Irish history Synopsis: Creating the Republic

Irish History Synopsis: Creating the Republic

After the War came to an end the world recovered from its inicial euforia. A realization of the terrible cost of the walking dead, refugees, survivors, soldiers, children, old people, death and starvation stalked the continent.
Fighting continued unabated in the Pacific until the Atom Bombs, Little Boy and Fat Boy brought the Japanese God Hirohito to accept the terms of surrender and sue for peace.

The world, was as Sean O Faolain put it, 'dulled, bewildered deflated'.
Anger, vengance and sadness mingled together in the air.
A sence of callous consern ,mingled with a desire to scream.
But all carried on.

The governments released price controls and prices rose.
The governments released rent controls. Rents rose.
Petrol became available.
Unused vehicles began a slow pace across the unused roads.

The Fiana Fail government applied in 1946 for membership in the United Nations. This was blocked by the Soviet Union and Ireland was not admitted till 1955.

The rural population of Ireland did not return.
An urban idea had been planted in the minds of the young.
They wanted Things, Joy for the Future.

Those who had jobs overseas retained them.
Emigration continued.

The Irish Women Wokers Union called a strike for better hours and a week holiday for laundry workers.
Fiana Fail was intent on backing the employers against these demands.
Lemass refused the strikers permits to go to Great Britain for work.
However, the labor unions backed the strikers and after a long strike the employers finally conceded a fortnight holiday and shorter hours.

Following this settlement. 1000 farm labourers went out asking for a 48 hour week and a 14 shilling wage increase.
They asked farm products be boycotted by shoppers and overturned trucks full of market bound goods. Tyres were punctured.
Finaly the big farmers accepted the worker demand of a 48 hour week and a weeks holiday and a higher wage rate.

In 1946 teachers struck for higher wages.
FF resisted this strike.

Many of the FF TD's had passionate feelings for the teachers especially those representing rural districts where teachers were held in high respect and in high social status and influence.
At the Ard Feis in October resolutions were introduced to arbitrate the strike but the Cabininte held on and the teachers at the urging of Archbishop McQuaid ,returned to work with no gains.

In August of '46, 600 labourers struck, demanding benefits.
The farmers fought back by sending 'flying columns' from other areas brought in to break the stike and save the harvest.
The Garda had to be called out to protect the strike breakers.
The Catholic Standard claimed the strikers were 'Red' and attempting to create class warfare in the countryside.
The laborers however held out creating the FRW [ Federation of Rural Workers] of 17,000 workers by 1947.

Inflation took hold rising some 31%.
FF raised consumer taxes and removed the sur tax on profits.
Strikes became common with some 89% of the unions income spent on these work stoppages.

The Irish worker was angry and discontent.

A flour mill threat of strike in May '47 caused FF and the Cabinet to threaten iniciation of an Emergency under the Special Powers Act of 1926.

The Dial upheld this request and three days later the Cabinet were given powers to prohibit participants in anys strike or lock out, in effect barring strikes.
Defiance was met with a daily fine and prison for 6 months at hard labour for the union officials.Irish Unions] caused the flour mill strik to be called off.

Road and turf workers went on strike against fixed wages imposed by FF at farm labor rates.
Ff seemed to uphold an idyllic view of a rural worker being maintained in his cottage frugally providing for himself by his thrifty use of the plot around his cottage.

These rural workers were not allowed to be employed at a wage higher than the farmers were willing to pay so the farmers could obtain for their use the best men.
This system is exactly the system used in rural life prior to the Famine where tenants lived idylicly in their cottages on the estate providing for their family with the thrifty produce of their plot of land.

The Bog workers continued a sit in against Bord na Mona until a wage increase was won.
Road workers struck.
The insurance workers struck Irish Life.
Dublin wholesale drug trades struck.

In September of '47 the bus workers struck, 2500 strong ,demanding a 40 hour work week and a 30 shilling wage increase.

The new ATGWU [Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union] competed with the old ITGWU for loyalty of the many strike factors.









republic pg 2

ESB [Electrictiy Suppy Board] workers struck.
Irish Railwaymens union wanted a two day general strike against government policies.
the Irish Times printed in 1947 that Irish society was 'drifting toward anarchy'. Farmers and others feared the tide of communism which was seen as being harbored in such organizations.
The Federal Union of Employers denounced Moscow, the World Federation of Free Trade Unions, the United Nations and International Labor organzations as 'fanning the flames of class war'.

By October '47 a by election with candidates from a new party Clann na Poblachta founded by Sean McBride ex IRA chief of Staff, combined a new republican effort with old Fiana Fail Republicanism united with
Coras na Poblacta ,lead by Simon Donnelly and Sean Dowling, a party of old systems republicanizm, which saw FF as a bertrayal of the IRA and Fine Gael as a hated pro treaty faction.
Clann na Poblachta won the Dublin seat at the bi election and continued to win support calling for social reform and old radical republicanism.
The party however did not live up to its social reform rhetoric in practice.

FF had been in power for 15 years. Along with its hostility towards union action for workers scandals were frequent. The party and government members were accused of fraudulantly selling whiskey ,had plans for taking over the Great Southern Railway,was implicated in bacon sales fraud to the army.These scandals weakened FF's position in the eyes of the voters.
An October '47 supplimental budget introducing new taxes further weaked the FF votor perception of its consern for them.
Prices remained high with a ractionary protest mounted by housewives associations.

Emmigration continued.

In the general election of February 1948 FF retained only 68 seats.
The election Act of 1947 had increased constituancies from 34 to 40.
The new vote went to Clann na Poblachta which won 10 seats.

Because of proprtional representation FF could not form an independant government.
A coalition of parties resisted helping de Valera form a new governement.
Fine GAel, Labour, National Labor, Clann na Poblachta, Clann na Talmhan [Farmers Party]
and Independants, united. Their combined parties represented right, center, left and extremist views amalgamated against the constitutinal Sinn Fein radicalism represnted by Fianna Fail.
This amalgamation of parties rather than form a governemnt with FF formed in 1948-49 an Inter Party government which united the right Fine Gael with the left radical Clann na Poblachta and the Labor parties formerly linked to Fianna Fail.
Rank and file were against forming a government with Labour.
The ITGWU threw in with the Interparty coalition forces.

In early autum 1948 legislation was put before the Dial to repeal the 1936 External Affairs Act which had put Ireland in the Commonwealth of Nations and abolished the Crown of England as head of state.

FF opposed the legislation to create Eire[ or as they tendered it the Free State] a Republic on grounds that breaking the commonwealth link would make reintigration of the partitioned 6 counties harder.

During this period the new PM of Erie John Costello traveled to Canada to attend a state dinner and make a speech before the Canadian Bar Association in Ottowa.
On Sept 1 1948 Costello spoke declaring the 1936 External Relations Act as full of inacuracies and infirmities.

A mystery surrounds this announcement out of the blue in a foregin country as to why this announcement was made.

There have been contradictory statements made over the years including FG memiors as to his motivation in making his declaration before the world audience
before the legislation was presented in the Dial.
Some believed his wife had been insulted by the Premier at a state dinner or that he hismself had been angered by a snub by the Premier MacKensie King in offering a toast to the King but none to his guest from Eire.

As the hard core republicans had been advocting a republc for years it is just as sensible to believe that a deal had been made between FG and the Inter Party coalition about to take power to complete the national desire of the 1916 Easter Proclamation.

The new Inter Party Dial met on February 18, 1949 with John A Costello, former Attorney General for Cumman na nGaedheal as Taoiseach with Norton of Labour Taniste;
Sean Mc Bride Clann na Pblachta External Affairs

Five Ministrys were in the control of FG, Finance, Justice, Industry and Commerce, Education and Defence.
When the extrnal relations /reubublic legislation was finaly passed with FF support and the new Republic was proclaimed on April 18 1949, Easter.
De Valera stayed away from the flag raising cerimony at the General Post Office to innagurate the Republic stating his objection to the new state being declared for only 26 counties of the Free State not all Ireland.

As soon as the Republic was offically declared and the new nation taken out of the commonwealth the British Parliament passed its own Ireland Act preserving the right of the north to remain in the UK unless its Parliament of North Ireland consented to join the Republic.

The measure was passed by Parliament in 3 days and recieved the Royal Assent. George VI sent a personal message to the Irish governement wishing the Republic well.

This provision to uphold the unionist Stormont Parliament right to retain partition caused much consern in the new southern Republic which accused the English Labour government of 'maintaining British occupation'.

The Imperial Parliament extended British citizenship to the Irish as a non foreign people. Britsh citizenship was still a right of the Irish nation both north and south.


Sean T O Kelly who had been elected President of Eire in 1945 ,replacing Douglas Hyde who had been elected when the state of Erie was creatd in 1937, became the first President of the new Republic of Ireland and remained so until 1959.
The Presidents resided in the old Vice Regal House in Phoenix Park in the north of Dublin which is still used by government as the offical residence of the President of Ireland called in irish
Aras an Uachtarain.

Judi Donnelly
Copyright October 2 2007


sourses: Fiana Fail and Irish Labor, Kieran Allan, Pluto Press 1997
Ireland Since the Rising, TP Coogan, Frederick Praeger Publishing, 1966
Wikipedia Internet Encyclopdia

Irish History synopsis: The emergency 1940-1945

Irish History Synospsis: The Emergency 1939-1945


In 1939 a series of diruptive bombings started by the IRA against England continued throught the summer, with intent to inspire great Britain to withdraw from the north.
Attempts at German contacts were kept up.
Birmingham, Manchester and London were bombed along with Kings Cross and Victory Station being heavy targets.

Over 127 bombs were exploded since January 6, 1939.

