A few days ago, I received a packet containing my joining instructions for the University. It contained a whole host of valuable information, from how to matriculate to orientation week activities. It also contained this little snippet of info:

"We recommend that students from the USA avoid taking the Dublin route."

Incidentally, when we bought our plane tickets two months ago, we had not yet received this information and thus took the cheapest route, which was Dublin.

Apparently, the Irish Republic has a "Common Travel Agreement" with the UK. This means that even though Ireland is not part of the UK, the Edinburgh Immigration people will not check passports of those who arrive from Ireland. This means that our visas will not be activated, possible messing things up when we try to travel out of the UK for one purpose or another.

Concerned, I emailed the University to find out what to do now that we were flying the Dread Air of Dublin. This was part of my email:

"My husband and I bought our plane tickets two months
ago, before this information was available to us, and took a route that
connects through Dublin before flying to Edinburgh. When I emailed
[University employee], she said this was a problem because Ireland is not part
of the UK and thus one cannot get the correct stamps for immigration. My
husband and I went to the British Consulate a few weeks ago and each
received visas that are good through 30 October 2010. What else do we
need in order to not get deported?"

Apparently, she took the humor in my last sentence as panic, and sent me the following:

"When you are next traveling out of the UK you will be able to show
[your boarding passes and tickets from your US to Dublin trip] to the officer and he can stamp your passport or make a note of these details. It's just not ideal to travel through this route but you will certainly not be deported."

So we should be okay, it will just be less convenient. It's nice to know the goodly folk at the University actually read these emails!