The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 | |
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Oireachtas | |
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Citation | Act No. 22 of 1948 |
Territorial extent | Ireland |
Passed by | Dáil Éireann |
Passed | 2 December 1948 |
Passed by | Seanad Éireann |
Passed | 15 December 1948 |
Signed by | Seán T. O'Kelly (President of Ireland) |
Signed | 21 December 1948 |
Commenced | 18 April 1949 |
Legislative history | |
First chamber: Dáil Éireann | |
Bill citation | Bill No. 19 of 1948 |
Introduced by | John A. Costello (Taoiseach) |
Introduced | 17 November 1948 |
First reading | 17 November 1948 |
Second reading | 24 November 1948 |
Second chamber: Seanad Éireann | |
Second reading | 10 December 1948 |
Repeals | |
Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936 | |
Related legislation | |
Ireland Act 1949 [UK] | |
Keywords | |
Republicanism, Head of state, Diplomatic credentials, Commonwealth membership criteria | |
Status: Current legislation |
The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 [lower-alpha 1] (No. 22 of 1948) is an Act of the Oireachtas which declared that the description of Ireland was to be the Republic of Ireland, and vested in the president of Ireland the power to exercise the executive authority of the state in its external relations, on the advice of the Government of Ireland. The Act was signed into law on 21 December 1948 and came into force on 18 April 1949, Easter Monday, [1] [2] the 33rd anniversary of the beginning of the Easter Rising.
The Act ended the remaining statutory role of the British monarchy in relation to Ireland, by repealing the 1936 External Relations Act, which had vested in George VI, in his capacity as a symbol of the cooperation of the nations that were members of the Commonwealth with which Ireland associated itself, and his successors those functions which the Act now transferred to the President.
The Republic of Ireland Act consists of five brief sections, set out in full as follows:
Number 22 of 1948
The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948An Act to repeal the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act, 1936, to declare that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland, and to enable the President to exercise the executive power or any executive function of the state in or in connection with its external relations. (21 December 1948)
Be it enacted by the Oireachtas as follows:—
1.—The Executive Authority (External Relations) Act, 1936 (No. 58 of 1936), is hereby repealed.
2.—It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland.
3.—The President, on the authority and on the advice of the Government, may exercise the executive power or any executive function of the State in or in connection with its external relations.
4.—This Act shall come into operation on such day as the Government may by order appoint.5.—This Act may be cited as The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948.
Section 1 of the Act repealed the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936. By doing so the Act abolished the last remaining functions of the British monarch (then George VI) in relation to the Irish state. These functions had related to the issuance and acceptance of letters of credence of diplomatic and consular representatives and the conclusion of international agreements. Section 3 provides that the President of Ireland may instead exercise these functions and any other functions in relation to the state's external (or foreign) relations.
At the time the Act came into force, John A. Costello, the Taoiseach whose government introduced the Act, believed that Ireland did not have a King and had not been a member of the Commonwealth since 1936. [3] His government's view was that Ireland was already a republic and that the Act would not create a republic but rather achieve a "clarification of [Ireland's] constitutional status." [4] These views were shared by the Irish opposition leader of the time, Éamon de Valera. [5] Indeed, Irish leaders had on several previous occasions declared that Ireland was a republic and not a Commonwealth member, but that it was associated with the Commonwealth. [6]
The Irish view of things was not shared by the other members of the Commonwealth. Until Ireland brought the Act into force, it was still regarded by the members as forming part of "His Majesty’s dominions". When Ireland adopted its 1937 Constitution, which made no reference to the King, the United Kingdom Government announced that it and the other Commonwealth Governments were "[still] prepared to treat … Ireland, as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations". [7] After all, in their view, the King was still empowered by Ireland to fulfill certain functions as Ireland's statutory agent under the External Relations Act 1936. With that Irish Act now being repealed, there was no longer any basis, however tenuous, to consider Ireland as continuing to have a King or to be part of His Majesty’s dominions and therefore within the Commonwealth. In their view, Ireland had now declared itself a republic for the first time bringing its membership of the Commonwealth to an end. Ironically, the Taoiseach chose to announce the repeal of the External Relations Act while on an official visit to Canada, the same country whose constitutional status had been the basis for the establishment of the Irish Free State.