The IRA sent an ultimatime to Lord Halifax,British Foreign Secretary by the IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell demanding Great Britain withdraw her troops, her civil officials and representatives from all Irleand.
This ultimatum was followed with a boming campaign with Wales and Scotland being excluded.
In order to secure funds for the operation Russell had gone to the US to seek money from the Clan Na Gael when he made world headlines when Roosevelt locked him up in Detroit Michigan for the duration of the visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth.
He was released after they left and after protest by 76 Congressman on his behalf.

When his visa expired in 1940 he was forced to leave the US or be deported.
Not wishing to return to Ireland and be interned at the Curragh arrangments were made through Admiral Canaris to smuggle him to Genoa and than to Germany where he arrived in Berlin on May 3 1940.

While he was out of Ireland, Stephen Hayes was acting Chief of Staff.

On August 24 1939 10 days before WW2 began a bomb placed at Coventry Gardens killed 5 and wounded 70.
This explosion outraged the public as it had been placed ,not with a designated target, but a group of innocnet shoppers.
Two men were charged Barnes and McCormick who hung in February 1940.
The IRA claimed both were innocent and not invlovd in the operation.
One hundred men of Irish decent were sumarily deported from England and sent home.


In June of 1939 the Offenses Against the State Bill was passed by the Dial and put into ooperation. The Curragh internment camp was opened.

On December 23 1939 the Magazine Fort of Phoenix Park ,Dublin housing the arms and amunition of the government of Eire Army was raided by the IRA.
1800 rounds of amuntion was taken.
Most of this was recovered with intense searches by the goverment and IRA personnel were arrested and intered en mass.

The day after Germany attacked Poland on 1 September 1939 the Eire Dial declared nutrality for the duration.
De Valera declared the Irish nation should look to its own interests no matter what individuals felt for the combatant nations.
Neutrality was hightly accepted among the Irish populous.

Churchhill and England did not approve.

Poland,with its antiquated calvery forces,was totally unable to resist the German panzer corps and air war and was subdued within 2 weeks with a September 16 eastern strike by Stalin's Russia the nation was again obliterated from the map.
The Polish government fled to England where it remained a government in exile for the duration of the war as did the governmnet of Norway.

Besides Ireland ,Spain, Portugal,Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Turkey and Paraguay declared Nutrality.
Belgium and Holland attemted nutrality but were overrun by German forces along with France in 1940.

After Dunkirk 50,000 Irishmen volunteered for the British Army.

The North State also declared itself neutral at Stormont in January 1940 and created the Emergency Powers Act with a prison ship in Lock Neagh[ the Maidstone]
100 supporters but not members of the IRA were locked up.

The IR however continued to apply the theory that Englands difficulty was Ireland's opportunity and sporatic outbreaks were carried out every year from 1940-1946.
Shooting , executions, hunger strikes, prison breaks took place.
26 IRA men were killed in this period.
The police were always considered the enemy.

The IRA retained a radio transmitter during the early war years and regularly transmitted its message at tea time.

The worste the IRA organizartion could have expected from either the south government or the north was internemnt for the wars duration, however they continued their operations where possible, having no orders from their headquarters otherwise except to avoid contact with German agents.

In August 1940 German Foreign Mininster Ribbentrop gave his approval to send the 2 Irishmen, Russell of the IRA and Ryan of the former IRA, back to Ireland on the U boat Wilhelmshaven under Admiral Doenitz special mission.
Just 100 miles off the Galway coast Russell died in Frank Ryans arms of a perforated ulcer.The boat returned to Germany with Ryan.
This death placed the IRA command in the hands of Stephen Hayes already acting commander of the force.

pg 2

The Irish countryside began to empty for urban life and jobs in England in the war production plants.
Isolation had begun to be felt along wih shortages.
The government enacted stringent measures rationing petrol, sugar, bread, butter and other daily necessities.
Exports ceased of luxury goods from overseas ports.

Rural life in general was regected as farmers's sons moved on to war work or joined the British Army.
English became the language most sought after as it was needed for jobs or for the military service.
The Gaelteach shrunk once again.
Reading was done in English publications.
O Faolain's Bell periodical was begin in 1940 critical of the governemnts isolationism and encouraging the opening of Irleand to the world.Giving the Irish peasant an incite into the future and the present advancements beyond the clachan family farm.

O Faolain whose works had been banned by the Censorship Bord maintained, with supporters and friends, a criticism of the Irish censorship in editorials and articles.

The Bord however, remained stident in its exclusion of anywork which met with its disaproval.
By 1947 over 1200 books had been banned by its purifacation policy.

The Bord also banned hundreds of films thereby deprivng Ireland of much of the great era of film work being created by actors and directors alike.

The country was held stagnat and decayed.

Catholic social teaching prevailed and the informal talks held between Archbishop Mc Quaid and his former pupil De Valera was upheld by the state.
This strand of vocational organization completely ignored and regected any other creative social organization and overwhelmed this.

Stagnation was the watchworld of this era throughout Ireland.

Wages were frozen and strikes were common against this.
Fianna Fail became opposed to labor through this worker militancy.
De Valera toyed with the idea of labor camps for the unemployed but when 200 were chosen for the Office of Public Works camp at Clonast only 57 showed up and in the first weeks 30 left ;eventually only 9 remained.
De Valera than met with O Brien of the ITUC [Irish Trade Union Congress] in Octobver 1940 to plan a new Construction Camp to recruit 2,500 unemployed classifying them as soldiers.
Labor objected to the plan when it was found that persons were refused unemployment benefits if they refused to'volunteer' for the CC.
Protests wer planned but banned by FF under the Offences Against the State Act and 5 union organizers were arrested.

The trade unions also became militant against wage restrictions.
January 1940 brought out the FF forces on the side of Dublin Corporation vs the Irish Municipal Employees Trade union [IMETU}
Sean McEntree Mininster of Industry and Comerce said that this act would be seen as a revolution if continued.
A local Bishop interfered defusing the confrontational situation and the workers returned to their jobs without an increase in pay.

FF stood firm and in hostility to unions considering them a form of a soviet rule.

But a harsh bill was averted against the unions when the ITGWU conference in June 1940 denounced the pending bill causing the bill to be withdrawn and FF to exchange its hostile tune towards unions.

A collaboration Trade Union Bill was finally arrived at in May 1941.
The Bill required unions to acquire a licence and post a bond with the high court.
The bill established a tribunal, appointed by the Mininster, to have a sole right to organize put on a majority union under the Trade Dispute Act of 1906

These provisions eliminated the dispised ,by both union and party ,British Unions from Irish organization and required disputes be settled and the problem of small trade unions strking overriding this with the licence and bond posted by the major unions of tade for that trade.
The trade union dispute withthe government continued through the duration of the War.

pg 3 emergency


The goods supply continued to dwindle for the general population.
An attempt was made in 1940 by the government to increase tillge to supply needed food.
Bread was rationed as was tea ,fuel and sugar.
Electrical supplys were allowed only certain hours of the day.
There were no coal supplies or petrol.
No private car could be operated and by 1942 the Irish were again transporting themselves by horse and cart.
There were shortages of tobacco.
There were little exports and the economy continued to decline.
Prices for imports were twice as much as that gotten for exports.
There was little industry and employment.
The peasants were urged to grow potatos.
Black markets developed and smuggling between north and south became common along the border.

Because of the drop in exports meat was plentiful in Dublin but brought prices higher than the average frozen wage earner could pay.
The continuing endevor of FF to get along with discontented labor gave an aura of solidarity of the 26 counties as separate from the north which persued its own war plans.

Rationing had begun in the north in 1939.
A civil defence Handbook was published in Belfast in 1940.

An Emergency Powers Act was passed by Stormont establishing a prison ship in Lock Neagh and a policy of interment was persued.

By 1941 30,000 US army troops had arrived in North Ireland, members of Operation Magnet with the command of Major General Chaney consisting of the 1st Armored Division, the 32 34 and 37 th Infantry.
This first wave of V Corps commanded by General Edmond Daly had been trained at Camp Beauregard in Louisiana embarking from the port of NY on the Queen Mary,the Aquitania and the Christobal[ those proverbial 3 ships of north Irish history].

The operational mission of combat under Rainbow 5 was changed to that of logistical support in 1942 being renamed Magnet.

The north had created a Home Guard in 1941 along with a national registry Id card.
A canteen was set up in 1942 and air raid shelters were built and instruction given in building such.

The US Army set up bases in Derry for rebuilding and repair of distroyers and submarines; at Lock Erne for Catalina Flying Boats and at Warrentport for the constuction of landing craft.

The IRA resented the presence of this invasion but could do nothing about it.
Any suspicion of IRA activity caused immediate internment of the members at the Curragh by the FF government or the Stormont government.

A scrap collection program was begun called Wings for Victory.
The arrival of US soldiers in the norht helped alleviate the general island tension that the British army would again occupy the island and place it once more under direct Westminster rule.

With the states assuming command of the ports no need for a British takeover was needed.

The US soldier came well equiped with chocolates and biskets for kids and congregated at such places as Cunninghams Pub in Warrensport where landing craft were being built for the future invasion of continental Europe.

Confiscation of private goods was practiced in the north but compensation was given after.

Smuggling continued with items such as white flour and tobacco and tea being transported under the noses of border customs posts between the two factors of Ireland.

The Merchant Marine created in 1942 when Brith shipping to Irleand was discontinued played a significant role in protecting the Irish water ways and attempted to transport goods to and from the continent. However, 13 of their ships were sent to the bottom of the sea by German U boats.

Many were awarded the Victoria Cross and a memorial to this heroic service was erected on Liffy Quay after the war.

By wars end 70,000 Irishmen were serving in the British Army and the 26 counties had surged from a mere 25,000 men to 1/4 million[250,000,000] serving the defence of Eire.

