meeting of the British Irish Council, will join the Embassy in London and its Cromwell Road Passport Office, the long-established consulate in Edinburgh and the recently re-opened consulate in Cardiff.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also has diplomats in Northern Ireland.
No date or location has been announced but the Deputy Ambassador at the Embassy of Ireland, Gerard Angley, last week told ministers, MPs, advisers, officials and pollical editors and journalists there will be a new Irish consulate in the north of England after Brexit at the end of this month.
He was speaking at the Embassy’s famously popular Christmas party which was postponed from its usual December date because of the General Election campaign.
The new diplomatic outpost follows a huge increase in successful applications for Irish citizenship from this country – nearly a hundred thousand in the past year.
Last year the Irish government opened a new Enterprise Ireland office in Manchester to promote regional trade opportunities with Ireland and to exploit the British government’s so-called ‘Northern Powerhouse’ initiative for Manchester, Birmingham, the midlands and the north east.
At the time the longserving Labour Party leader of Manchester City Council, Councillor Richard Leese, 68, called it “a significant boost to our close trading and cultural relationships with Ireland, which have endured for many years and will continue to flourish in the future.”
He continued: “This mutually beneficial development, with the potential to foster new economic opportunities and technological innovation both here and in Ireland, is hugely welcome.”
Enterprise Ireland says there are currently more than 100,000 people employed by companies it supports and backs in the UK.