The London Declaration, which permitted republics to remain within the Commonwealth, was made shortly afterwards in response to India's desire to continue as a member once its new republican constitution was finalised. However, the Irish government did not reapply for membership of the Commonwealth. De Valera was opposed to this and considered applying for membership after his return to office in the 1950s. [8]
Section 2 of the Act provides:
It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland.
The Act did not declare that Ireland a republic, nor did it change the official name of the state which continued to be Éire (in Irish) and Ireland (in English) as prescribed in the Constitution. The Act provided for a description for the State. The distinction between a description and a name has sometimes caused confusion. Costello explained the difference in the following way: [9]
If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know. If the Senator [ Helena Concannon ] will look at Article 4 of the Constitution she will find that the name of the State is Éire. Section 2 of this Bill declares that "this State shall be described as the Republic of Ireland." Its name in Irish is Éire and in the English language, Ireland. Its description in the English language is "the Republic of Ireland."
In 1945, when asked if he planned to declare a republic, the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera had replied, "we are a republic", [10] which he had not said in the previous eight years. He also insisted that Ireland had no king, but simply used an external king as an "organ" in international affairs.
In October 1947, de Valera asked the attorney-general, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, to draft a bill to repeal the External Relations Act, [11] and by 1948 a draft of the bill included a reference to the state as being a republic. [12] In the end, the draft bill was never submitted to the Oireachtas for approval.
By the eve of the 1948 Irish general election the United Kingdom Representative to Ireland, Lord Rugby, reported that the annulment of the External Relations Act was inevitable. He remarked 'No party has left the door open to any other course'. [13] The result of the election saw a new Irish government formed under the leadership of John A. Costello.
Costello made the announcement that a bill to repeal the External Relations Act was to be introduced when he was in Ottawa, during an official visit to Canada. David McCullagh has suggested that it was a spur of the moment reaction to offence caused by the Governor-General of Canada, [14] Lord Alexander, who was of Northern Ireland descent, who allegedly placed loyalist symbols, notably a replica of the famous Roaring Meg cannon used in the Siege of Derry, before an affronted Costello at a state dinner. What is certain is that an agreement that there would be separate toasts for the King and for the President of Ireland was broken. [14] The Irish position was that a toast to the King, instead of representing both countries, would not include Ireland. Only a toast to the King was proposed, to the fury of the Irish delegation. [14] Shortly afterwards Costello announced the plan to repeal the External Relations Act.
However, according to all but one of the ministers in Costello's cabinet, the decision to repeal the External Relations Act had already been made before Costello's Canadian visit. [15] Costello's revelation of the decision was because the Sunday Independent (an Irish newspaper) had discovered the fact and was about to "break" the story as an exclusive. Nevertheless, one minister, Noel Browne, gave a different account in his autobiography, Against the Tide. He claimed Costello's announcement was done in a fit of anger of his treatment by the Governor-General and that when he returned, Costello, at an assembly of ministers in his home, offered to resign because of his manufacture of a major government policy initiative on the spot in Canada. Yet according to Browne, all the ministers agreed that they would refuse to accept the resignation and also agreed to manufacture the story of a prior cabinet decision. [16]
The evidence of what really happened remains ambiguous. There is no record of a prior decision to repeal the External Relations Act before Costello's Canadian trip, among cabinet papers for 1948, which supports Browne's claim. [15] However, the Costello government refused to allow the Secretary to the Government, Maurice Moynihan, to attend cabinet meetings and take minutes, because they believed he was too close to the opposition leader, Éamon de Valera. [17] Rather than entrust the minute-taking to Moynihan, the cabinet entrusted it to a Parliamentary Secretary (junior minister), Liam Cosgrave. Given that Cosgrave had never kept minutes before, his minutes, at least early on in the government, proved to be only a limited record of government decisions. So whether the issue was never raised, was raised but undecided on, was subjected to a decision taken informally, or was subjected to a decision taken formally, remains obscure on the basis of the 1948 cabinet documentation. [15]
The Republic of Ireland Bill was introduced in 1948 by the new Taoiseach, John A. Costello of Fine Gael.