By 1943 the population was reduced to a ration of 1/2 oz of tea, 1/2 pound of sugar and 6 oz of butter.
The production of wheat had increased from 200,000 acres in 1937 to 662,000 acres in 1945.
A total crop acreage for 86,700 acres in 1939 to 1,680,000 acreas in 45.

The crop quality was poor as no fertilizer was available.
Some of the lands put under the plow were not good being returned to pasture, its natural state, after the war.

In May of 42 Belfast was bombed with the shipyard Harland and Wolfe a target.

Some bombs hit Dublin by mistake but the Irish thought it kindly of the Germans to consider Ireland as a united country.

Dublin sent fire brigades into the north to help extinguish the blazes caused by the bombing and thousands made homeless by the scourge were taken in progratis around the countryside.
Olds long established religions and ethnic annamosites between prodistant and catholic were put aside.

Many units like the Royal Irish Rifles boarded the D Day landing craft singing a soldiers Song ,the national anthem of Eire and the republicans.
Many British army commanders were of Irish descent.
Montgomery, Dill, Alexander, Brooke,O Connor ,The admirals Cunningham and others.
About 1/2 of Churchhills staff were Irish.

The emmigration from the farms for British jobs continued as did the tension between the unions and the governement.

pg 4

The IRA fell into dispute in 1941 with the kidnapping of Chief of Staff Stephen Hayes by dissident north group of the organization.
Hayes being accused of betrayal of the organizations plans to the Free State goverment [theIRA and the nationalist in the north continued calling to the south by this designation].

Under beating, starvation and torture Hayes confessed to having passed IRA plans to the southern government.

Hayes was held and interagated by his captors in 6 different houses.
He finally escaped at Terenue in south Dublin and staggared into a Rathmines police station in chains and asked for protection from his men.
From that time the IRA moral was broken and its men collected steadily into internment with no leader.
This policy of containment and internment lasted for the duration depriving the IRA of any means of ending partition by physical force .

It also produced a national benefit in the end as Britain would surely have reoccupied the island if such an attach on the border had materialized distroying the hard won gains of the pro treaty forces and the bitter conflicts of the Civil War.

The county fell into 6 years of silence according to O Faolain in his Bell.

In 1943 a general election was held with a formation of a new Farmers party organized by big farmers in the west.
Labor was also gaining power in the country with the general disatisfaction of the Fianna Fail cap on wages and its farm policy.

Fine gael had reduced populatiry for its rightists philosphys.
FF seats were reduced to 67 and FG only 32.

However Labor split over old differences between ITGWU secreatry O Brien and the old Connolly/Larkin socialists.

When in 1943 Larkin stood for election and won O Brien withdrew the ITGWU, the biggest most powerful union in Ireland, from the Labor Party in January 1944.
This disrupted the deputies ,4 resigning and becming National Labor leaving only 8 labor deputies in the Dial.

De Valera called a snap election[ dev was fond of elections]

FF gained 9 more seats fromthe Labor split making the seats of FF now 76.

In the north the systematic buildup of Magnet in preparation for the 1944 D Day Overlord continued with great stores and landing craft, ammunition, distroyers submarines and other war material piling about on the docks.

Dublin meanwhile took on an air of international pre war gayity and a touch of Bohemianism in a gray state world.

Peter Kavanagh brother of the poet Pat senced a certain 'international athmosphere'.

In smaller towns library use was up and amateur dramatic efforsts were well preformed and well attended.
All Little Theater and cinama set the mood of the country tastes.

The Church oftimes commended these preformance seeing in them a counter to the vulgaraties of Hollywood fare.
These dramitazations continued to suffice for the citizens and towns ,the ambitions of the poor country peasant taking hold of these ideas in their intent to imporove their status and life.

During the period of isolation in Eire the nations cities continued the cultural absorbtion with itself through talk, drink, sport and local activities stressing its Irishnesss over consern for the outside world. Nationality prevailed.

In the north the provisional inhabitants of the 6 counties enlisted comaradery between separatist and formerly separate catholic nationalists and prodistant settlers.

The north counties became more in commune within themselves separate except by occational smuggling contacts from the southern contingency.

To those who had emmigrated from both colonies a new form was established where the workers returned from Great Britain or the cities flush with money and embued with a new style of trinkets and dress.
No longer the pay packet being sent home but now the brandishing of the sucessful son or daughter demanding good treatment and encouraging others to take the ferry to wealth and riches.

With the sucessful landing at great cost of life on Normandy Beach and the subsequent conquest of France , the allies entering Paris on August 25 1944, and the demise of the German army in the snows of Russia and Stalins forces taking Poland in the east a beaten German army surrendered on 7th May 1945.

Hitler himself committing suicide with his paramour Eva Braun and having his officers burn both bodies in the garden, the Europeans war ended leaving a legacy of displacement ,distruction ,cruelity and holocast behind.

In July of 1945 the 6 years of silence ended for Eire.

the Jewish children at Millisle Farm in Down could go home.



judi Donnelly
copyright September 26 2007


sourses: Ireland Since the Rising, Tom Pat Coogan,1966 , Frederick Praeger
Fianna Fail and Irish Labor,Kieran Allan, 1997, Pluto Press
Ireland a Social and Cultural History, Terrance Brown,2004, Harper Perennial

Internet: Us Army Northern Ireland 1941-1945 Historical Research Branch, US Army Center of Military History, demonstration project, 1996

Ulster Historical Society Northern Ireland online studies project

Irish History Synopsis: The De Valera Era 1932-1939

Irish History Synopsis: The De Valera Era 1932-1939

On being sworne in to office as President of the Executive Council of the newly elected Dial of 1932 Eamon deValera immediately released all the interenees from the southern prison where they had been held by Cosgraves Emergency Powers at Arbor Hill Barracks.

The draconian Public Safety Bill of 1931 was revoked.

The Oath of Allegiance to the King of England was abolished but met with opposition from the Seanad. Having been introduced on April 20 1932, the bill did not become law until May 1933 a year later.

De Valera dismissed the Kings Govenor General, James Mc Neill in October of 1932.
The Crown appointed Donnall Ua Buachalla who acted only as a rubber stamp and did not live in the Vice Regal Lodge which was vacant until the Republic was formed in 1948 when it was than reopened for the President of Ireland De Valera. The Govornor General salary was reduced by the Executive Council from 28,000 pounds a year to 2000 pounds a year.

Formality was dispensed with in the new government, the Mininsters appearing at state funtions dressed casually.

Tarrifs were imposed by England when de Valera refused to pay the land anuities in July 1932 when Ireland defalted.

The anuity payments arose when the Land Acts of 1891-1909 allowed the British state to buy out landowners and the properties so acquired distributed to the Irish peasant tenants.
These new owners paid what were termed land annuities collected by the British for interest charges on government stock issued to the landlords at 3% interest.

Under Cosgrave's Cumman these land annuities had been paid to the British National Department by terms of the British and Irish Financial Agreements of February 1923.

These agreements had not be submitted or ratified by any of the Dials but acted as a private agreement between the Executive Council, Cosgrave and the British Government Comissioners.

Within a fortnight of these withholdings of money by the Irish government under Fianna Fail, Britain imposed a 20% tarrif on all trade and agricultural exports to which de Valera, who relished a self sufficient rural independant republic parried with his own high tarriff on British manufacture.

De Valera stated his policy was to abolish free trade.

He tried, somwhat sucessfully in the end, to create a native industry in Ireland.
Private investment however was not to be found.
The State was therfore forced to create and contunue the State corporations begun with the Shannon Project under the Cumman na n Gaedheal.

House building, provision of services, fuel preparation air services all came under the state corporate creation.

The Housing Act of 1932 brought central government into local athorities policies amounting to a public works project policy.

The Bord of Mona was created.
Aer lingus was created as a state corporation which it remains today.
An Irish Sugar Company was created.

With the Emergency Importation Duty Act of 1932, 2000 goods were covered by some import or export duty.

De Valera planned to build a native capital system by creating Irish business and clearing the Irish market of all foreign goods.

To do this a Control of Manufacture Act was passed in 1932 and an ensuing one in 1934.
These acts established licencing by the state to prevent foreign companies from establishing in Ireland to avoid the duty impostion.

Foreign capital was to be only 50% and company directors had to be Irish.

A Finacial Act f 1932 gave a preference rate of tax to Irish business and an indirect tax to reduce industry tax.

An Industrial Credit Corporation was forned for native capitalists.
Cement was createdt his way to become an Irish monopoly.

In 1932 there were 160 Irish companies up from 115 in 1926, a hight being reached in 1935 of 247 with native capital investments over 1 million pounds.

Some of the major company products developed were in manufacturing of boots and shoes, hoisery, leather, sugar ,linin collars , hemp, paper making and clothing.
All of these items of manufacture were nationally deficient in the average Irish houselhold.
The particular notablity of shoelessness among workers soldiers and children alike in pre- rising days, along with suits of clothing for men being outgrown and ladies worn frocks were colorless.
Coats were hardly known; the populous photographed under shawls and blankets.

De Valera himself rode about the streets on a white horse with a black cloak ,with his spare frame and sharp stark features appearing the devil himself.

During 1932 Cumman na n Gaedheal suffered somewaht from FF vendetta Actions because of the Cosgrave government executions and internment of friends, relatives and comrades of the anti treaty forces.

Political meetings were broken up by dissidents on the new side when de Valera refused to purge the 'Staters' from the army, police and civil service.
This created a reactionaly force of the Army Comrade Association in August '32 by Liam O Higgins brother of Kevin.
The IRA considered the organization fascist and the ACA considered the IRA comministic.

These two compeating philosofic views from the left and the right clashed repeatdly.

