I wrote a while back about how I lost my South African citizenship when I took Swedish citizenship.
I have always had both Irish and South African citizenship. Since 1995, I had to carry a letter from the South African Department of Home Affairs stating that I had permission to use two passports (Irish and South African) , but that I had to use my South African passport when entering and leaving SA.
When I applied for Swedish citizenship, I did so without obtaining this prior permission from the South African Minister of Home Affairs, thus causing my SA citizenship to be revoked. Ireland and Sweden both allow you to hold more than one citizenship. I am still a permanent resident of South Africa and would regain my citizenship if I resided there for more than a year.
This caused rather conflicting feelings in me regarding nationality and national identity. I have always considered myself South African because I was born and grew up there. I am not Irish or Swedish, despite the fact that I am citizens of those countries. My family all have South African citizenship, it is deep down who I am despite not having lived there for years. It has also caused confusion when I have to list my nationality for jobs. I usually state Irish, but then when people meet me it feels dishonest because I am clearly not Irish, except on paper. I have lived, studied, and worked in Ireland but everything about me is South African.
I received this message the other day
The automatic loss clause in the Citizenship Act came into force in 1995, when the ANC came to power. The ANC is now ruling in a coalition with the Democratic Alliance. The DA took this law to The Constitutional Court. In May 2025, this rule was found by said court to be unconstitutional. Everyone who lost their citizenship because of it are ruled as having been SA citizens all along.
I applied for reinstatement of my citizenship today and we will see how it goes. The process went rather smoothly. The website is here.
Good luck
Hi Janet, what did you do about your ID number? Mine expired long ago.
When I lost my citizenship Home Affairs gave me a new ID number (the last three numbers are different) via the SA Embassy in Stockholm. I still have an ID book, just with a different number. I couldn’t get a smart ID card through the embassy though, just the book.
Fantastic news so welcome back home Janet, means visiting family back in SA will be easy, no visa’s etc. You now have tri-passport.
Thank you! It will be nice to be ‘one of the family’ again!