Commonwealth

The Irish Free State became a dominion in the Commonwealth under the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. The Irish treaty negotiators neither desired nor were pleased with the new state's status. It was an improvement on Home Rule as enacted in the Government of Ireland Act (1920), but was hardly the independent Irish republic proclaimed in Dublin at Easter 1916. Although the Irish Free State would have the same status as the other dominions (Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand), it was different because whereas they had evolved from colonies to dominion status, the Free State was the first dominion created through a treaty. It did not see itself as a colony evolving toward statehood or as a new state created by a treaty. Ireland was an historic European nation and a mother country in its own right.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty redefined the entire Commonwealth by loosening the bonds of empire on the dominions. The use of the term treaty in the Irish settlement of 1921 (or more correctly, "Articles of Agreement for a Treaty") was a breakthrough as it implied an agreement between two sovereign independent states. Britain contended that the Commonwealth was a single international unit and that international treaties between its members were not possible. Relations between the members of the Commonwealth (inter se relations) were not therefore international relations. With its very title, the Anglo-Irish Treaty set a precedent for the international independence of the dominions. So too, much to Britain's annoyance, did its registration with the League of Nations as an international treaty in July 1924.

The Irish Free State constitution of 1922 was also a defining document in the evolution of the Commonwealth. All powers of government in the Free State were derived from the people of Ireland and not from the Crown, as in, for example, Canada. The governor general, the king's representative, had fewer powers in the Free State than in Canada. The supremacy of the Irish national courts over the Privy Council in London was all but explicitly defined in the constitution.

For the Free State, the evolving nature of dominion status would vindicate Michael Collins's interpretation of the treaty as a stepping-stone to a republic. The government of W. T. Cosgrave intended to remove the restrictions imposed by dominion status and to ensure that the Free State had full and unrestricted domestic and international sovereignty. The Irish Free State sought to transform the Commonwealth into an association of independent states.

Coming straight from Ireland's admission to the League of Nations in Geneva, the Irish delegation to the 1923 imperial conference—a periodic meeting of the prime ministers and senior ministers of the various nations of the Commonwealth to discuss matters they had in common—followed a reformist agenda. The Free State had joined the League in September 1923 not as a dominion, but as Saorstát Éireann (Irish Free State), an overt expression of the Free State's international independence. The Irish were the newcomers to the imperial conference, but they were immediate participants, seeking to break down notions of imperial unity and opposing any move toward a united-empire foreign policy. Free State delegates argued against the imperial conference gaining any executive or legislative function. To them the triennial conference was purely a consultative forum.

The appointment of Timothy Smiddy as Irish minister to the United States in October 1924 marked another precedent in the international evolution of the dominions. For the first time, a dominion was represented separately from Britain in a foreign capital. The breakthrough meant that dominions could now be seen as individual international actors, and notions of imperial unity were further weakened.

For the 1926 imperial conference the Irish fielded a strong delegation, with Minister for Home Affairs Kevin O'Higgins the leading figure. The issues most important to the Irish were tackled in the meeting of the Committee on Inter-Imperial Relations. The discussion resulted in the Balfour Declaration, which laid down that dominions were "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations" (Harkness 1969, p. 96). This declaration ensured the international coequality of the dominions, an issue that had been at the heart of Irish Commonwealth policy since 1923. Having achieved co-equality (for all), the Free State was the most radical and forward-looking of the dominions.

In the late 1920s Irish diplomats insisted that individual dominions had the right to control their own foreign affairs and that the Free State could not be bound by British-negotiated treaties. The Free State argued the right to appoint plenipotentiaries and to negotiate, sign, and ratify treaties in its own right. These rights were first exercised by the Free State in 1928 over the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war as means of pursuing international relations. From that point on, the king would sign treaties negotiated by Ireland not as the British monarch, but as the king of Ireland.

At the 1930 imperial conference the Free State achieved its greatest success in the Statute of Westminster (1931), which allowed dominions to repeal acts of the British Parliament that referred to them and that they found repugnant. For the Irish, it allowed the repeal of the 1921 Treaty, but W. T. Cosgrave gave his word to the British government that this would not occur.

Nineteen-thirty-one saw another important Irish Commonwealth precedent: Britain had clung desperately to the notion of a single-empire great seal. In January 1931 the executive council advised the king to sign a treaty of commerce and navigation with Portugal and for it to be authenticated with the new great seal of the Irish Free State. This was effected in March 1931, removing another area of British interference in the affairs of the Irish Free State.

As the 1930s began, the Commonwealth policy of the Free State's ruling party, Cumann na nGaedheal, was evolving along lines later followed by Fianna Fáil. After the 1930 imperial conference the Irish contemplated removing the right of appeal to the Privy Council, and also considered introducing a separate Irish nationality act that created a distinct Irish citizenship. Cumann na nGaedheal also considered repealing the much disliked oath of allegiance to the Crown, but preliminary negotiations with the British failed. (Removal of the oath became one of the issues on which Fianna Fáil successfully campaigned for election in 1932.) By the time that Fianna Fáil came to power the Free State's most activist years in the Commonwealth were over. Ireland attended the Ottawa Economic Conference in 1932, but her concerns were more with Anglo-Irish relations. Building on the achievements of Cumann na nGaedheal, Fianna Fáil removed the right of appeal to the Privy Council, abolished the oath of allegiance, introduced a separate Irish nationality act, and abolished the office of the governor general. Fianna Fáil's most important act relating to the Commonwealth was the 1936 External Relations Act. Introduced during the abdication of Edward VIII, the act made the Free State an internal republic within the Commonwealth for domestic matters and left the state associated with the Commonwealth through the Crown for external affairs. The British monarch would continue to sign the credentials of Irish diplomats and Ireland would remain in the Commonwealth.

By the end of the 1930s, Ireland's active participation with the Commonwealth was almost over. An Irish delegation did not attend the 1937 imperial conference. The 1921 treaty was replaced by a new constitution in 1937. A president replaced the monarch as head of state for internal matters. India, Pakistan, Burma, and Britain's former colonies in Africa closely examined Irish dominion and commonwealth policy in the 1920s and 1930s as they sought independence in the 1940s and 1950s. Ireland's final act in the Commonwealth was to leave it following the repeal of the 1936 External Relations Act in 1948 and the declaration of an Irish republic in 1949.

Commonwealth

Bibliography