One instance by the December '32 dumping of a truck[lorry] load of Bass Engish ale.
The ale was poured in the street and the barrels burned by some dissident IRA to support the economic policy of Fiana Fail government.
The peope however looked with disfavor on this waste of drink.
The importers appealed to the ACA for protection ,which was a malitia of 30,000 men on the right.

De Valera fired General Eoin O Duffy from his Commissioner of Dublin police for incompetence on February 22 1933.
Cumman na Gaedheal decided to reorganize the ACA and appointed O Duffy its leader in April 1933.
With this event the ACA became the National Guard and adopted a Blue Shirt as an identity badge at the suggestion of Ned Cronin who had married Michael Collins fiance Kitty Kiernan.

In 1933 the appeal right of Irish law to the British Privy Council was abolished.

pg 2 de Valera 32

In September 1933 Cumman na n Gaedheal and the new Center Party merged and were now called United Ireland Party or Fine Gael (tribe of the Gael)
Cosgrave became its leader.
Dillon and MacDermot of the Center Party his assistants.
The national leadership of the new party was given over to General Eoin O Duffy.
He was well known in Ireland as a military leader ,a sports organizer and bycyclist.

Fine Gael professed the voluntary reunion of all Ireland without giving up Irish sovereignty or Commonwelath status.
They were opposed to proportional representation and were for agricultural and industrial corporations.

When O Duffy made a show of streanth on August 13 1934 that he would hold a National Guard march to government buildings for a wreath laying in memory of Griffith,Collins and O Higgins, the Fianna Fail government, distrusting his motives, and aware how Mussolini had become Il Duce, revived the 1931 Public Safety Act and set up an S Division[an armed band of Garda composed of former IRA anti treaty personnel] also called the Broy Harriers.

The government revived the Military Tribunal and banned the parade.
The IRA backed the action and the parade was not held.

The National Guard then changed its name to Young Ireland which was banned.
It than became the League of Youth after a clash with the IRA.
Both organizations than split by internal disputes relieving the potential threat to the State by violence.

De Valera had after 10 months in office, held a snap election to uphold his repressive actions and give him a mandate from the people.

In 1933 an Unemployment Insurance Act was passed ,mostly putting men to work building houses.
Some automobiles were now being used in the country some 4,000 being licenced.

But the crowning improvement in Irish life in 1933 was the inseption of radio.

De Valera, like Roosevelt was highly aware of the political power of radio.

The Athlone high powered station brought radio transmission to the whole island in 1933.

By 1937 100,000 licence for the wireless sevice had been purchased through the Post Office.
However 25,000 were found to have pirated the signal.
The major useage of radio remained in urban areas such as Dublin very little in rural areas and on small farms.

De Valera persued his vision of the small farm representing the purity of life, the Gaelic way of life, with the country comprised of frugal God fearing county folk.

Immigration remained high 6 out of 1000 persons leaving Ireland to work in England or the US.
Many went to England as the US established quotas in the 30's in responce to its own depression joblessness.


In the process of creating a people who valued material welth only on the basis of right living, the FF government accepted and followed the Catholic social teaching as laid out by Pope Pius XI in his Quadragesino Anno of May 1931 which expressed the upholding of the family as thebasic unit of society and the Catholic education of youth.

As most of the government leaders had been excommunicated by the Church for their membership in the IRA and defiance of authority through physical force and their participation in the Civil War they were anxious to reestablish both personal relations and governmental workings with the Church.

The doctrine proported by Musssolini in Italy of the exclusive right of the State and the Coorporation was not entirely encorporated into Irish thought.

The Fianna Fail members were more ameniable to socialist doctrine of Connolly and Liam Mellows visioning not only a 32 county Republic but a socialist state.

An Phoblact their newspaper ,voiced a demand that the banks be taken over by the state and the large ranch farms be broken up.

This was part of the struggle in Ireland to abolish imperial capitalism and a reflection of the general Europeand style on mass conditions of life.
Arguements were being made for corporatism, socialism, fascism, imperialism, captalism and the general political rights of Man.
The Blue Shirt members themselves upheld thr right of free speech and the end of lassez faire economics.

As the FFgovernment had difficulty collecting the land annuities from the individual land owners theybegan a program of cattle seizing from defaulting farmers.

FF held that these collectionswere for use by the Irish governmentand were not making the 6 months payments to England.
The Blue Shirts oppossed this catttle confiscation and raided auction yards such as Marshes in Cork to run of the cattle preventing their conversion to cash.
This physical force cattle preying by both the sitting government and the loyal opposition caused much exitement in the country side.

On August 1 1934 a pension was offered for Irregular veterans who has fought on the anti treaty side.
This helped amorilate the IR battalions.-


A split occurred in the general Irregulars in 1934 between those adhearing to the 1st Dial of 1919and those adherants to a socialist republic.
These forced the founding of Republican Congress Party formed by Pedar O Donnell and George Gilmore in April 1933.
This new Irish socialist workers party however lasted only 2 years splitting after only 6 months of its formation.
The Congress was expelled from the IRA and expressed anti fascism, anti imperialism, anti
Fiana Fail, anti Cosgrave.
Some of its foundign membrs were also members of the Cosgrave era breakway Saor Erie Executive such as the Price girls, McGuinnes, Marie Lavery, George Gilmore and Pedar O Donnell.
The Congress was upheld by the ITGWU [ Irish Transport and General Workers Union] under thevice presidency of Willian Mc Mullen
Saor Eire had been formed during the Cosgrave era with intent to Free Ireland which was suppressed by the Public Safetly Act of 1931 after been declared a communist organization by the Hierarachy.


The Fiana Fail was able to get along with the Labor Party however buildiing a successful group of beneficial Acts in relation to creating Ireland a self sufficient independant state.
Encorporating such progressive ideas as state subsidys for social needs such as public works projects, public housing, farm subsidies, unemployment benefits such as were also being implimented in the US under the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal.

Fianna Fail absorbed the old Cosgrave programs of standardization and regulation of export products and the idea of State Corporations were created in the Bord of Electrictiy Shannon Project,Aer Lingus sugar beets and other national needs.
It was able to produce some Irish capitalism and achieve a standard although not yet sustainable wage for workers.

The big labor unions in Ireland such as the old pre -rising ITGWU were in geneneral good relations with the ruling party government.

FF was able to extend the Trade Bord industies covered by minimum wages and allowed the Irish /Congress of Trade unions to represent non union workers in the trades.

FF established Joint Industrial Councils under Department of Labor where union and employee representatives hashed out differences and came to agreement as to wages and woking conditions.

The Irish Womens Workers Union under Helen Molloy however critisized the Joint Council for setting low wage rates for womena and juvenile workers sweeping these workers into a 'slave labor class' while the 'patriot' elite of labor claimed more profit off them.
A condition of the Employment Act was passed by the Dail in 1935 which limited working hours to 48 for adults and 40 for juveniles.
It also provided registration with the state of agreements arrived at by collective bargaining.
The Minister of Commerce and Industry Sean Lemass argued the new act was compensaion to the trades by the state to improve working conditions
.
Relations between the FF and its civil service however were not as cooperative as the party felt civil servants had a duty to make 'sacrfices' and that no union or outside force could influence the relationsip beteenn mininster and his servants.


FF also begrudges relief worker payments to be paid the same rates as their contempory workers deaming a rate below that of agricultural workers sufficient no matter how skilled the worker or the job.



pg 3 de valera


In 1935 the ITGWU struck the dublin trams breaking the friend of unions relationship between FF and he Union.
The workers demanded a higher wage.

Lemass denounced the strike and the Irish Cabininte and Mininster decided to send in the Irish Army.
The IRA intervened.
47 Republicans were arrested by Fianna Fail and sent to the Currah Military Detention Center as internees.
Detectives at the government broke into union hall strike meetings disperced the strikers and searched the premisis.

The ITGWU reported tht they were fighing the combined forces of the company, the Mininsters and the apparatus of the state.
Solidarity was the result with 10,000 trade unionists marching in support of the tram strikers.
In mid May a small wage increase was meeted out and the strike peetered out.
Strikes however continued with 1937 being a peak year 26,000 workers on strike and 1,750,000 work days lost.

The Censorship Act and its industrious board continued its purifying work throughout the 30's.
The national writers such as Frank O Connor, Liam O Flaherty, Mary Lavin and Sean O Faolain all veterans in the fight for independance found their works banned in Ireland by the censors.

O Faolain, an avid spokeman for the release of Ireland from her torturerous mediocrity discribed the country as shrouded in snow ' under the white shroud covering the whole of Ireland, life was lying broken and hardly breathing.'

James Joyce had left Dublin to write his Finnagans Wake in Paris and in 1938 W B Yeats left his native Ireland for the last time after his play Purgatory had produced a flurry.
Denis Devlin, Brian Coffey, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Mac Greevy all gathered in pre war Paris disallusioned and unloved by their own Irish society.

At this same juncture with the suppression of Irish literary creativity, Irish traditional music was elevated to affluent appreciation.
It rated in acceptance only below the Gaelic language. The folk music expressed the Irish mind.

Irish folklore was accepted and an Irish Folklore Commission Cumman le Bealoideas Eireann recieved a government grant to create the Irish Folklore Institute.
The Commission ,in the mid and early 30's and at the last moment before change overtook the country side, gathered vast stores of folklore, folktales held by the people in memory.

The Irish Manuscript Commission established under Cosgrave in 1928, located ,preserved and published these writings in a periodical, Analecta Hibernica.
With the coming of the Irish Historical Studies Periodical in 1938. a focus in disaplined academic research of Ireland history took hold.
Although some 1200 books were banned in Ireland between 1930 and 1939 some light resistance was mounted by such agents as the Irish Times.
Eamon de Valera abhored the Cinema as well which had so strongly influenced American thought and culture.

