Parliament of Southern Ireland

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The Parliament of Southern Ireland was set up during the Anglo-Irish War under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, evolving out of the Home Rule Act 1914, to legislate for "Southern Ireland", a political entity envisaged by the British government which never became a reality. The Parliament was bicameral, consisting of a House of Commons and a Senate. The parliament as two houses sat only once, in the Royal College of Science for Ireland in Merrion Street. As only a handful of members attended the Houses were adjourned.

The House of Commons was summoned a second time to ratify the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 14 January 1922, under a summons issued not by the Lord Lieutenant but by Arthur Griffith as "Chairman of the Irish Delegation of Plenipotentiaries", under Sections 17 and 18 of the Treaty, which required that the Treaty was to be submitted

"by the Irish signatories to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and if approved shall be ratified by the necessary legislation".

The meeting, on 14 January 1922 in the Mansion House, attended by six four pro-Treaty MPs and 4 MPs Trinity College Dublin, duly ratified the Treaty and nominated Michael Collins for appointment as Chairman of the Provisional Government. Collins was installed in his post by the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle on 16 January.^[1]

Section 18 provided for the continuance of the Parliament of Southern Ireland until the coming into force of the Irish Free State. However a new Provisional Parliament, also known as the Third Dáil, was later elected. The parliament was abolished by the Irish Free State Constitution of 1922.

[edit] See also

• Parliament of Northern Ireland, set up simultaneously to legislate for Northern Ireland.

[edit] Footnote

1. ^ Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi, 1968) pp.592-193.