Governor-General of the Irish Free State
Governor-General of the Irish Free State Seanascal Shaorstát Éireann | |
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Monarch of the Irish Free State :
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Precursor | Lord Lieutenant of Ireland |
Formation | 6 December 1922 |
First holder | Tim Healy |
Final holder | Domhnall Ua Buachalla |
Abolished | 11 December 1936 |
Succession | Executive Council of the Irish Free State[1] |
The governor-general of the Irish Free State (
The 1931 enactment in London of the Statute of Westminster gave the Irish Free State full legislative independence. However, the Irish considered that full legislative independence had been achieved in 1922. The role of Governor-General in the Irish Free State was removed from the Constitution on 11 December 1936,[2] at the time of Edward VIII's abdication as king of the United Kingdom and all the Dominions.
Governors-General of the Irish Free State (1922–36)
No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) |
Term of office | Monarch | President of Exec. Council | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Took office | Left office | Time in office | |||||
1 | Tim Healy (1855–1931) |
6 December 1922 | 31 January 1928 | 5 years, 56 days | George V | Cosgrave | |
2 | James McNeill (1869–1938) |
31 January 1928 | 1 November 1932 | 4 years, 275 days | Cosgrave De Valera | ||
3 | Domhnall Ua Buachalla (1866–1963) |
27 November 1932 | 11 December 1936 | 4 years, 14 days | George V Edward VIII |
De Valera |
Selection
The governor-general was appointed by the King on the advice of his Irish ministers. Initially, the British government had some involvement in the appointment process. However, this ended following the 1926 Imperial Conference; thenceforth, only the government of the Irish Free State was formally involved. A further effect of the 1926 conference (in particular, of the Balfour Declaration) was that the monarch also ceased to receive formal advice from the British government in relation to his role in the Irish Free State; such advice thenceforth came officially only from the Executive Council of the Irish Free State (the Cabinet).
The Free State constitution did not limit the governor-general to a fixed term of office. But, in 1927, the Irish government decided that no governor-general would serve a term longer than five years.[citation needed]
Role
Under the constitution of the Irish Free State, the governor-general was bound to act in accordance with the "law, practice and constitutional usage" relevant to the Governor General of Canada. His formal duties included the following:
- Executive authority: The executive authority of the state was formally 'vested' in the king, but exercised by the governor-general. The governor-general appointed the Executive Council to "aid and advise" him, but with few exceptions was bound to act on the Executive Council's advice.
- Appointment of the Cabinet: The President of the Executive Council (prime minister) was appointed by the governor-general after being selected by Dáil Éireann (the lower house of parliament). The remaining ministers were appointed on the nomination of the president, subject to a vote of consent in the Dáil.
- Convention and dissolution of the legislature: The governor-general, on behalf of the king, convened and dissolved the Oireachtason the advice of the Executive Council.
- Signing bills into law: The king was formally, along with the Dáil and the Royal Assent, given by the governor-general on behalf of the king. The governor-general theoretically had the right to veto a bill or reserve it "for the signification of the King's pleasure", in effect postponing a decision on whether or not to enact the bill, for a maximum of one year. When it was suggested in the House of Lords that the Land Bill 1926 be vetoed in this way, the Lord Chancellor said, "It would not be effective, for if this Bill were vetoed a similar Bill could be passed to-morrow".[3]
- Appointment of judges: All judges were appointed by the governor-general on the advice of the Executive Council.
