Irish Republic: Difference between revisions

This article is about the historical Irish Republic. For the modern state, see Republic of Ireland¹; for other uses of Ireland, see Ireland (disambiguation).

For the history book with the same name by Dorothy Macardle, see The Irish Republic.

The Irish Republic (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann or Saorstát Éireann) was a separatist state proclaimed in the Easter Rising in 1916 and established in 1919 by Dáil Éireann, the parliamentary assembly made up of abstentionist Irish MPs elected in the 1918 British general election. The Dáil asserted that it possessed the right to declare Irish independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The declaration by the Dáil coincided with the beginning of the Irish War of Independence of 1919-1922 between United Kingdom and the Irish Republican Army.

The state was to be governed by the Aireacht or cabinet, headed between 1919 and 1921 by the Príomh Aire (head of government — the state possessed no head of state initially) and from August 1921 by the President of the Republic.

The Irish Republic's validity was accepted or tolerated by many, though not all, Irish nationalists. Irish Unionists opposed it. The Republic received the recognition of only one other state, the Russian SFSR. Despite the fact that it was not recognised outside Ireland, some of its structures were used as the basis for the Irish Free State, established by treaty in 1922, which was recognised as being outside the UK by Britain and by other countries. The name "Irish Republic" was not used to describe the state after the Free State was established.

Between 1921 and 1922, the legal rivals (in British law) of the Irish Republic were the states of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland which were created by the British Government of Ireland Act, 1920. The state of Southern Ireland was never effective, and the parliament met only once, in 1922, to elect the Provisional Government.

In many respects, the declared state had the function of an independent country, albeit one with unresolved issues. The influence of the Dáil did extend to most of Ireland, though not to the north-east of the island as this area was heavily Unionist and the Unionists did not recognise its authority.

In English, the revolutionary state was to be known as the 'Irish Republic' or, occasionally, the 'Republic of Ireland'. Two different Irish language titles were used: Poblacht na hÉireann and Saorstát Éireann, based on two competing Irish translations of the word republic: Poblacht and Saorstát. Poblacht was a derivation of pobail (people) and had the meaning of the Latin Res Publica. Saorstát, on the other hand, was a compound word based on two already existing Irish words: saor (meaning "free") and stát (a foreign loan word derived from the English "state"). Its direct, literal translation was "free state". A slight variant of the title, Saorstát na hÉireann, was also sometimes used in later days as was the Latin Respublica Hibernica.

The term Poblacht na hÉireann is the one used in the Easter Proclamation of 1916. However the Declaration of Independence and other documents adopted in 1919 eschew this title in favour of Saorstát Éireann.

When the Irish Free State was established at the end of the Anglo-Irish War, Saorstát Éireann was adopted as its official Irish title. However this Free State was not a republic but a form of constitutional monarchy within the British Empire. For this reason, since that time, the word saorstát has fallen out of use as a translation of republic. When the Irish state became The Republic of Ireland in 1949, for example, its official Irish description became Poblacht na hÉireann.

In 1916 nationalist rebels participating in the Easter Rising issued the Proclamation of the Republic. By this declaration they claimed to establish an independent state called the "Irish Republic" and proclaimed that the leaders of the rebellion would serve as the "Provisional Government of the Irish Republic" until it became possible to elect a national parliament. The Easter Rising was short-lived, largely limited to Dublin and, at the time it occurred, enjoyed little support from the Irish general public.

In the UK general election of 1918 candidates of the radical Sinn Féin party, including many who had participated in the 1916 rebellion, stood on a manifesto that committed the party to boycott the British Parliament and instead unilaterally establish a new Irish assembly in Dublin. Sinn Féin candidates won a large majority of seats, many uncontested, and in January 1919 gathered in the Mansion House in Dublin for the first meeting of Dáil Éireann. At this meeting the Dáil adopted the Irish Declaration of Independence. Because of the Easter Proclamation already adopted in 1916, the Dáil retrospectively ratified the establishment of the Irish Republic.

On the same day as the Declaration of Independence was issued two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary escorting a cartload of gelignite were killed at Soloheadbeg, in Tipperary, by members of the Irish Volunteers. This incident had not been ordered by the Dáil but the course of events soon drove the Dáil to recognise the Volunteers as the army of the Irish Republic, and so the Soloheadbeg incident became the opening incident of the Anglo-Irish War between the Irish Republic and Great Britain.

The leaders of the Easter Rising had proclaimed a republic. Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin organisation, which favoured the establishment of a form of dual monarchy between Ireland and Britain, had not taken part in the Rising. In 1917, Griffith's Sinn Féin and republicans under Éamon de Valera, came together to form the new Sinn Féin Party. A compromise was reached at the 1917 Ard Fheis (party conference), where it was agreed that the party would pursue the establishment of an independent republic in the short-term, until the Irish people could be given the opportunity to decide on the form of government they preferred. This agreement was subject to the condition that if the people chose monarchy, no member of the British royal family would be invited to serve as monarch.