The Act was enacted with all parties voting for it. De Valera did suggest that it would have been better to reserve the declaration of the republic until Irish unity had been achieved, a comment hard to reconcile with his 1945 claim that the Irish state was already a republic.
The United Kingdom responded to the Republic of Ireland Act by enacting the Ireland Act 1949. This Act formally asserted that the Irish state had, when the Republic of Ireland Act came into force, ceased "to be part of His Majesty's dominions" [18] and accordingly was no longer within the Commonwealth. Nonetheless, the United Kingdom statute provided that Irish citizens would not be treated as aliens under British nationality law. This, in effect, granted them a status similar to the citizens of Commonwealth countries. [19]
Between the enactment of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937 and the enactment of the Ireland Act 1949, the United Kingdom had formally decided upon the (anglicised) "Eire" as its name for the Irish state. The 1949 Act now provided that "the part of Ireland heretofore known as Eire" could be referred to in future UK legislation as the "Republic of Ireland". [20] The UK's continued aversion to using "Ireland" as the formal name for the state due to the fact it did not (and does not) comprise the entirety of the island of the same name remained a source of diplomatic friction for several decades afterwards.
The UK's Ireland Act also gave a legislative guarantee that Northern Ireland would continue to remain a part of the United Kingdom unless the Parliament of Northern Ireland formally expressed a wish to join a United Ireland; this "unionist veto" proved to be controversial during the Act's passage through Westminster, as well as in the Irish state and amongst Northern Ireland's nationalist community. The guarantee was replaced in 1973, when the Parliament of Northern Ireland was abolished, by a new guarantee based on "the consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland". [21]
On the day the Act came into force, 18 April 1949, King George VI sent the following message to the President of Ireland, Seán T. O'Kelly: [22]
I send you my sincere good wishes on this day, being well aware of the neighbourly links which hold the people of the Republic of Ireland in close association with my subjects of the United Kingdom. I hold in most grateful memory the services and sacrifices of the men and women of your country who rendered gallant assistance to our cause in the recent war and who made a notable contribution to our victories. I pray that every blessing may be with you today and in the future.
— GEORGE R.
From the Acts of Union 1800, when the UK House of Lords noted someone's succession to an Irish peerage, the Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland in Dublin to update the electoral register for Irish representative peer. Such elections ceased in 1922 and the office of Clerk of the Crown was formally abolished in 1926, when the last holder, Gerald Horan, became first Master of the High Court. Nevertheless, the Clerk of the Parliaments continued to inform Horan in the old manner until the Irish government, reviewing administration for the commencement of the Republic of Ireland Act, informed the Lords in late 1948 that the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland no longer existed. [23]
The Book of Common Prayer of the all-island Church of Ireland was modelled on that of the Church of England and included three "state prayers": for "our most gracious Sovereign Lord, King George", the royal family, and the Commonwealth. The church was historically associated with the Protestant Ascendancy and had been the established church until 1871; its "southern" membership (one-third of the total) was mostly unionist before 1922 and pro-British thereafter. In late 1948, archbishops John Gregg and Arthur Barton devised replacement prayers to be used in the republic, at first temporarily until the 1949 general synod would update the Book of Common Prayer. A grassroots campaign led by Hugh Maude of Clondalkin opposed any change, and the 1950 synod authorised a compromise, whereby the old prayers remained in Northern Ireland, and the republic used a "Prayer for the President and all in authority" and "A Prayer for King George the Sixth … in whose dominions we are not accounted strangers" (an allusion to the Ireland Act 1949). Likewise, the liturgy for morning and evening prayers includes "O Lord, save the Queen" in Northern Ireland and "O Lord, guide and defend our rulers" in the republic. [24] [25] Miriam Moffitt notes that Maude's supporters were mostly older church members. [24]
In 1996, the Constitution Review Group reviewed the full text of the Constitution. It considered whether the name of the state should be amended to declare that Ireland should be named "Republic of Ireland". It decided against recommending such an amendment. [26] This was the second time that such an amendment was considered by committee, which considered every provision of the constitution.