The Headmaster of Blackrock College, Charles McQuaid had fixed a highly Catholic conservative viewpoint with FF leader de Valera.
McQuaid had been Headmaster of the Dublin secondary school Blackrock College attended by Eamon and also his sons in coming years.
McQuaid was a key intercediary between deValera's government and the ideas requested by the Catholic Hierirchy.
The Church was dutifly left in contro of the pre established Westmininster mode and Cumman na n Gaedheal wherby denominational education was not secularly funded by the state nor were any secular education provided for.

The Church still controlled in its vice like grip the formative years of a childs learning process.

The bishops often requested of the governement measures which were not denied these, such as setting up a teaching hospital for medical students at University College as the prodistant hospital already had.
The National Maternity hospital was so accomidated to be run on strickly Catholic lines.

When the National Broadcasting director was appointed McQuaid requested a discussion informaly.
The question of authority between Church and State was arrived at in these informal secretive sessions where the Church was involved in the decision making of the State, creating an ethos of a' Catholic State for Catholic People 'countered by the words of PM Craig of the Norhtern state of ' Prodistant State for a Prodistant People.'

Fianna Fail however, in return for its Church teaching concessions .demanded the Hierarchy uphold the Republican State and weaken its previous ties with Cumman na n Gaedheal's rightist conservative corporate views.

FF encouraged the Church to uphold respect for law and authority, the Church and
State holding a shared responsibility for disapline of both temporal and spiritual authority.
This endevor was ultimately incorporated in 1937 into the revised new Irish Constitution in allowing a special position to the Catholic Church and embedding Catholic Social teaching into the basic law of the land such as the 1935 outlaw of useage, sale or teching the use of, contraceptives on the request of the Bishops.

pg 4 de valera

In the northern 6 counties now completely detached in culture and economic association, removed in the firm repressive grip of the all powerful Unionist Party under James Craig who was Prime Mininster from 1921 - 1940.
Native Irish[the catholics] were systematically excluded from political office or parliament.
They were systematically dnied housing and employment.
In the north hevy industry in Belfast provided jobs for prodistants allowing them power over the 40% catholic population.
Livestock, dairy, potatoes and cereal crops were all exported to the sister island Great Britain.
Shipbuilding and linen trades with paper making and furniture making confirmed a healthy economy for the 2/3 prodistant majority.
1/3 were the Church of Ireland and 1/3 Presbyterian dissentors.
The last 1/3 being native catholics outcast in their own country.
The border customs and general disruption of roads and transport faclilities created border violence.
There were ethnic and political confrontations in many places, mostly in Belfast.

The unionist governement passed acts to keep order ,maintained an abnormally large police force in the RUC with a B Special auxiliary force and a complete regiment of soldiers known as the Ulster Regiment attached to the British Army. All soldiers being prodistant and most police.
Catholics who dared to join the RUC were often drummed out or if they did not leave from abuse were never promoted and treated with indignities.

The schools were systematically segregated by the two churches inculcating the formative mind with denominational righteousness and doing nothing to alliviate fear and hostility or separateness of these young children.

Although higher education was readily available for prodistant children , such facilities as Queens University in Belfast established in 1845 by the Victorian Lord Lieutenant of Ireland beforePartition was an issue.
Catholic children were not admitted leaving generations of youth poorly and secularly educated without any hope for future sucess in their own land.

Emmigration centered mostly now to England where they were already considered citizens the Free State government having neglected to include the countryless Irish of the north as Irish People.

The Unionist Party continued to shape the north exclusivly in its own image.
The north was an autonomous state with a federal relationship to the United Kingdom.
There was no cooperative effort on any Island funtions such as energy, fisherys, railways or trade even thought the Free State and Erie claimed the territory.
Both the Free State and the British were willing to let sleeping dogs lie as far as the 6 counties were conserned.

Violence was a way of life in the north. In resisting home rule before partition, during the Great War and after with periodic sectarian outbreks between the native and settler factions or the IRA and RUC forces.

The Catholic 40% of the new state never accepted partition, boycotting the new parliament where they were not welcome anyway.

That parliament assembled in its new model Stormont Castle Bldg ,east of Belfast City, maintained its self interest with over dependence on Westmininster finances in which rates were collected in the new state, forwarded to the Exchecher in England and than returned to Stormont with additional supplimental funds supplied by the British Treasury to maintain government services.

The traditional industries shipbuilding and linen ,were deteriorating and the governemnt was dominated by intrests of the large landed farmers, all prodistant estate holders and conservative business interests ,again all prodistants.
All these governemnt members and conservative persons were members of the Orange Order which was a private society formed in 1895 out of the Diamond confrontation by a Wilson of Armagh. to uphold the prodistant religion over papist views and expressing deep dispise ofthe native peoples.

This smothering one sided ,narrow structure keeping the native Irish poverty riddeen, uneducated, deprived and excluded required conformity with no objection by either the creator.,the British Parliament or the new Free State in the south.
The world in general forgot about the Irish of the north who were not even taught their own Ulster history in their catholic schools but British history, British literature and British culture.
Their ancient family structure was set array by emmigration to find survival work, fear of reprisals for being Irish.
They were thought of by the more prosperous unionist prodistant neighbors as untrustworthy, stupid ,lazy often drunk and ditry. Of the dirtyness arising from worn and patched or used clothes and shoelessness.

Nor were the cabin/cottage houses and farms neatly sculptured and well kept as the prodistant homestead-all work there having been done by the Irish help- and therefore this north native was considered less industrious than his settler counterpart in the keeping of this now owned small property or livestock.

The native was never included in festivities of the town and settlements of the unionist but expected to provide his own superstitious and primative entertainments ,which he well did at local fairs and pubs,
creating a body of ballads and stories passed about at these occations from community to community.
The pub, as in the south became the gathering place of people seeking human companionship and conducting local business.
The Pub was not only a general store of what goods could be store bought but a place to hear and transmit the news of the community, the church, the world and the nation.
The publican also being a person having a little cash from the business was a provider of small loans and credit to the native who might need financing for some farm project or to emegrate a grown son to England to look for work.

There were frequent skirmishes along the 1400 mile border between customs agents and smugglers of such items as butter and fuel, cigarettes and wiskey.

The northern division of the IRA maintained its presence and civilain loyalty.

Thecustomary letter to America for the realtive begain with 'we are all keping well here and so and so died just this past winter'
None of these missives seem to have survived for some reason.
My own mothers letters to my grandmother alledgedly burned by her daughter after the old womans death.
Those in America having 'disapeared'.

Through this period of the Free State under the Cumman na nGaedh or de Valera's Fianna Fail no effort was made to connect with the Irish people of the north.
If an effort was made it was through the existing IRA structure.
The matter of the reunification of the island was dead in the water throughout the public spectrum both north and south.

Bigotry and notions of superiority and inferiority were encouraged by both the school systems and such societys as the Orange Order.
Courts were unjust in rulings for native causes nor were any chosen as judges.
Civil rights were decidedly one sided favoring the prodistant individual.

Any sign of disrespectful or defiant behavior was immediately quelshed and punished.

This long term supression of humanity finally exploded en mass in 1969 when the north erupted in defiance of these Stormont/Orange masters a condition which lasted some 30 years, its root cause lost onthe world and its own emmigree peoples.

The history and lore of this 30's period in the north is not readlily available, if available at all in such major fact finding standard sources as Britanica, Facts on File ,even google which has everything has subhumed these pre world war 2 trials of this people to the more exiting 70-2000 period.


page 5 de valera

Un 1936 the Irish Senate was abolished by deValera when it obsructed a Fiana Fail reform package.

In June 1936 the country was outrages by the IRA killing of a former member John Egan at Dungavan , a young man who allegedly had refused to participate in the Somerville killing. Admiral Someville of Cork was shot for advising anyone who asked about joining the British Army.

The IRA was declared an lnlawful organization and its chief of Staff, Maurince Twomey arrested and sent to prison.

This was closely followed by the Spanish Civil War in which 200 repbulicans took part on the Republican side while 700 of Duffys men went to defend Francos fascists and the Catholic church.

The IRA contingent fought at the battle of Lopera at which ony 60 survived out of a company of 120 men.
They went into battle singing the volunteer song 'Off to Dublin in the Morning 'and shouting 'Up the Republic' ,as discribed by one of the suvivors, Frank Edwards.
These men on both sides of the Irish contingent were unpaid Volunteers fighting for what they believed in.

FrankRyan head of the IRA Republicans was captured by Mussolinis soldiers at the battle of Ebro Valley in 1938.
The Italians had hoped to exchange him for one of their own officers but negociations broke down.
Ryan was sentanced by Spanish Nationalist Troops to death for mass murder and arson.
He remained in a condemed cell for 9 months during which each day 9 prisoners were taken out and shot and 9 more were put in the death cell.
When an American reporter who had been allowed to talk to the prisoners mentioned in his report a former Irish editor was being held de Valera and his friends realized this must be Frank Ryan and the 'Chief' sent Franco a telegram asking for Ryans life.

When theSpanish Civil War ended in 1938, a sister of Michael Price with the Red Cross found Ryan alive.
De Valera engaged a Spanish lawyer to plead for his life and release.
The death sentance was commuted to life imprisonment but one of Franks German friends from student days, Captain Hoven ,suggested to the German Abwehr[secret service] that Ryans release would be good propaganda.
Admiral Cannaris approved and it was arranged between Canarris , de Valera and the Spanish Secret Police.
Ryan however ,was not notified that he was expected to escape in transport and he caulmly rode on to his new prison.
He was finally carried over the French frontier in 1940 where he was installed a the elegant Tours d Argent Hotel in Paris.
Hoever Ryans health was broken and his hearing had failed in prison.
He later died a guest of Hitlers Germany an honored Marxist ,guest of the Nazis ,at Dresden on June 16 1944 of plurisy and pneumonia ,in pain lonely and broken hearted.
An exemplary illistration of the proverbial Irish Luck.