The decision to establish a republic in 1919, rather than any other form of government, was significant because it amounted to a complete repudiation of all constitutional ties with Great Britain, and set the party against any compromise that might involve initial all-Ireland self-government under the Home Rule Act 1914 or continued membership of the British Empire. The volatile question of the Unionists of the northeast having long indicated that they would never participate in any form of a republic was left unresolved, the six northeastern counties remaining part of the United Kingdom under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and later the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

President of Dáil Éireann
Cathal Brugha (Jan–Apr 1919)
Éamon de Valera (1919 – Aug 1921)
President of the Republic
Éamon de Valera (Aug 1921 – Jan 1922)
President of Dáil Éireann
Arthur Griffith (Jan–Aug 1922)
W. T. Cosgrave (Aug–Dec 1922)
Office abolished December 1922
v t e

The central institution of the republic was Dáil Éireann, which convened itself as a unicameral parliament. While the First Dáil consisted of members elected in 1918, two further general elections conducted by the British government in Ireland were also treated by nationalists as elections to the Dáil. The Second Dáil comprised members returned in the 1921 elections for the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the temporary Parliament of Southern Ireland; the Third Dáil was elected in 1922 as the "provisional parliament" of "Southern Ireland", as provided for by the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

At its first meeting the Dáil adopted a brief, provisional constitution known as the Dáil Constitution. This vested executive authority in a cabinet called the "Aireacht" or "Ministry". The Aireacht was answerable to the Dáil which elected its head, known initially as the "Príomh Aire" or "prime minister". Later the English title President of Dáil Éireann also came to be used for the same post, especially during President de Valera's tour of the United States.

Initially, because of the division between republicans and monarchists, the Irish Republic had no explicit head of state. In August 1921, de Valera, standing for re-election as President of Dáil Éireann, had the Dáil rename the post to "President of the Republic", so that he would be regarded as the head of state.

The military branch of the Irish Republic were the Irish Volunteers who, shortly after the outbreak of the War of Independence, were renamed as the "Irish Republican Army" to reflect their status as the national army of the declared republic. Despite being theoretically under the command of the Dáil's Ministry, in practice individual IRA columns enjoyed a high level of autonomy.

The judicial arm of the Irish Republic consisted of a network of Dáil Courts administered by IRA officers, which at first operated in parallel with the British judicial system, and gradually came to supersede it as public opinion swung against the British. These were first established in June 1919.

The enforcement of law and the decrees of the Dáil Courts was vested in the Irish Republican Police.

Efforts by President de Valera in the United States, and the republic's "ambassador" at the Versailles Peace Conference, Sean T. O'Kelly, to win international recognition failed. O'Kelly had already established the Republic's "embassy" in Paris in April of 1919, and Dr. Pat McCartan set one up in Washington D.C. at the same time. Despite heavy lobbying from prominent Irish-Americans, President Woodrow Wilson refused to raise the Irish case at the conference. The only foreign recognition won for the Irish Republic occurred when the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, under Vladimir Lenin, borrowed money from Michael Collins' Ministry of Finance and paid it back in the Tsarist crown jewels. This was a short-lived boost to the more socialist side of the republican movement.

The Irish Republic was not recognised by the British government. In 1921 in accordance with Ulster unionist demands the British government passed an Act partitioning Ireland into two regions, called 'Southern Ireland' and Northern Ireland (the Government of Ireland Act, 1920), with their own parliaments which convened in June. Nationalists refused to recognise the authority of the British to do this.

When, in December 1921, the republic sent representatives to negotiate a truce with the government of David Lloyd George the Dáil commissioned them as "envoys plenipotentiary", acting under the authority of the President of the Republic. However Lloyd George refused to consider the negotiations as talks between two sovereign states, rather that the delegates were representing the Irish people. Furthermore, when the Anglo-Irish Treaty was concluded the British government insisted that it be submitted to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland for Irish ratification, rather than the Dáil (although in practice the membership of the two bodies was almost identical and it did so only on conclusion of the Dáil debate and vote). Although this was partly a face-saving measure, it was also due to the fact that it would not be recognised in UK law unless it was ratified by a British-recognised institution.

Finally, in the transitional period leading to the establishment of the Irish Free State, the British government transferred governance over Southern Ireland to an organ called the 'Provisional Government', rather than the Ministry of the Irish Republic. Again, this was designed to save British face and made no practical difference, as the bodies were one and the same.

By approving the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921 and the Constitution of the Irish Free State in October 1922 the Dáil temporarily agreed to the dissolution of the Irish Republic and its replacement with the system of constitutional monarchy of the Irish Free State.

