Irish Free State
The Irish Free State (6 December 1922 – 29 December 1937), also known by its Irish name Saorstát Éireann (English: /ˌsɛərstɑːt ˈɛərən/ SAIR-staht AIR-ən,[4] Irish: [ˈsˠiːɾˠsˠt̪ˠaːt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ]), was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between the forces of the Irish Republic – the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and British Crown forces.[5]
This article is about the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1937. For the current Irish state, see Republic of Ireland.
Irish Free StateSaorstát Éireann (Irish)
British Dominion (1922–1931)[a]
Sovereign state (1931–1937)[b]
- 92.57% Roman Catholic
- 7% Protestantism
- 0.12% Other religions
- 0.30% Unspecified
6 December 1922
29 December 1937
84,000 km2 (32,000 sq mi)
70,000 km2 (27,000 sq mi)
2,968,420[3]
- Sterling (1922–1927)
- Saorstát pound (1928–1937)
dd/mm/yyyy
The Free State was established as a dominion of the British Empire. It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland. Northern Ireland, which was made up of the remaining six counties, exercised its right under the Treaty to opt out of the new state. The Free State government consisted of the Governor-General – the representative of the king – and the Executive Council (cabinet), which replaced both the revolutionary Dáil Government and the Provisional Government set up under the Treaty. W. T. Cosgrave, who had led both of these administrations since August 1922, became the first President of the Executive Council (prime minister). The Oireachtas or legislature consisted of Dáil Éireann (the lower house) and Seanad Éireann (the upper house), also known as the Senate. Members of the Dáil were required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution of the Free State and to declare fidelity to the king. The oath was a key issue for opponents of the Treaty, who refused to take it and therefore did not take their seats. Pro-Treaty members, who formed Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923, held an effective majority in the Dáil from 1922 to 1927 and thereafter ruled as a minority government until 1932.
In 1931, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, the Parliament of the United Kingdom relinquished nearly all of its remaining authority to legislate for the Free State and the other dominions. This had the effect of granting the Free State internationally recognised independence.
In the first months of the Free State, the Irish Civil War was waged between the newly established National Army and the Anti-Treaty IRA, which refused to recognise the state. The Civil War ended in victory for the government forces, with its opponents dumping their arms in May 1923. The Anti-Treaty political party, Sinn Féin, refused to take its seats in the Dáil, leaving the relatively small Labour Party as the only opposition party. In 1926, when Sinn Féin president Éamon de Valera failed to have this policy reversed, he resigned from Sinn Féin and led most of its membership into a new party, Fianna Fáil, which entered the Dáil following the 1927 general election. It formed the government after the 1932 general election, when it became the largest party.
De Valera abolished the oath of allegiance and embarked on an economic war with the UK. In 1937, he drafted a new constitution, which was adopted by a plebiscite in July of that year. The Free State came to an end with the coming into force of the new constitution on 29 December 1937, when the state took the name "Ireland".
Background[edit]
The Easter Rising of 1916 and its aftermath caused a profound shift in public opinion towards the republican cause in Ireland.[6] In the December 1918 General Election, the republican Sinn Féin party won a large majority of the Irish seats in the British parliament: 73 of the 105 constituencies returned Sinn Féin members (25 uncontested).[7] The elected Sinn Féin MPs, rather than take their seats at Westminster, set up their own assembly, known as Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland). It affirmed the formation of an Irish Republic and passed a Declaration of Independence.[8] The subsequent War of Independence, fought between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British security forces, continued until July 1921 when a truce came into force. By this time the Parliament of Northern Ireland had opened, established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, presenting the republican movement with a fait accompli and guaranteeing the British presence in Ireland.[9] In October negotiations opened in London between members of the British government and members of the Dáil, culminating in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921.[10]
The Treaty allowed for the creation of a separate state to be known as the Irish Free State, with dominion status, within the then British Empire—a status equivalent to Canada.[10] The Parliament of Northern Ireland could, by presenting an address to the king, opt not to be included in the Free State, in which case a Boundary Commission would be established to determine where the boundary between them should lie.[11][12] Members of the parliament of the Free State would be required to take an oath of allegiance to the king, albeit a modification of the oath taken in other dominions.[10]
The Dáil ratified the Treaty on 7 January 1922, causing a split in the republican movement.[13] A Provisional Government was formed, with Michael Collins as chairman.[14]
The Irish Free State was established on 6 December 1922, and the Provisional Government became the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, headed by W. T. Cosgrave as President of the Executive Council.[15] The following day, the Commons and the Senate of Northern Ireland passed resolutions "for the express purpose of opting out of the Free State".[16][e]
Demographics[edit]
Birth rate[edit]
According to one report, in 1924, shortly after the Free State's establishment, the new dominion had the "lowest birth-rate in the world". The report noted that amongst countries for which statistics were available (Ceylon, Chile, Japan, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Australia, the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Finland, and the Irish Free State), Ceylon had the highest birth rate at 40.8 per 1,000 while the Irish Free State had a birth rate of just 18.6 per 1,000.[21]
Cultural outlook[edit]
Irish society during this period was extremely Roman Catholic, with Roman Catholic thinkers promoting anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-Protestant, anti-Masonic, and antisemitic views in Irish society. Through the works of priests such as Edward Cahill, Richard Devane, and Denis Fahey, Irish society saw capitalism, individualism, communism, private banking, the promotion of alcohol, contraceptives, divorce, and abortion as the pursuits of the old 'Protestant-elite' and Jews, with their efforts combined through the Freemasons. Denis Fahey described Ireland as "the third most Masonic country in the world" and saw this alleged order as contrary to the creation of an independent Irish State.[22]
After the Irish Free State[edit]
1937 Constitution[edit]
In 1937 the Fianna Fáil government presented a draft of an entirely new Constitution to Dáil Éireann. An amended version of the draft document was subsequently approved by the Dáil. A plebiscite was held on 1 July 1937, which was the same day as the 1937 general election, when a relatively narrow majority approved it. The new Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hÉireann) repealed the 1922 Constitution, and came into effect on 29 December 1937.
The state was named Ireland (Éire in the Irish language), and a new office of President of Ireland was instituted in place of the Governor-General of the Irish Free State. The new constitution claimed jurisdiction over all of Ireland while recognising that legislation would not apply in Northern Ireland (see Articles 2 and 3). Articles 2 and 3 were reworded in 1998 to remove jurisdictional claim over the entire island and to recognise that "a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island".
With regard to religion, a section of Article 44 included the following:
Following a referendum, this section was removed in 1973. After the setting up of the Free State in 1923, unionism in the south largely came to an end.
The 1937 Constitution saw a notable ideological slant to the changes of the framework of the State in such a way as to create one that appeared to be distinctly Irish. This was done so by implementing corporatist policies (based on the concepts of the Roman Catholic Church, as Catholicism was perceived to be deeply imbedded with the perception of Irish identity). A clear example of this is the model of the reconstituted Seanad Éireann (the Senate), which operates based on a system of vocational panels, along with a list of appointed nominating industry bodies, a corporatist concept (seen in Pope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno). Furthermore, Ireland's main political parties; Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour, all had an inherently corporatist outlook.[23][24][25][26][27][28] The government was the subject of intense lobbying by leading Church figures throughout the 1930s in calling for reform of the State's framework. Much of this was reflected in the new 1937 Constitution.[29]