The Irish state came into being in 1919 as the 32 county Irish Republic. In 1922, having seceded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, it became the Irish Free State. It comprised 26 counties, with 6 counties under the control of Unionists; which became Northern Ireland in 1921. Bunreacht na hÉireann 1937 constitution renamed the 26 states 'Ireland'. In 1949, only 26 counties explicitly became a republic under the terms of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, definitively ending its tenuous membership of the British Commonwealth. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Communities (EC) as a member state which would later become the European Union (EU).
Upon its foundation, the Irish Free State was embroiled in a civil war between nationalists supporting the Treaty and opponents who supported the existing Republic. The pro-Treaty side, organised as Cumann na nGaedheal, emerged victorious from the conflict and won subsequent elections. They formed the government of the state until 1932, when they peacefully handed over power to the anti-Treaty faction in Fianna Fáil, who defeated them in an election. The Irish state, despite its violent beginnings, has remained a democracy throughout its existence. Changes in the 1930s removed many of the links with Britain established under the Treaty and Ireland's neutrality in the Second World War demonstrated its independence in foreign policy matters from Britain.
In the economic sphere, the Irish state has had a mixed performance. On independence, it was one of the wealthier countries in Europe per head of population. However it also inherited from British rule the problems of unemployment, emigration, uneven geographical development and lack of a native industrial base. For much of its history, the state struggled to rectify these problems. Particular peaks of emigration were recorded during the 1930s, 1950s and 1980s, when the Irish economy recorded little growth.
In the 1930s, Fianna Fáil governments attempted to create Irish domestic industries using subsidies and protective tariffs. In the late 1950s, these policies were dropped in favour of free trade with selected countries and encouraging of foreign investment with low taxes. This was expanded when Ireland entered the European Economic Community in 1973. In the 1990s and 2000s, Ireland experienced an economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger, in which the country's GDP surpassed many of its European neighbours. Immigration also surpassed emigration, bringing the state's population up to over 4 million. However, since 2008, Ireland has experienced a severe crisis in the banking sector and with sovereign debt. The resultant economic slump has deepened the effect of the world recession on Ireland till 2012. Since 2012 unemployment rates and the economy has grown except around Covid. In the global GDP per capita tables, Ireland ranks 4th of 186 in the IMF table and 4th of 187 in the World Bank ranking.
From 1937 to 1998, the Irish constitution included an irredentist claim on Northern Ireland as a part of the national territory. However, the state also opposed and used its security forces against those armed groups – principally the Provisional Irish Republican Army – who tried to unite Ireland by force. This occurred in the 1950s, throughout the 1970s and 1980s and has continued on a reduced scale. Irish governments meanwhile tried to broker an agreement to the conflict known as the Troubles within Northern Ireland from 1968 to the late 1990s. The British government officially recognised the right of the Irish government to be a party to the Northern negotiations in the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. In 1998, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish constitution was altered by referendum to remove the territorial claim to Northern Ireland and instead extend the right of Irish citizenship to all the people of the island should they wish to have it.
Background to independence
Separatism, rebellion and partition
From the Acts of Union 1800 in 1801 until 6 December 1922 the whole of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, from the 1880s, there had been long-standing nationalist agitation for autonomy or Home Rule. Other, more radical voices such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood called for independence, but these were in a minority.McGee, Owen, "Who were the Fenian Dead?", The IRB and the Background to the 1916 Rising, in Doherty, Keogh (eds), 1996 The Long Revolution. p108
In 1912–1913, the Liberal government in Britain proposed a Bill for Home Rule. Alarmed, unionists in the north organized the Ulster Volunteers, an armed militia proposing to resist Home Rule by force. Nationalists in response founded the Irish Volunteers. Arising out of this stand off, the partition of Ireland was proposed in three way talks between the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Unionist Party and the British government. In 1914, the UK Parliament enacted a Third Irish Home Rule Bill but suspended its effect until after World War I.
