Provisional Government of Southern Ireland
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The Provisional Government of Southern Ireland was, in British law, the transitional government of Southern Ireland in 1922 from the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty to the creation of the Irish Free State. This Government is occasionally referred to (incorrectly, because its jurisdiction did not extend to Northern Ireland) as the Provisional Government of Ireland (Rialtas Sealadach na hÉireann in Irish) and confused with the revolutionary Provisional Government of the Irish Republic. "Provisional Government of Ireland" was the term preferred and used by the administration itself.
[edit] Overview
Under the Irish Republic's Dáil Constitution adopted in 1919, Dáil Éireann continued to exist after it had ratified the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In protest at the ratification, De Valera resigned the presidency of the Dáil then sought re-election from among its members (to clarify his mandate), but Arthur Griffith defeated him in the vote and assumed the presidency. (Griffith called himself President of Dáil Éireann rather than de Valera's more exalted President of the Republic.)
However that government or Aireacht had no legal status in British constitutional law, so another co-existent titular government needed to be assembled to enable legal transfer of power under the British Act, in theory answerable to the (moribund) House of Commons of Southern Ireland.
Most of the Dáil Ministers became concurrently Ministers of this Provisional Government. Michael Collins became Chairman of the Provisional Government (i.e. prime minister). He also remained Minister for Finance of Griffith's republican administration. An example of the complexities involved can be seen even in the manner of his installation. In theory he was a Crown-appointed prime minister, installed under the Royal Prerogative. To be so installed, he had to formally meet the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent (the head of the British administration in Ireland). According to republican history, Collins met Fitzalan to accept the surrender of Dublin Castle, the seat of British government in Ireland. According to British constitutional theory, he met Fitzalan to 'kiss hands' (the formal name for the installation of a minister of the Crown), the fact of their meeting rather than the signing of any documents, duly installing him in office.
Anti-treatyites, having opposed the Treaty in the Dáil, withdrew from the assembly and, having formed an opposition "republican government" under Éamon de Valera, began a campaign that led to the Irish Civil War. By mid-1922, Collins in effect laid down his responsibilities as President of the Provisional Government to become Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, a formal structured uniformed army that formed around the pro-Treaty IRA. As part of those duties, he travelled to his native County Cork. En route home on August 22, 1922, at Béal na mBláth (an Irish language placename that means 'the Mouth of Flowers'), he was killed in an ambush, probably by a ricocheting bullet. He was 31 years old.
After Collins' and Griffith's deaths in August 1922, W.T. Cosgrave became both Chairman of the Provisional Government and President of Dáil Éireann, and the distinction between the two posts became irrelevant. In December 1922, both Southern Ireland and the Irish Republic were replaced by the Irish Free State, with executive authority nominally vested in the King, but exercised by a cabinet called the Executive Council, presided over by a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council.
[edit] List of ministers
[edit] See also
- Government of Ireland Act 1920
- Provisional Government of the Irish Republic (1918-1922)
- Provisional government
| The Irish Free State (1922–1937) |
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Anglo-Irish Treaty | Provisional Government | Constitution of the Irish Free State | Statute of Westminster | Great Seal of the Irish Free State | Monarchy in the Irish Free State |
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Executive |
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Legislative: |
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Judiciary |
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Other topics: General elections: 1922 | 1923 | 1927 (June) | 1927 (Sept) 1932 | 1933 | 1937 |