Éamon de Valera was an Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of government and head of state and had a leading role in introducing the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.
John Aloysius Costello was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957, Leader of the Opposition from 1951 to 1954 and from 1957 to 1959, and Attorney General of Ireland from 1926 to 1932. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1933 to 1943 and from 1944 to 1969.
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of Ireland. It asserts the national sovereignty of the Irish people. The constitution, based on a system of representative democracy, is broadly within the tradition of liberal democracy. It guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected non-executive president, a bicameral parliament, a separation of powers and judicial review.
The Executive Authority Act 1936 was an Act of the Oireachtas. The Act, which was signed into law on 12 December 1936, was one of two passed hurriedly in the aftermath of the Edward VIII abdication crisis to sharply reduce the role of the Crown. It is also sometimes referred to as the External Relations Act.
Clann na Poblachta was an Irish republican political party founded in 1946 by Seán MacBride, a former Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army.
The Government of the 13th Dáil or the 5th Government of Ireland, formed after the general election held on 4 February 1948 — commonly known as the First Inter-Party Government — was an Irish government of Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta, Clann na Talmhan and the National Labour Party—and one TD who was an independent, James Dillon. The parties had many different aims and viewpoints, but opposition to Fianna Fáil overcame difficulties in forming a government; Éamon de Valera had led a series of single-party Fianna Fáil governments since 1932. The cabinet was made up of representatives of all parties, and ministers were given a great degree of independence. Some key events during the lifetime of the government include the declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1948 and the crisis surrounding the Mother and Child Scheme in 1951.
The Government of the 8th Dáil or the 7th Executive Council was the Executive Council of the Irish Free State formed after the general election held on 24 January 1933. It was led by Fianna Fáil leader Éamon de Valera as President of the Executive Council, who had first taken office in the Irish Free State after the 1932 general election. De Valera had previously served as President of Dáil Éireann, or President of the Republic, from April 1919 to January 1922 during the revolutionary period of the Irish Republic.
The Government of the 15th Dáil or the 7th Government of Ireland was the government of Ireland formed after the general election held on 18 May 1954. Commonly known as the Second Inter-Party Government, it was a minority government of Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Clann na Talmhan. Clann na Poblachta, which had been in the First Inter-Party Government (1948–51) with these parties, supported the government but did form part of it.
The 1948 Irish general election to the 13th Dáil was held on Wednesday, 4 February following the dissolution of the 12th Dáil on 12 January 1948 by the President Seán T. O'Kelly on the request of Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. The general election took place in 40 constituencies throughout Ireland for 147 seats in Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives of the Oireachtas, with a revision of Dáil constituencies under the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1947, which had increased the number of seats by 9 since the previous election. The election resulted in Fianna Fáil leaving government for the first time in 16 years and the formation of the first coalition government in Ireland.
The 1944 Irish general election to the 12th Dáil was held on Tuesday, 30 May, having been called on 9 May by President Douglas Hyde on the advice of Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. The general election took place in 34 parliamentary constituencies for 138 seats in Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives of the Oireachtas. Fianna Fáil won an overall majority. The outgoing 11th Dáil was dissolved on 7 June.
