Long & Short Birth Certificates? What is the difference?

A Long Birth Certificate is not about the length of the document, but about the CONTENT of the birth certificate.

A long form birth certificate has a person's name, date of birth, place of birth, parent's names and address.

Depending on when the birth was registered it may have one parent's occupation, or both.

The certificate itself tended to be a rectangular shape in varying sizes through the years from 1864.

Short Birth Certificates were A5 in size and ONLY contained a person's name, date of birth, place of birth and no more.

With computerisation of birth, death and marriage records in Ireland in 2004, short birth certificates were no longer issued, all certificates were issued in A4 format, and records registered from April 2004 were no longer recorded by hand in phyiscal Registers.

Short certificates are no longer used and are not acceptable for passport application.