Until 1928, the governor-general served an additional role as the British government's agent in the Free State. This meant that all official correspondence between the British and Irish governments went through the governor-general and that he had access to British government papers. It also meant that he could receive secret instructions from the British government. For example, Tim Healy was formally advised by the British government to veto any attempt to abolish the controversial Oath of Allegiance to the Crown, sworn by Irish parliamentarians. [citation needed]
However, at the same
The first two governors-general lived at the Viceregal Lodge (now known as
History
Origins
The Irish Free State was officially established on 6 December 1922, under the terms of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. While Irish political leaders favoured the creation of a republic, 'the Treaty' required, instead, that the new state would be a Dominion within the British Empire under a form of constitutional monarchy. Central to the agreed system of government was to be a "representative of the Crown". The new office was not named in the treaty, but the committee charged with drawing up the Free State constitution, under General Michael Collins, decided, after considering a number of names, including "Commissioner of the British Commonwealth"[4] and "President of Ireland",[5] that the representative would bear the title of "Governor-General", the same as that used by the Crown's representative in other Dominions, i.e. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. However, the Irish language title was Seanascal,[6] meaning "high steward", which was later used in English.[7]
As put regarding what the Anglo-Irish Treaty said first, and what the Constitution of the Irish Free State said thereafter,
"On a textual reading of the Treaty..., an office of a ‘Governor-General’ did not need to be created. Rather, another form of representative of the Crown could have been chosen by the State if it had so wanted. This was because Article 3 of the Treaty only provided that such a representative would be appointed like that of the Governor-General in Canada, and not that there had to be a Governor-General of the State, or one titled as a Governor-General.... [T]he creation of an office of the Governor-General was what was chosen by the drafters of the Constitution, and the text of the Constitution appears to support a reading of some level of discretion on how the representative of the Crown was to exist."[8]
The Crown's representative was expressly bound by the same constitutional conventions as the
Cosgrave executive
The first two Governors-General of the Irish Free State assumed office under the pro-Treaty, Cumann na nGaedheal government of W. T. Cosgrave. When it came to choosing the first governor-general, there was speculation about a number of possible candidates, including the famed Irish painter Sir John Lavery and Edward, Prince of Wales. However, the Irish cabinet let it be known that it wished Tim Healy, a former Irish Parliamentary Party MP, to be appointed, and the British government ultimately agreed.
When it came to selecting Healy's successor, the Irish cabinet chose James McNeill, an Ulsterman, from one of the six out of nine Ulster counties which had remained in the Union with Britain, who was a former member of Collins's constitution committee and a former Chairman of Dublin County Council. Because, unlike his predecessor, he was not the United Kingdom's official representative in the Free State, but merely the personal representative of the King, McNeill found himself with less influence than Healy had possessed.
De Valera executive
After the
On McNeill's retirement, de Valera advised the King to appoint the aged
Abolition
In December 1936, when King
This Act purported to vest all those powers in the Government, or rather, to put it more technically, to make all those powers exercisable by the Government. That Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act was signed by the Governor-General on the 11th December, 1936. It may be of interest to recall that that was his death warrant: he ceased, the minute he signed that, to be Governor-General. Also it might be of interest—it is of no interest now, except to constitutional lawyers—to consider how it was that the representative of the King who had abdicated the previous day was able to give the assent of that King to a constitutional amendment.
However, de Valera was later advised by the
Ua Buachalla and de Valera, although once close friends, fell out over Ua Buachalla's treatment in the abolition of the viceregal post, with Ua Buachalla initiating legal proceedings to sue de Valera. However, their relationship was eventually healed and, when de Valera later became President of Ireland, he appointed Ua Buachalla to the Council of State in 1959. Ua Buachalla was the last surviving governor-general, dying aged 97 on 30 October 1963.
See also
- Great Seal of the Irish Free State
- History of the Republic of Ireland
- Irish head of state from 1922 to 1949
- Governor of Northern Ireland
References
This article includes a improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2024) ) |
- Butler, Graham (2024). "The Representative of the Crown and the Governor-General of the Irish Free State: Text and Context". In Cahillane, Laura; Coffey, Donal K. (eds.). The Centenary of the Irish Free State Constitution: Constituting a Polity?. Palgrave Modern Legal History. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 91–111. ISBN 9783031461804.
- Sexton, Brendan (1989). Ireland and the Crown, 1922–1936: The Governor-Generalship of the Irish Free State. Irish Academic Press. ISBN 9780716524489.
Citations
- ^ Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act 1936 — The office was abolished before the current Irish constitution providing for a president came into force.
- ^ a b "The Republic of Ireland Bill 1948—Second Stage – Seanad Éireann (6th Seanad) – Thursday, 9 December 1948". Oireachtas. Archived from the original on 26 January 2019. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
- ^ "Appeal From The Irish Free State Courts". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 3 March 1926. HL Deb vol 63 c406. Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
- ^ The birth of the Irish Free State, 1921-1923 Archived 25 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Joseph Maroney Curran, University of Alabama Press, 1980, page 207
- ^ Ireland and the Crown, 1922-1936: the Governor-Generalship of the Irish Free State Archived 25 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Brendan Sexton, Irish Academic Press, 1989, page 56
- ^ Díosbóireachtaí Pairliminte: Tuairisg Oifigiúil Archived 25 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Volume 4, Stationery Office, 1923
- ^ Studies Archived 25 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Volume 89, page 363
- ^ The Representative of the Crown and the Governor-General of the Irish Free State: Text and Context, Graham Butler, The Representative of the Crown and the Governor-General of the Irish Free State: Text and Context, 2024, page 95