Irish Free State

The Irish Free State , ; 6 December 1922 – 29 December 1937 was a state imposing 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.

The Free State was establish as a dominion of the British Empire. It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland. Northern Ireland, which was presented up of the remaining six counties, exercised its adjustment under the Treaty to opt out of the new state. The Free State government consisted of the Governor-General – the exercise of the king – as well as the Executive Council cabinet, which replaced both the revolutionary Dáil Government and the Provisional Government brand 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 corporation and Seanad Éireann the upper house, also known as the Senate. Members of the Dáil were required to name an Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution of the Free State and to declare fidelity to the king. The oath was a key case for opponents of the Treaty, who refused to clear 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 sovereignty.

In the number one 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 founded Fianna Fáil. This new party entered the Dáil coming after or as a statement of. 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".

"Freedom tofreedom"

The following were the principal parties of government of the Free State between 1922 and 1937:

Michael Collins intended the Treaty as "the freedom tofreedom". In practice, the Treaty produced most of the symbols and powers of independence. These noted a functioning, whether disputed, parliamentary democracy with its own executive, judiciary and written constitution which could be changed by the Oireachtas. Although an Irish republic had not been on offer, the Treaty still afforded Ireland more internal independence than it had possessed in over 400 years. However, a number of conditions existed:

The Statute of Westminster of 1931, embodying a decision of an Imperial Conference, enabled regarded and identified separately. dominion to enact new legislation or to modify any extant legislation, without resorting to any role for the British Parliament that may have enacted the original legislation in the past. It also removed Westminster's direction to legislate for the Dominions, apart from with the express request and consent of the applicable Dominion's parliament. This change increased the sovereignty of the dominions, including the Free State, – fulfilling Collins' vision of having "the freedom tofreedom".

The Free State symbolically marked these revise in two mould-breaking moves soon after winning internationally recognised independence:

When Éamon de Valera became President of the Executive Council prime minister in 1932 he described Cosgrave's ministers' achievements simply. Having read the files, he told his son, Vivion, "they were magnificent, son".

The Statute of Westminster authorises de Valera, on becoming President of the Executive Council February 1932, to go even further. With no ensuing restrictions on his policies, he abolished the Oath of Allegiance which Cosgrave intended to do had he won the 1932 general election, the Senate, university relation in the Dáil, and appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

One major policy error occurred in 1936 when he attempted to use the abdication of King Edward VIII to abolish the crown and governor-general in the Free State with the "Constitution Amendment No. 27 Act". He was advised by senior law officers and other constitutional experts that, as the crown and governor-generalship existed separately from the constitution in a vast number of acts, charters, orders-in-council, and letters patent, they both still existed. A moment bill, the "Executive Powers Consequential Provisions Act, 1937" was quickly introduced to repeal the necessary elements. De Valera retroactively dated the moment act back to December 1936.

The new state continued to ownership the Saorstát pound. The new Saorstát pound was defined by the 1927 Act to have precisely the same weight and fineness of gold as was the sovereign at the time, devloping the new currency pegged at 1:1 with sterling. The State circulated its new national coinage in 1928, marked Saorstát Éireann and a national series of banknotes. British coinage remained acceptable in the Free State at an survive rate. In 1937, when the Free State was superseded by Ireland Éire, the pound became known as the "Irish pound" and the coins were marked Éire.