In Devember 1936 The Porince of Wales Edward VIII abdicated the thone of England for his love the American divorce Wallis Simpson and his brother George VI father of the current Queen Elizabeth II, was installed as King.


In 1937 Eamon De Valera drafted himself a new constitution for the State replacing the old 1922 Constitution derived from the Anglo Irish Treaty partitioning the country.
This old Constitution had been amended in areas such as the Oath of Allegiance, Privy Coucil appeals and elimination of the Govornor General.

When the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII abdicated motivation was found to replace what was percieved as the Britsh emposed Constitution with a native document.

The document was drafted in both English and Irish consecutivly causing some confusion of interpretation, but it was decided the Irish Gaelic interpretation would prevail over the English.

It was prepared in clear consise language order and structure and contained 50 Articles in 16 sections covering the nation the State the Courts and the Parliament.
Articles 41-- covered social legislation and recognized the family as the basic unit of society.

Its Preamble acknowledged God as the Supreme authority and Jesus Christ as Divine Lord.

It acknowledges the freedom of the individual and aspired to achieve social order, unity of the country and accord with other nations.

Article 2 established the right of Irish born persons with one Irish parent to be a guarantee of citizenship if born on the island.
Article 1 garantees the Irish People the right of Self determination and Article 5 declared the State sovereign and independent.

Articles 8 delared the Irish language the first officaial language and English the second official language.

The Constitution established the government as a parliamentary system;
a directly elected president as head of State;
a Taoisech [Prime Minister];
an Oireachtas [Parlieament]
a lower house the Dial Eireann directly elected;
and an upper house the Seanad Eireann part appointed and part indicrectly elected.

TheState was given sweeping powers during time of war or armed rebellion under Article 28 known as the National Emergency.
This article was invoced twice, in 1940 during WW 2 and again in 1976 by threat to national security posed by the provincial IRA in the north.

Article 40- deal with individual rights covering subjects as involuability of the home, freedom of speech and assembly, education, freedom of worship, abortion, habeus corpus, equality under the law and prohibits confering any titles of nobility by the state or acceptance of without government permission this ending the old Gaelic claim of cheiftanships confering legal power.

It is not clear if Article 40.1 prohibits the King of England to be King of Ireland as did George VI till 1949.

The originals Constitution provided 13 transition provisions 51-63 providing for an orderly transition for pre existing Constitution and Institutions.

It delclared the Holy Catholic Apostolic andRoman Church guardian of the faith in Article 44 and claimed the whole island of Ireland as its national territory under Articles 2 and 3.

The document was to be adopted by both houses the ,Dial and the Seanad, submitted to the people for referendum and signed by the President of Ireland.

Bunreacht na Eireann was passed by the Dial on June 14 1937; the Seanad having been abolished by deValera in 1936.

It was submitted by referendum to the people on 1 July, was narrowly approved and became law coming into force on Dec 29 1937.
Your humbel author having come into this world along with the Constitution of Eire ,preceeding its acceptance by 10 months.

Hence the Soarstat passed into history and the new Eire came into being, Eire being thee Gaelic word for the English Ireland.

Eire the wife and the Queen of the last Celtic king of Ireland ,Greine of Ceatur[the 4th tower or the lesson tower]
daughter of Dealbaoth and sister to Fodla and Bamba who asked the conquering Melisian to keep her naem on the island.

in 1938 the economic war with Britian was ended with the 3 London Agreememts signed on April 25 1938.

A reciprocal trade pact was agreed to duty free to both countries.
The treaty ports were returned to Eire and Eire paid 10 million in final settlement of the land annuities.

In June de Valera again went to the people and was reelected with Fianna Fail with a majority of 77 seats giving it independence from Labor.

In the summer of 1938 Hitler invaded and demanded the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovokia and The PM of Great Btitain gave in to his demands under the polciy of appeassement.

In January 1939 the IRA began a bombing campaign in England.
A treason Bill and Offences against the State Bill went into effect in Eire.

On September 1 1939 Nazi Germany attched Poland bringing World War II to frutation.



Judi Donnelly
Copyright September 22 2007


sources: Ireland Since the rising,Coogan, fredrick Praeger, 1966
Ireland A Social and Cultural History,Harper Perennial 2004
Fianna Fail and irish Labor,pluto Press ,1997
Internet via google, Wikipedia: Northern Ireland

Irish history Synopsis: The Free State 1923-1932

Irish History Synopsis: the Free State 1923-1932

With the demise of the War of Independance 1st Dial under Griffith's Sinn Fein on May 10 1921 it voted its powers to be transfered to its President than Eamon de Valera who had been voted to the job with he resignation of Cathal Brugha on April 1 1919.
It was decided that the President would distribute the powers when a new government was formed.

A 2nd Dial was formed under the Better Government of Ireland Act of 1921 whereby the country was partitioned into two political jurisdictions known formerly as the Free State[Soarstat] covering the 26 southern counties and Norhtern Ireland coveing 6 of the original counties of the province of Ulster.

This parliament sat in the Free State capital Dublin from August 16 1921 till June 8 1922 when it was ajourned and was subsequently prorouged by a force of 15 prominent pro treaty officials including Collins, Cosgrave, Griffith, Blythe and others who formed the 3rd Dail which sat from Sept 9 1922 to Aug 9 1923 with blindrs on considering none of the great disruptive chaotic forces and conditions before Ireland and Her people.
Discussing instedd various petty economic measures in country rural areas.
The country was virtually under Free Staate Army martial law and in an anarchistic state.
Over 18,000 anti treaty stong personel were interened as the IRA Irregulars disputed with the pro treaty IRA Free State forces.
None of the issues of partition under Lloyd George's Better Government of Ireland Act or the insuing bitter division and cruel Civil War that division enjoined,including the violent deaths of many Irish leaders nor the abuses of minority factions without a country in the 6 north eastern counties.

A general election was held in 1922 under a pact between Collins and deValera to try and create a unity government. This election produced a Free State government in the south with P T Cosgrave as Presidnet of the Executive Council [PM] giving him the ability to form a government which he sucessfully did forming the 4th Dial.

A strong conservative Cabinate was formed with Kevin O Higgins, his lieutenant ,as Taniste [Vice Presidient] and Mininster of Home Affairs.
Mininster Patrick Hogan of Clare Agriculture,
Mulcahy Mininster of Defence and Blythe as Mininster of Finance, all conservative military officers and free trade lassez faire believers.

The condition throughout Ireland at the convenining of the 4th Dial and ligitimatly elected PM ,TP Cosgrave ,began its reign by interning most of the anti treaty strong opponents and imposing through legislative acts, harsh public saftey measures.
The Taioseach was given emergency powers to this effect.

The anti treaty forces were instructed to dump arms in late 1923 by the Chief of Staff Frank Aiken as the Iregular IRA Chief Eamon de Valera and their executive council had determined not to physically contest the election of Cumman na n Gaelheal.
This restored a semblance of peace in the country. However the Free State continued to hold over 12,000 men in internment camps.

In May of 1923 agrarian workers revolted in the west against a governemnt mandated wage reduction distroying crops, spiking cattle meadows and ambushing Free State troops on the roads.

In October 23 Noel Lammas brother of Liam was killed.

De Valera who had been arrested shortly after the 1922 Pact elections was released from internment in July 1924.

The rest of the internees were released in segments over a two year period.

One of the first acts of the new Free State governemnt were to begin sugar beet production in programs and apply standards to all butter and egg production.
The govenrment also demanded the cremeries be clean and standardised for milk products and provided subsidies to assist these projects to help the rural economys recover.
These programs were done under the able leadership of Pat Hogan Mininster of Agricluture.

A Butter Standards Act was passed in 1924 along with a Land Purchase Act helping farmers purchase farm land and developing farm credit.
A Egg Act was passed in 1925 standardising all egg exports for test grade and preservation.
All egg producing premisis were standardised for cleanliness and standard grades were regularly inspected and registered.
Fines were imposed for violations ,10 lbs for first offence, 20 lbs for second and prison for 6 months for further offences or negligence.
A Dairy Production Act was passed in 1924 requiring registry and packaging standards for all butter and milk products.
A Bull Act was passed requiring licencing and inspection of all bulls for their suitablity for breeding. some 18,000 bulls were inspected with 4000 being regected as undesirable sire.
This act applied to pigs horses and rams as well.

Much of agricultural production had ceased during the two wars period from 1919 to 1923.
If Irish farm families had suceeded in remaining on the land there rate of procution was primative at best.
Turf was still dug with a spade, laborors for hire roamed the roads with their spade, cycle , scythe and flail.
Grain was still beaten in a stone quern or bron.
Hiring fairs were still used to seek help or employment for the season from May to November.
The roads were frequently impassalbe and bridges blown up by the conflicting armies. However few cars existed and tansport was mostly by cart and donkey or sledge.

Women still carried bundles on their heads in the asian or african mode.

Housing was particlularly bad.
Most cabins having three rooms containing a central kitchen with open hearth, one bedroom and a sacrosaant parlor.
A More prosperous farmer might live in a one story cottage with thatched roof and containing loft bedrooms.
The farm fertility rate was high families often having 7 to 10 children in these small shelters and extended relatives or old persons, grandparents and great aunts and uncles to old to funtion by themselves.

In these rural clachans folk legend and folk fests still prevailed.Seanachais still operated in the communities telling balllad legends and local saints days were still observed.

These cottages contained usually a dresser in the kitchen area for china pieces, a milk churn which was carefully passed down from generation to generation, settle beds put up in the day and laid out by the warm hearth a night.
Wicker work baskets were wtill used for storage and usuallly made at the homestead. Ropes were still twisted from bogwood, horse hair,straw or rushes.
Rush lites were still used in many of these dwelling and life stock brought into the cabin for protection at night.

