Irish Free State

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The Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) (1922–1937) was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand.

On the day the Irish Free State was established, it comprised the entire island of Ireland but Northern Ireland almost immediately exercised its right under the Treaty to opt out of the new state. The Irish Free State replaced Southern Ireland (itself established on 3 May 1921 by the British Government under the Government of Ireland Act 1920), a de jure autonomous region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish Free State also effectively replaced the self-proclaimed but in many respects de facto Irish Republic (itself established on 21 January 1919). Similarly, the new government of the Irish Free State replaced both the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland and the Government of the Irish Republic although W. T. Cosgrave, the first President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State had, in any event, led both governments since August 1922.

Northern Ireland "opts out"

On 6 December 1922 and for a few days afterward, Northern Ireland stopped being part of the United Kingdom and became part of the newly-created Irish Free State. This remarkable constitutional episode arose because of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the legislation introduced to give that Treaty legal effect.

The Treaty was given effect in the United Kingdom through the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. That Act established a new Dominion for the whole island of Ireland but also allowed Northern Ireland to opt out. Under Article 12 of the Treaty, Northern Ireland could exercise its opt out by presenting an address to the King requesting not to be part of the Irish Free State. Once the Treaty was ratified, the Parliament of Northern Ireland had one month to exercise this opt out during which month the Irish Free State Government could not legislate for Northern Ireland, holding the Free State’s effective jurisdiction in abeyance for a month.

Realistically, it was always certain that Northern Ireland would "opt out" and rejoin the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig, speaking in the Parliament in October 1922 said that “when the 6th of December is passed the month begins in which we will have to make the choice either to vote out or remain within the Free State.” He said it was important that that choice was made as soon as possible after 6 December 1922 “in order that it may not go forth to the world that we had the slightest hesitation.” On 7 December 1922 (the day after the establishment of the Irish Free State), the Parliament demonstrated its lack of hesitation by resolving to make the following presentation to the King so as to opt out of the Irish Free State:

On 13 December 1922 Prime Minister Craig addressed the Parliament reporting that the King had responded to the Parliament’s address as follows:

With this, Northern Ireland had left the Irish Free State and rejoined the United Kingdom. If the Parliament of Northern Ireland had not made such a declaration, under Article 14 of the Treaty Northern Ireland, its Parliament and government would have continued in being but the Oireachtas would have had jurisdiction to legislate for Northern Ireland in matters not delegated to Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act. This, of course, never came to pass.

Historical background

The Easter Rising of 1916, and in particular the decision of the British military authorities to execute many of its leaders after courts martial, generated sympathy for the republican cause in Ireland. But perhaps more importantly it was the republicans and some independent Nationalists who led opposition to the idea of compulsory military service for Irish men in the conscription crisis of early 1918. The Irish Parliamentary Party, who supported the Allied cause in the Great War in response to the passing of the final Third Home Rule Act 1914, was discredited by the crisis. In the December 1918 general election, the majority of Irish seats in the Westminster parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland were won by Sinn Féin, with 25 of 105 constituencies returning Sinn Féin members unopposed without contests. Sinn Féin was a previously non-violent separatist party founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905. Under Éamon de Valera's leadership from 1917, it had campaigned aggressively for an Irish republic.

In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs (or TDs as they became known, from the Irish Teachta Dála) refusing to sit in the British House of Commons at Westminster, assembled in Dublin and formed a single chamber Irish parliament called Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland). It affirmed the creation of an Irish Republic and passed a Declaration of Independence, calling itself Saorstát Éireann in Irish. Although it was accepted by the overwhelming majority of Irish people, only the Soviet Union recognised the Irish Republic internationally. (Recent calculations of Sinn Féin support in 1918, based on actual electoral battles at the national and local level, put party support at 45–48%, largely because many of their seats were won without being contested.)

The War of Independence was fought between the army of the "Republic," the Irish Republican Army (known now as the "Old IRA" to distinguish it from later claimants to the title), and the British Army of the United Kingdom of which Ireland was still nominally part. On 9 July 1921, a truce was declared. On October 11th negotiations were opened under British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Arthur Griffith, who headed the Irish Republic's delegation. The Irish Treaty delegation set up Headquarters in Hans Place, Knightsbridge and on 5 December 1921 at 11:15am it was decided by the delegation during private discussions at 22 Hans Place to recommend the Treaty to the Dáil Éireann; negotiations continued until 2:30am on December 6th, 1921 after which the Treaty was signed by the parties.

That these negotiations would produce a form of Irish government short of the independence wished for by republicans was not in doubt. The United Kingdom could not offer a republican form of government without losing prestige and risking demands for something similar throughout the Empire. Furthermore, as one of the negotiators, Michael Collins, later admitted (and he was in a position to know, given his role in the independence war), the IRA at the time of the truce was weeks, if not days, from collapse, with a chronic shortage of ammunition. "Frankly, we thought they were mad", Collins said of the sudden British offer of a truce, although it was likely they would have continued in one form or another, given the level of public support. The President of the Republic, Éamon de Valera, realised that a republic was not on offer. He decided not to be a part of the treaty delegation and so be tainted with what some more militant republicans were bound to call a "sellout". Yet his own proposals published in January 1922 fell far short of an autonomous all-Ireland republic.

As expected, the Anglo-Irish Treaty explicitly ruled out a republic. What it offered was dominion status, as a state of the British Empire (now called the Commonwealth of Nations), equal to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Though less than expected by the Sinn Féin leadership of 1919–1922, it was substantially more than the initial form of home rule within the United Kingdom sought by Charles Stewart Parnell from 1880, and a serious advancement on the final Third Home Rule Act 1914 that the Irish nationalist leader John Redmond had achieved through democratic parliamentary proceedings. It was ratified by the Second Dáil, splitting Sinn Féin in the process.

Governmental and constitutional structures

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