In 1922 the Provisional Government came into being but the Irish Republic was not dismantled, rather its institutions continued to operate in parallel with those of the provisional authority. Thus, for a time, the Free State had (nominally) two heads of government, Michael Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government, and Arthur Griffith as President of the Republic. However the two administrations were progressively merged until in August, following the deaths of both Griffith and Collins, William T. Cosgrave assumed both leadership positions simultaneously and so the two most important offices effectively became one. On the 6th December 1922 the Constitution of the Irish Free State came into effect and the institutions of both the Irish Republic and the Provisional Government ceased to be.

The goal of those who established the Irish Republic was to create a de facto independent republic comprising the whole island of Ireland. They failed in this goal, but the Irish Republic paved the way for the creation of the Irish Free State, a British Commonwealth dominion with self-government, and a territory that extended to the 26 counties originally foreseen in the 1914 Home Rule Act. By 1949 the Free State became a fully independent republic, the 'Republic of Ireland'.

Speaking in the Dáil on 29th April, 1997 Bertie Ahern, the leader of the Fianna Fáil party, which is the successor of the anti-treaty Sinn Féin, and the then Taoiseach (head of government) John Bruton, leader of the Fine Gael party, which is the successor of the pro-Treaty Sinn Féin, agreed that as a basis for inclusive commemoration, the date from which Irish independence should be measured was not the formation of the Irish Republic in 1919, but the 1922 establishment of the Irish Free State, the first modern Irish state to achieve de facto independence and international recognition.

Since the Civil War of 1922-1923 the Irish Republic has been an important symbol for radical republicans. The Civil War began in June 1922 when both Sinn Féin and the IRA split between those pragmatists, who supported the Treaty, and those hardline republicans who opposed the compromises it contained. In particular the anti-Treaty faction objected to the continued role in the Irish constitution that would be granted to the British monarch under the Irish Free State. When the Dáil ratified the Treaty its opponents of the agreement walked out, arguing that the Dáil was attempting to 'destroy' the Irish Republic, and that its members had no right to do so. After the Irish electorate voted in a majority of pro-Treaty candidates to the Dáil, Éamon de Valera declared that "the people have no right to do wrong."

Opponents of the Treaty refused to recognise either the Provisional Government or, when it was established, the Irish Free State, insisting that the Irish Republic continued to exist as a de jure entity. The anti-treaty faction also refused to recognise the Third Dáil, as the Second Dáil had never met to dissolve itself. Republicans therefore considered the Third Dáil, and all future institutions arising from it, as illegal.

The anti-Treaty side was defeated in the Civil War. Most militant opposition to the Free State came to an end on May 24 1923 when Frank Aiken, chief-of-staff of the IRA issued the order to "dump arms" and Eamon de Valera issued his address "Legion of the Rearguard". Éamon de Valera continued as president of the Sinn Fein political party. In March 1926, Éamon de Valera, along with most anti-Treaty politicians, founded a new party called 'Fianna Fáil' and ended their boycott of the institutions of the Free State. Nonetheless a hard-line minority continued to reject the legitimacy of the Free State and its successor, the Republic of Ireland. Most importantly, the Provisional IRA (PIRA), which conducted a campaign of bombings and shootings in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s until 1998, and its political wing, the modern Sinn Féin party, used to insist that the Irish Republic was still legally in existence, with the IRA as its national army, and the IRA Army Council Ireland's sole legitimate government. These views are also held by other radical groups such as the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA. As of 2005, the Provisional IRA continue to use the title Oglaigh na hÉireann (lit. Volunteers of Ireland), the official Irish title for the Republic of Ireland's armed forces.

1. In order to avoid the implication that the Republic of Ireland extends to the whole island of Ireland, some journalists and politicians refer to the modern Republic of Ireland as the "Irish Republic". Others simply use the term as a colloquial shorthand. However, as a title for the modern state, Irish Republic is incorrect. The "Ireland Act 1949" (a UK Act of Parliament) provides for the use of "Republic of Ireland" as a substitute for "Éire" in United Kingdom for official purposes. The term "Irish Republic" has no international legal status today. Irish embassies will accept credentials addressed to "The Embassy of Ireland" or "The Embassy of the Republic of Ireland", but not "The Embassy of the Irish Republic". Continued use of the term also suggests acceptance of the Sinn Féin position that Anglo-Irish Treaty was invalid and that the revolutionary republic still exists.

• Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins (Hutchinson, 1990) ISBN 0091741068
• Tim Pat Coogan, Eamon de Valera (Hutchinson, 1993) ISBN 009175030X
• R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600–1972
• Joseph Lee, The Modernisation of Irish Society
• F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine
• Lord Longford, Peace by Ordeal
• Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic
• Earl of Middleton, Ireland: Dupe or Heroine?
• Arthur Mitchell & Pádraig Ó Snodaigh, Irish Political Documents 1916–1949
• John A. Murphy, Ireland in the Twentieth Century

• History of Ireland (1801-1922)
• History of the Republic of Ireland
• Names of the Irish state

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