Usually the floor was simply packed clay a status symbol being a laid flagsone floor beyond the hearth.
So the Irish lived from day to day in 1923 having , if lucky ,a few sheep or a cow, a few hens for eggs and perhaps a patch of potato.

In these stagnant curcumstances the towns being no better being usually a one street affair consisting of an upper living quarters and a shop on the sreet. There were no sidewalks.
Some planned 18 century towns laid out by a demesne lords had a town square and some of the capital towns had a Court House.
These larger twons also usually contained a workhouse, a market, a national school , hospital, a military barracks and churches representing the local denomination, prodistant or catholic.

The smaller towns were usually about 10 miles apart- a distance which could be traversed by cart in a day- usually containing around 3000 persons.
The county towns were approximatly 30 miles apart from each other and containing around 10,000 persons.Dublin, Derry, Drogehda, Cork and Galway were usually a 60 miles apart.
However by 1923 all were economically stagnant and dilapidated by loss of a vibrant trade economy and displacement.
Dublin contained slums equitalbe to those of todays Mexico city cardboard dwellings rampant with raw sweage, desease, dispair and hunger.

Most of the 1920's towns were anglised the population speaking and thinking in English, wearing English dress and applying English law.
The Cosgrave govenment set out to change all that.

In 1923 the old English Poor Law was abolished replacing the massive central controlled workhouse system with county Boards of Health plans replacing poor persons need to go to the workhouse for in house relief with home assistance and home relief payments.
The old were immidiately affected in that they could now reamin in their homes rather than go to the work house or county home.

Relief was paid directly to parents allowing children to reamin in thir homes rather than being placed in foster care.
The program was funded with 1,700 million in Irish script.

A farm subsidy program was put through with the higly competent Minister of Agriculture Pat Hogan making grants to farms to retrieve their self sufficency.

An education reform was implimented making education compulsory till age 16 and revamping the primary schools by coordinating the curriculum making history and geography of Ireland and languages of Ireland compusory for graduation to secondarylevel school.'
A rural science prgram was added along with music and needlework.

The primary schools were previously in the vice like control of denominations but the government grant now made them free and nominally secular in curriculum.
The secondary schools were not free and threfore open only to students whose family had money to send them there.

In September 1923 the Soar State applied for admissin to the League of Nations at Geneva and established Consulates in Washington DC ,Paris, Berlin, Brussels and London and began issuing passports and visas.

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At this time the Lacarno Treaty was argued and it was accepted that Commonwealth Nations were not obliged to go to war if Great Britain did.
This doctrine was abily argued on behalf of the Free State by O Higgins.

In 1923 the Imperial Conference was held in which co equality of Dominions was firmly established.

The Irish Delegation of Mr O Higgins, Mr Fitzgerald took an active role in the Conference ,which was not expected by the more suave members of the Empire.

The Prime Mininsters of other countries such as New Zeland arrived in sleek cars with their nations flags flying in the breeze, than posing for the enmassed press for photographs.

Indian delagates arrived with turbans and silk frocks accompainied by footmen and chauffers.

The crowd pressed in to see the Irish Delegations first visit to Downing St since the Treaty signing.

Eventually two old taxis arrived at the Prime Mininster's door. Unknown figures in soft hats or bowler hats hurried into the house refusing to be photographed.
They were cheered when the crowd became aware of who they were.

General Smuts of South Africa, the Conference Chair, greeted them warmly and greeted them in his opening speech.

Kevin O Higgins became an able and accepted star and co equal among equals.

The Boundry Commission, which was founded by Article 7 of the 1921 Anglo Irish Treaty, was to consist of 3 representatives, 1 for the Free State, 1 for the North and a chair for Great Britain.
Judge Feetham from South Africa was appointed by the British government as their representative. Eoin O Neill for the Free Stat. But the north refused to appoint one for themselves.
The British thereupon appointed a representative for them ,RJ Fisher a staunch Unionist and Orangeman, Editor of the Northern Whig.

In March 1924 the Army Mutiny arose in the Free State Army when officers refused to accept the government demobilization and decommissioning in the army until the government created a Republic.
The government had mandated demobilization of 1900 officers by March 7 '24 and reducing the troop streanth from 55,000 men to 18,000.

The Army on behalf of the IRA pro treaty forces sent an ultimatum to the Dial advising they could not continue to accept the Treaty without the creation of a Republic citing their slain leader Michael Collins commitment to a Republic.
They advised the Saorstat government that they had concluded the government had no such intention to secure complete independance or a Republican form of government for the nation.
They demanded a conference rgarding demobilization and the removal of the Army Council demanding a responce by 10 March 1924.
Signed by Liam Tobin Major General and president of the Army Executive Council.

The government provided a conference appointing the chief of the new Guarda police, Eoin Duffy as negociator.

At the inquiry an agreement was reached to replace the Army Council. ASU men were to be given jobs. No reprisals or victimization was to occur to men who had rebelled or deserted.
However on March 16 a pub called Devlins was surrouned by government troops.
Within were a group of prominent mutiners.
Ten of them were arrested by the Cosgrave government with McGrath of the Dial as go between.
The prime leaders however were not found as the government had hoped, several of them having been members of Collins 'Squad'.
Of the outcome the Mininster of Defence Mulcahy resigned.
All told 2 Ministers and 8 Deputies resigned along with the removal of 3 senior Army Council officers.

On March 21 some British soldiers stationed at Spike Island ,a Treaty fort at Cobh, were gunned down Chicago mob style with machine guns by 4 men in Free State uniforms who also killed an 18 year old private in the barrage and wounded 24 civilians.
These were never apprehended.

The favorable outcome of the settlement with the mutiny affair was that the Free State government established itself as civilian control of the IRA and the Army de politized itself to a position of nutrality under control of the existing state where it remains to this day.


free state page 3


Following closely on the resolution of the dispute over forming a Republic the Free State was presented with the Boundry Commission refusal to ajust the boundry allowing the dissatisfied Irish population of the north to join the Free State as had been stipulated in theTreaty which states:
'the boundry should align in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants.'
At this time this would have included Tyrone, Fernmanagh, 2/3s of Down, Armagh and Derry Irish/Catholic areas.

James Craig, North Irish PM stated emphatically that he was ready to fight as in 1914 'to fight in the open against our enemies who would take away the loved soil of Ulster from any of the loyalists who wanted to remain there.'

A border agreeement was signed by the Baldwin government, by his CAbinate Lords Churchhill, Hicks Amery, and Birkenhead.
Cosgrave , O Higgins and Blyte signed for the Free State
Craig and Blackhouse for North Irleand.
This agreement set the borders as it remains today the open wound of Ireland on an island festering.

The Agreement also provided the Free State should be required to contribute to the UK public debt and to pay pensions to the old RIC.

The anti treaty forces were livid and considered the Agreement a betrayal.
De Valera recorded himself againt the Agreement stating it was 'enshrining partition of our country'.
Cosgrave stated the bitterness between the forces must be allowed to subside over partition and the Civil War before reunion could be discussed.
Cosgrave and Higgins refused to discuss reunification as to much suspition and mistrust existed as well as no stability in the Free State as yet.

Since the inception of the North Iriish State in 1921 the Irish erupted in sporatic violence and were repressed with extreme supression and reprisals.
Belfast was particularly prone o internicene street warfare which often resulted in the death of persons of rival religious sects.The religious deliniation gave to the Irish/Nationalist were catholics and th Loyalist/Unionists prodistant.

The now North Irish government under Craig createda military style police the RUC with the B specials and also a Ulster Defence Regiment all prodistant.
The government also passed supressive legislation in Special Powers Acts to repress the natives within the State.

Trade ws curtailed by the customs border duties adn the linen trade suffered creating hardship and unemployment.
Housing was deplorable among the working poor both nationalist and unionist.

Education of both nationalist and unionists young was completely controlled by the church groups.
Emigration continued to be the main means of earning a living and families were distroyed by it- often losing communication for years or forever.

The US held out a shinning light beneith her statue of Liberty.
In America the Roaring twenties were at hand. probition[the Volstead Act] had created bootlegging and smuggling trades.

While Cosgrave's government tried to curtail women by creating legilation prohibiting them to serve on Jurys or teach school the American 'Flapper' rolled away all tabus.

The Jazz Age flapper danced, drank, smoked, wore make up, cut her hair and 'petted'.
replacing the Gay 90's Gibson Girl immage of women.

They had been the work force during WW I when a whole generation had died as cannon fodder to the Imperialist Cause.

Women in America recieved the Vote with the 19th Amendment of 1920 and used it. They were femininst and 'new women'.
They wore no corsets, lightened their hair, wore dresses with waist at the hip and wore silk stockings.

Speakeasys were 'the thing' run by the Mob and such gangsters as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Owney Madden of Liverpool birth.
There hit men such as Mad Dog Coll a catholic Irish reform school pruduct who was hit by the Mob because of killing 5 kids in a drive by shootingand being dubbed the 'Baby Killer'
A contract for 25,000 was put out by Dutch Schults and Madden and Mad Dog was shot in a phone booth on Febrauary 23, 1932 while talking to Madden, a personal friend of Lucky Lucinao .

The Irish Americans by than were generally economically sucessful and politically connected creating such machines as Tammany Hall in NY and the Chicago Daley machine with men like Ed Flyn boss of the Bronx and McManus family in Manhattan Hells Kitchen.
F Scott Fitgeral a decendant of Francis Scott Key wou wrote the Star Spangled Banner and a child of Mary McQuillan and Ed Fitgerald of Maryland wrote the period novel The Great Gatsby in 1925 ,This side of paradise in 1920 ,and Tender is the Night in 1934
Walt Disney and Helen Hayes were beginning their careers.

