Renewed Visa for Ireland

I recently had my Ireland Visa renewed and the Immigration Office gave me 3 years. I am entitled to a five year visa. However my passport will expire in 2012 so they gave me until 2012 and renew my visa after I had a new passport.



My visa was supposed to expire on the 30th of January 2009. Which means I'm not supposed to renew it till then. My family was thinking of going to a hot country for a week to escape the winter climate. We were thinking of going to Tunisia or Tenerife for a week. But I have to get a visa for either of the said countries. If I do decide to go to Tunisia, I have to apply in London because they don't have a consulate or Embassy here in Dublin. So we then think of applying for a visa for Tenerife which is part of Spain. So I have to apply in the Spanish embassy to get a visa. And one of the many things that they require for you to apply for a visa is to have a Irish Visa valid for 3 months after the expiry of the visa I'm applying for. That means I have to renew my visa first and wait until after I had it renewed before I can apply for the said visa.



We decided to try to have my Visa renewed and see what happens. So I went the next day to Burg Quay office with my son Francis. I had to go to a local photoshop to get myself a passport picture ( I honestly don't like getting passport photos because I think people don't really look their best in them! hehehehe). I was second on the queue so I had to wait for the photographer to finish taking a passport photo for a kid I think aged 3. I had fun waiting though because the little girl was aboslutely funny and she always smiles to the camera when she's not supposed to be smiling at the passport photo! I think the photographer had to do 10 shots before they were able to decide on the best photo.



So I went on to the office, got a number and waited for my number to be called. the number I got was 180 and at that moment they were serving number 160. I was told that they only renew visas 2 weeks before the expiry date not unless you have a flight tickets that says youre going to another country and coming back. The officer gave me the number anyway.

While waiting for my number to be called I was praying and hoping that I'd be assigned to a nice officer and I was! She was really nice. I think she was charmed by Francis who was me that day. As I have said she gave me 3 years of my supposedly 5 years visa. At that same day I was able to get my re-entry visa as well.

I currently have an appointment to lodge my application in person on january 13 at the Spanish Embassy. Hopefully I will get a visa from them. Wish me luck!