The Executive Council was the cabinet and de facto executive branch of government of the 1922–1937 Irish Free State. Formally, executive power was vested in the Governor-General on behalf of the King. In practice, however, it was the Council that governed, since the Governor-General was bound to act on its advice. The Executive Council included a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council and a deputy prime minister called the Vice-President. A member of the Council was called an executive minister, as distinct from an extern minister who had charge of a department without being in the Council.
Events from the year 1948 in Ireland.
The state known today as Ireland is the successor state to the Irish Free State, which existed from December 1922 to December 1937. At its foundation, the Irish Free State was, in accordance with its constitution and the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, governed as a constitutional monarchy, in personal union with the monarchy of the United Kingdom and other members of what was then called the British Commonwealth. The monarch as head of state was represented in the Irish Free State by his Governor-General, who performed most of the monarch's duties based on the advice of elected Irish officials.
The Constitution Act 1936 was an amendment to the Constitution of the Irish Free State that removed all reference to the King, to the office of Governor-General, and almost completely eliminated the King's constitutional role in the state. Under the Act most of the functions previously performed by the King and his Governor-General were transferred to various other organs of the Irish government. The only role retained by the King was as representative of the state in foreign affairs. The amendment passed through the Oireachtas at the same time as the External Relations Act, becoming law on 11 December 1936. Its long title was:
An Act to effect certain amendments of the Constitution in relation to the executive authority and power and in relation to the performance of certain executive functions.
According to the Constitution of Ireland, the names of the Irish state are Ireland (English) and Éire (Irish). From 1922 to 1937, its legal names were the Irish Free State (English) and Saorstát Éireann (Irish). The state has jurisdiction over almost five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The rest of the island is Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. In 1948 Ireland adopted the terms Republic of Ireland (English) and Poblacht na hÉireann (Irish) as the official descriptions of the state, without changing the constitutional names.
The presidential seal is a seal used by the president of Ireland to authenticate his signature on official documents. The Constitution of Ireland requires certain documents to be issued under the president's "hand and seal", and in other cases the seal is mandated by act of the Oireachtas. It is a single-sided "dry seal" impressed directly onto the fabric of the document, leaving a relief of its design without sealing wax or ink.
The Ireland Act 1949 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to deal with the consequences of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 as passed by the Irish parliament, the Oireachtas.
The current Constitution of Ireland came into effect on 29 December 1937, repealing and replacing the Constitution of the Irish Free State, having been approved in a national plebiscite on 1 July 1937 with the support of 56.5% of voters in the then Irish Free State. The Constitution was closely associated with Éamon de Valera, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State at the time of its approval.
External association was a hypothetical relationship between Ireland and the Commonwealth of Nations proposed by Éamon de Valera in 1921–1922, whereby Ireland would be a sovereign state associated with, but not a member of, the Commonwealth; the British monarch would be head of the association, but not head of state of Ireland. De Valera proposed external association as a compromise between isolationist Irish republicanism on the one hand and Dominion status on the other. Whereas a full republic could not be a member of the Commonwealth until the London Declaration of 1949, a Dominion could not be fully independent until the Statute of Westminster 1931.
The Sinn Féin Funds case was a 1942–1948 Irish court case in which the Sinn Féin party claimed ownership of funds deposited with the High Court in 1924 which had belonged to the Sinn Féin party before 1923. The Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, which attempted to halt the court case and assign the funds to Bord Cistí Sinn Féin, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in an important judgement on separation of powers and private property rights. The original action was subsequently decided against Sinn Féin, on the basis that the pre-1923 party was separate from the 1940s party. Most of the disputed funds were consumed by legal costs.
The possibility that Ireland might rejoin the Commonwealth was discussed in 1957–58, during de Valera's last term as Taoiseach
The Review Group also considered whether the Article should be amended to include 'Republic of' in the name of the State. It is satisfied that the legislative provision (section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948), which declared the description of the State to be 'the Republic of Ireland', is sufficient.