Eugene O Neill wrote Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christe. Both plays recived rage reviews from a thriving bright lights Broadway of the Zigfield Follies and other graeat plays and stars,

The motor car was taking over America. Its alabaster cities were prosperous and thriving.
The farm communites, as in Ireland were depressed and beset with falling prices from the lassez faire free trade policies of the Republican Adninistration.

free State pg 4


During this period although there was much travl betwen the new and old world the sucessful Irish went to Paris or Berlin not the slums of Dublin or the old sod cabin. Connections were lost, brother and sister lost contact, children were born and old grandparents died never knowing one another.
Political connections maintained since the Famine and Land League days were lost as old leaders died and no new ones came to replace them.
The Church was a very powerful influence in American Irish life where parish and precint life gave a sence of place, security and success.

Most of the gangland bosses were strong backers of the local parish Church/School complex.

One of the most famous criminal gang massacres was provoked when George'Bugs' Moran, an Irish Catholic boss of the north side refused to allow his territory to harbor whore houses of
Capone's flesh peddlers.
This led Bugs men to machine gun the Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, a Chicago suburb with 1000 rounds killing Capones lieutenant ,Johnie Torrio ,on February 14, 1929, the famous St Valentines Day Massacre.
Bugs was not present he 'overslept' and lived for 30 years more dying of cancer in Levenworth Kansas prison forgotten and poor.

Deanie O Banion of north Chicago was killed in 1924 being, in addition to being a street punk, a chior boy at Holy Name parish. He started out as a singer in various dives, graduated to a street mugger, robber , bootlegger and fixer.
He refused to cooperate with Capone and was gunned down in his florist shop across the street from his Church by hit men from New York.

The Irish having been regected on arrival in America took what they wanted and then, through the dispair of the home country sent thier legal and ill gotten gains home to support and keep alive family and organizations trying to survive in a hostile environment in addition to supporting their church and family in America.

By 1925 the Free State had gained control of the often violent and distructive disruptions burdening the nation in the south.

In 1923 the tax deficit in the FreeState was 1,750 million. By 1925 this deficit was reduced to 950,000 and the FreeState was able to borrow money albeit to develope the Shannon scheme as a State Corporation.

Inniciated by an engineer, Dr T A McLauglin ,who returned from his Berlin job with Siemens and Schuchert to harnass the Shannon for electricity production.

Some counties had no electricity at all.
Such electric power that existed came from private generating stations.
Opposition to the plan presented to the Dial by experts from Sweden, Norway and Switzerland were cost of 5 million for a new fangled idea, that the scheme was german plot, and that Ireland could never use so much electrcity.
The project however, was approved and took 4 years to construct marked by a strike and IRS interference.

4000 men were employed.
The Electricicity Supply Board became law in 1927 and electricity began to flow on October 29 1929 [Black Tuesday}

In 1925 the Abby Theater was given a government subsidy but in 1926 a Censorship Board was created to repress writing of controversial morality.

In addition to Land Purchase Act and Local Government Act, the Dial passed a Coinage Act, A Currency Bill ,and created the idea of a national museum and art gallery hosting such national treasures as the Ardah Chalice.







free state pg 5

Standards were set for all exports. Irish butter and eggs, Irish milk products.
Creameries were put under state control and standards for cleanliness were set by the government with inspections.

The fishing industry and salmon production were standardized and controlled.

Secondary school reform began in 1926 with a state subsidy overriding both the church controlled curiculum and the priveleged only useage.

A general education was offered consisting of English or Irish, Math, History, Georgraphy , Science and Latin or Greek with a leaving Cetificate granted after 4 years on a standardized test.
Formerly schools were granted aid on anual exam results for the individual school making students good at passing exams a priority over general learning.
[this is the same consept behind no child left behind now prevelant in US schools]

The grants of the Free State government were now distributed equally to all schools giving them a regular income not dependant on competitive test results.
Scholarships replaced te 40 pound exams to enter secondary schools.

Religious monopoly of secondary schools was broken by state payment for teachers and requiring teachers to be registered with choice of non sectarian non religious posts.
The State established a seniority program for teachers and because the state paid a higher wage than the churches many good teachers enterd the system as state registered teachers.

Sinn Fein and British Courts were abolished and a two tier Irish Court consisting of District Court and a Superior Court was estblished.

Local government Acts were passed giving over central control of lunatic asylums, reformatories, industrial schools, roads and bridges.

Old Rural District councils were abolished in 1925.

A Mininster and Secretaries Act was passed in 1924.

The Dial finally took on the Dublin Corporation with a Greater Dublin Commission Inquiry.
Appointing 4 young Commissioners for 3 years.
These young men rid the city of its corrupt patronage local authorities and its dirty streets and vast slums which were owned by elected corporation members with a profit motive.

The new Commissioners reduced rates
put wages to sliding scale in accordance with needs of the workers
reduced paper waste and sick pay to city employees
reduced department size
and made money renting out the Mansion House for public funtions and giving leases from the city.
The Irish Auto Club was installed in the old Mansion House stable and yard.
Useless propertys such as the Clontarf Town Hall were sold
grafetti was erased and dirt was cleaned from the streets that had acumulated for 100 years.
A French company from Paris brought in to clean the streets.

Grants were made for road repair and the unemployed were set to work on them before the American CCC was even thought of.
Unemployment benefit was paid this way rather than a direct benefit.
The roads were repaved with a new asphalt replacing cobblestone and water macadam.

This was done through contractors with equipment rather than dirctly hiring the workers.
The contract was given by the government and the contractor hired the workers.

In 1924 the poor were huddled in tenements made out of former Georgian mansions of 18 century lords all with oak panneling and ceilings.
They had been condemed but were still lived in as there was nothing else.
Croyden Park of 90 acres was purchased by the government to build houses as in Drumcondra.
Housing Acts had been passed in 1924, 1925 and 1926 making funds availabe for subsidised housing and to the Building Societys to encourage private construction.

The grand canal was repaired
markets rebuilt
Tech education developed

All this was done in Dublin in 10 months by the new young Commisssioners.

These reforms were imitated in Cork and in rural Ireland as well.

A 1923 Bill created an unarmed Free States police force called the Garda Sionchana.

Along with these progressive acts the FS government maintained a repressive Public Saftey Act and emergency Executive powers.

On July 10 1927 Kevin O Higgins was shot on the way to Church which threw the country into into a more repressive mode.
A new Public Safty Bill from the 6th Dial than sitting gave the power to raid homes to Cosgrave for 5 years.
The Executive could desolve an association advocating violence or holding unlawful meetings.
Membership became a criminal offence,
or having documents relating to these organizations was declared a criminal offence and implied membership.
Persons educated to violence under 16 years of age were to be detained for one year.
Parents were to be held responsible for the chilrens violence.
PUblishing of association offencive material was unlawful and printers were to be held liable, forfieting printing equipment.
Newspapers and periodicals were suppressed on a court order.
No importation of'dangerous' newspapers from abroad were allowed.
'Dangerous' persons were to be expelled.
Detention pending an investigation was made legal.
Refusing to reconize Court was a crime.
The Treasonable Offences Act and the Public Saftey Act violation made a party ineligibe for employment anywhere- not just by government- or receipt of a pension.
The death penalty was approved for treason, a murder or unlawful possession of a fire arm.

A special Court was convened


In addition to these added repressive acts of 1927.







free state pg 6



Fianna Fail under de Valera was forced by these measures to enter the Dial in 1927.

Ireland was economically struck again by the Great Depression of October 29 1929.
With agricultural products piling up exports fell by half.
Butter, Bacon and Egg prices fell.
The price of sheep plunged. Cattle prices dropped. 117 factories closed.

21,000 were unemployed in April 1929
31,000 by April 1932.

The Free Stae government applied more emergency measures.
Pay reductions for police and teachers were ordered.
Hostility exited against Free State government and intensified when the government proscuted the Irish Press of Fianna Fail for publishing police complaints.
The case was tried by a military tribunal.
A vote of no confidence was issued by the Dial which desolved and called for an election.

An election date was set for 16 February 1932 because that year was also the anniversary of St Patricks coming to Ireland 1500 years previously and the Eucharistic Congress were to be cleebrated in June 1932.

Fiana Fail won the election over the Cummann na n Gaelheal, 72 seats to 57.

On March 9 deVAlera with labour support founded a government and was elected President of the Executive Council by the 7th Dial.

He took the department of External Affairs as his.
T O Kelly became Taniste and Mininster for Local government.
Frank Aikin ,later an ambassador to the UN, took the Defence portfolio.
James Geoghegan Mininster of Justice
Sean Lemass Industry and Commerce.

As such the Free State passed into the control of the Ireglular anti partition personnel and the De Valera Era began in Ireland to last through 1948.



* the Irish Oireachtas was formed by the Free State Constitution into two bodies the Dial and the Seanad the first being the body creating the countrys legislation and appropriating funds, and the second being a body of advise and consent having limited powers.
The Seanad was fixed at 60 members. 30 were nominated by the Executive Council and 30 elected by the Dial members. These Senators were chosen for their already honored positions of respect in the country and had achieved success and respect in fields of society.
The Seanad could suggest Bills and inniciate bills but the Dial retained the power to vote on them. The Seanad members were elected for 3 years on a staggered system 1/4 at a time.




Judi Donnelly
Copyright September 12 2007


sourses: Ireland Since the Rising ,Tim P Coogan Fredrick PraegerPblsr , 1966
The Irish Free State, Denis Gwynn, MacMillan and Co Ltd, 1928
The Irish in America, Michael Coffey ,Terry Golway,Hyperion, 1997
Internet: Republic of Ireland Offical Website 2000