Political region created in 1921 and abolished in 1922
Southern Ireland
(
Irish
:
Deisceart Eireann
,
pronounced
[d???c???t??
?eː???n??]
) was the larger of the two parts of
Ireland
that were created when Ireland was
partitioned
by the
Government of Ireland Act 1920
. It comprised 26 of the 32
counties of Ireland
or about five-sixths of the area of the island, whilst the remaining six counties, which occupied most of
Ulster
in the north of the island, formed
Northern Ireland
.
[1]
Southern Ireland included
County Donegal
, despite it being the largest county in Ulster and the most northerly county in all of Ireland.
The Act of 1920, which became effective on 3 May 1921, was intended to create two self-governing territories within Ireland, each with its own parliament and governmental institutions, and both remaining within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
. It also contained provisions for co-operation between the two territories and for the eventual reunification of Ireland. However, in the
1921 elections
for Southern Ireland's House of Commons,
Sinn Fein
candidates won 124 of the 128 seats (all candidates were unopposed and no actual polling occurred), and ignored the parliament, assembling instead as the
Second Dail
.
[2]
The
Parliament of Southern Ireland
?consisting of the four
unionist
members?met only once.
[3]
Continuing
unrest
resulted in the
Anglo-Irish Treaty
and the
Provisional Government
, which administered Southern Ireland from 16 January 1922 to 5 December 1922: effectively a
transitional administration
for the period between the
ratifying
of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State. Its legitimacy was disputed by the Anti-Treaty delegates to
Dail Eireann
.
Southern Ireland, as a political entity, was superseded by the
Irish Free State
on 6 December 1922 (which later became the fully independent state of
Ireland
from 1937 with the adoption of its own constitution).
[4]
Home Rule and Partition
[
edit
]
The Government of Ireland Act 1920, also known as the Fourth Home Rule Act, was intended to provide a solution to the problem that had bedevilled
Irish politics
since the 1880s, namely the conflicting demands of
Irish unionists
and
nationalists
. Nationalists wanted a form of
home rule
, believing that Ireland was poorly served by
Parliament
at
Westminster
, the
British Government
at
Whitehall
and the
Irish government
at
Dublin Castle
. Many unionists feared that a nationalist government in Dublin would impose tariffs that would unduly burden the north-eastern counties of the province of
Ulster
, which were not only predominantly
Protestant
but also the only industrial area of a largely agricultural island. They also feared a nationalist government
would discriminate
against Protestants after gaining political power. Unionists bought and imported arms and assorted weapons from German arms dealer Bruno Spiro
[5]
and established the
Ulster Volunteer Force
(UVF) to prevent Home Rule in Ulster.
[6]
In response to this, nationalists also imported arms and established the
Irish Volunteers
.
Partition
, which was introduced by the Government of Ireland Act, was intended as a temporary solution, allowing Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland to be governed separately as regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. One of those most opposed to this partition settlement was the leader of Irish unionism, Dublin-born
Sir Edward Carson
, who felt that it was wrong to divide Ireland in two, and felt this would badly affect the position of southern and western unionists.
Government of Ireland Act 1920
[
edit
]
The Government of Ireland Act, passed at the end of December 1920, envisaged that Southern Ireland would have the following institutions:
[7]
It was also envisaged that Southern Ireland would share the following institutions with
Northern Ireland
:
1921 parliamentary elections
[
edit
]
While Northern Ireland did become a functioning entity, with a parliament and government that existed until 1972, Southern Ireland's Parliament, although established legally, never functioned (for example, it never passed an Act). The
House of Commons of Southern Ireland
met just once with only four members present. An
Irish Republic
had been proclaimed by the parliament known as
Dail Eireann
, formed by
Sinn Fein
Members of Parliament
(MPs) elected from Ireland in the United Kingdom
general election of 1918
.
Parliamentary elections
in Ireland, effected by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, were held during May 1921. The first general election to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland in 1921, and the simultaneous general election to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, was used by Sinn Fein to produce a single extrajudicial parliament, the
Second Dail
. In the Southern Ireland constituencies Sinn Fein won 124 of the 128 seats, all without contest, while in the contested elections in Northern Ireland constituencies it secured six of the 52 seats, another six going to non-Sinn Fein nationalists. (The other four Southern seats were won by
Unionists
from
Dublin
and the
Dublin University
constituency, who along with the forty Unionists elected in the North refused to participate with the Second Dail.) When the new Parliament of Southern Ireland was called into session on 28 June 1921, only the four Unionist members of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, and a few appointed senators, arrived in the
Royal College of Science
in Dublin, where the meeting was scheduled to occur; most of the other members met elsewhere as the Dail.
Treaty and Free State
[
edit
]
The
Anglo-Irish Treaty
was further ratified for the Irish on 14 January 1922 by "a meeting summoned for the purpose [of approving the Treaty] of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland".
[9]
The treaty, in specifying a "meeting of members", did not state that the treaty needed to be approved by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland as such. 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, by 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
established by 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 began office two days later when
Michael Collins
became Chairman of the Provisional Government. Collins assumed charge of Dublin Castle at a ceremony attended by Lord FitzAlan. The new government was not an institution of Southern Ireland as provided by the Government of Ireland Act. Instead, it was a government established by 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 nature derived from 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
, dissolved the Parliament of Southern Ireland and by proclamation called "a Parliament to be known as and styled the Provisional Parliament".
[10]
From that date, the Parliament of Southern Ireland ceased to exist. With the establishment of the
Irish Free State
on 6 December 1922 by the terms of the treaty, Southern Ireland ceased to exist.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Jackson, Alvin (2003).
Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800?2000
. Oxford University Press. pp.
198
?9.
ISBN
019522048X
. Retrieved
1 February
2015
.
- ^
Rubinstein, William D. (2003).
Twentieth-Century Britain: A Political History
. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 120.
ISBN
023062913X
.
Archived
from the original on 16 September 2021
. Retrieved
5 April
2015
.
- ^
Ward, Alan J (1994).
The Irish Constitutional Tradition. Responsible Government and Modern Ireland 1782?1922
. Catholic University Press of America. pp. 103?110.
ISBN
0-8132-0793-2
.
- ^
Keane, Ronan, "Ireland", in
Blom-Cooper, Louis; Dickson, Brice; Drewry, Drewry, eds. (2009).
The Judicial House of Lords: 1876?2009
. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 298?9.
ISBN
978-0191029530
.
Archived
from the original on 25 September 2021
. Retrieved
1 February
2015
.
- ^
Geoffrey Lewis,
Carson: The Man Who Divided Ireland
Archived
1 December 2017 at the
Wayback Machine
, p. 148
- ^
Joseph McKenna,
Guerrilla Warfare in the Irish War of Independence, 1919?1921
Archived
10 December 2015 at the
Wayback Machine
, p. 3
- ^
"Government of Ireland Act 1920 (as assented to)"
.
bailii.org
.
Archived
from the original on 23 September 2015
. Retrieved
29 January
2008
.
- ^
Austen Morgan, Belfast Agreement, pg. 34 wherein the author notes: "One all-Ireland institution ? the High Court of Appeal for Ireland in section 38 [of the
1920 Act
? did exist briefly.
- ^
Anglo-Irish Treaty
Archived
8 November 2017 at the
Wayback Machine
.
- ^
Macardle (1999), p718 and
DCU Website.
Archived
12 February 2012 at the
Wayback Machine