Southern Ireland - Treaty and Free State

Treaty and Free State

The Anglo-Irish Treaty was further ratified on the Irish side on 14 January 1922 by "a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland" The Treaty, in specifying a "meeting of members", did not say that the Treaty needed to be approved by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland as such. The difference is subtle but was fully grasped by those who entered the Treaty. Hence, when that "meeting" was convened, it was convened by Arthur Griffith in his capacity as "Chairman of the Irish Delegation of Plenipotentiaries" (who had signed the Treaty). Notably, it was not convened by Viscount FitzAlan, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, was the office-holder with the entitlement to convene a meeting of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland.

The Provisional Government of Southern Ireland envisaged under the Treaty was constituted on 14 January 1922 at the above-mentioned meeting of members of the Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland. It took up office two days later when Michael Collins became Chairman of the Provisional Government. Collins took charge of Dublin Castle at a ceremony attended by Lord FitzAlan. The new Government was not an institution of Southern Ireland as envisaged under the Government of Ireland Act. Instead, it was a Government established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and was a necessary transitional entity before the establishment of the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922.

Southern Ireland was self-governing but was not a sovereign state. Its constitutional roots remained the Acts of Union, two complementary Acts, one passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, the other by the Parliament of Ireland.

On 27 May 1922 (some months before the establishment of the Irish Free State) Lord FitzAlan, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in accordance with the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922 formally dissolved the Parliament of Southern Ireland and by proclamation called "a Parliament to be known as and styled the Provisional Parliament". From that date, the Parliament of Southern Ireland itself ceased to exist. With the establishment of the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922 under the terms of the Treaty, Southern Ireland ceased to exist.