Anglo-Irish Treaty - Ratification

Ratification

Under the terms of the treaty, it required ratification by the UK Parliament and by a "meeting" in Ireland.

1. The British House of Commons did so on 16 December 1921 by a vote of 401 to 58. On the same day the House of Lords voted in favour by 166 to 47.
2. In addition the treaty required the approval of "a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland". This wording was interpreted on the Irish side as "a meeting" open to those who had been successful in the elections to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, which under British constitutional theory was the only "lawful" parliament of the twenty-six county state called Southern Ireland created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Of the 128 members so elected (all unopposed) in May 1921, the 124 Sinn Féin candidates refused to sit in the Commons, which consequently had never functioned. They instead formed (along with Northern representatives) an alternative all-Ireland parliamentary assembly, the "Second Dáil", which had already approved the new Treaty after nine days of public debate on 7 January 1922, by a vote of 64 to 57.

The "meeting" called for ratification on 14 January 1922 was thus of somewhat ambiguous status, not being convened or conducted in accordance with the procedures established for the House of Commons, nor being declared a session of Dáil Éireann. Anti-Treaty members of the Dáil stayed away, meaning only pro-treaty members and the four elected unionists (who had never sat in Dáil Éireann) attended the meeting. Those assembled overwhelmingly ratified the Treaty, nominated Michael Collins for appointment as Chairman of the Provisional Government and immediately dispersed with no parliamentary business taking place. This was the nearest that the House of Commons of Southern Ireland ever came to functioning; no other meeting ever took place, but the vote on 14 January, in strict compliance with the Treaty wording, allowed the British authorities to maintain that the legal niceties had been observed.

On 11 July 1924, the treaty was registered at the League of Nations by the Irish Free State.