Nearly three years on from the UK's Brexit referendum, there has been no let up in British demand for Irish passports . The BBC recently published data from the Irish Department of Justice which shows that there were 45,229 Irish passport applications from Great Britain in 2015, the year before the referendum. That number increased noticeably to 63,453 in 2016 when the UK voted leave Demand has continued to soar since then with the number of applications surpassing 80,000 in 2017. Last year, there were nearly 100,000 and by March of 2019, there already 37,258. In order to get an Irish passport, it is necessary to be an Irish citizen. While that can be acquired through birth, descent, adoption or naturalisation, it is also automatic in many cases. That includes people born on the island of Ireland before 2005 or somebody who has a parent who is an Irish-born citizen.