The nationalist leader John Redmond pledged support for the British war effort and many Irishmen served in the British Army (see Ireland and World War I), but the war and the frustration of nationalist ambitions regarding Home Rule led to a radicalisation of Irish nationalism. In 1916, a group of IRB activists within the Irish Volunteers led an insurrection aimed at Irish independence in Dublin, known as the Easter Rising. The rebellion did not have popular support and was put down within a week, but the execution of its leaders, and the subsequent wholesale arrest of radical nationalist activists proved very unpopular with the nationalist public.Charles Townshend Easter 1916, The Irish Rebellion, p269 Coming directly after the Rising, a further attempt was made at the Irish Convention to resolve the impasse over Home Rule, but without success. Finally, the British proposal to extend conscription for the war to Ireland provoked widespread resistance, (see Conscription Crisis of 1918) and discredited the Irish Parliamentary Party who had supported the British war effort.Fergus Campbell, Land and Revolution, Nationalist Politics and Land in the west of Ireland, 1891–1921 p197
All of these factors led to a swing towards support for Sinn Féin – the party which was led by veterans of the Easter Rising and which stood for an independent Irish Republic. In the 1918 general election, Sinn Féin won 73 of the 105 seats, many of which were uncontested. Sinn Féin's elected candidates refused to attend the UK Parliament at Westminster and instead assembled in Dublin as a new revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann. They then declared the existence of a new state called the Irish Republic and established a system of government to rival the institutions of the United Kingdom.
The first meeting of the Dáil coincided with an unauthorised shooting of two RIC men in Tipperary, now regarded as the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence. From 1919 to 1921 the Irish Volunteers (now renamed as the Irish Republican Army, being deemed by the Dáil to be the army of the new Irish Republic) engaged in guerrilla warfare against the British army, the RIC and paramilitary police units known as the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries. The violence started out slowly, with only 19 deaths in 1919, but escalated sharply from the second half of 1920 and in the first six months of 1921 alone there were 1,000 deaths on all sides.Collins, Ireland 1868–1968, p265 The principle political leader of the republican movement was Éamon de Valera – the President of the Republic. However he spent much of the conflict in the United States, raising money and support for the Irish cause. In his absence, two young men, Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy rose to prominence as the clandestine leaders of the IRA – respectively Director of Intelligence and Chief of Staff of the guerrilla organisation.
There were several failed attempts to negotiate an end to the conflict. In the summer of 1920, the British government proposed the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (which passed into law on 3 May 1921) that envisaged the partition of the island of Ireland into two autonomous regions Northern Ireland (six northeastern counties) and Southern Ireland (the rest of the island, including its most northerly county, Donegal).NSR&O 1921, No. 533. However, this was not acceptable to southern republicans and only the entity of Northern Ireland was established under the Act in 1921. The political entity of Southern Ireland was superseded in 1922 by the creation of the Irish Free State.
After further failed talks in December 1920, the guerrilla conflict was brought to an end in July 1921, with a truce agreed between the IRA and the British. Talks were then formally begun in pursuit of a peace settlement.Michael Hopkins, The Irish War of Independence, p192-197
To some extent, the War of Independence exposed political and religious fissures in Irish society. The IRA killed over 200 civilians as alleged informers in the conflict.Marie Coleman, Longford and the Irish Revolution, p154 It has been alleged that groups like Protestants and ex-servicemen were disproportionately represented in this figure – an argument disputed by other historians. However whether due to violence and intimidation or due to their loyalty to the British presence in Ireland, between 1911 and 1926 some 34 percent of the Free State's Protestant population – or about 40,000 people – left the 26 counties, mostly for Northern Ireland or Great Britain. While there were many reasons for this, secession from the United Kingdom was a factor in Protestant emigration.
Anglo-Irish Treaty
Negotiations between the British and Irish negotiating teams produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty, concluded on 6 December 1921. The Irish team was led by Michael Collins, who had organised the IRA intelligence during the War of Independence. The British team led by David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill were prepared to make concessions on Irish independence but would not concede a republic. Towards the end of negotiations, Lloyd George threatened, "immediate and terrible war" if the Irish did not accept the terms offered.
The Treaty envisaged a new system of Irish self-government, known as "dominion status", with a new state, to be called the Irish Free State. The Free State was considerably more independent than a Home Rule Parliament would have been. It had its own police and armed forces and control over its own taxation and fiscal policy, none of which had been envisaged under Home Rule. However, there were some limits to its sovereignty. It remained a dominion of the British Commonwealth and members of its parliament had to swear an oath of loyalty to the British monarch. The British also retained three naval bases, known as the Treaty Ports. In addition, the Irish state was obliged to honour the contracts of the existing civil service—with the exception of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which was disbanded, albeit with full pensions—payable by the Irish state.
There was also the question of partition, which pre-dated the Treaty but which was copper-fastened by it. In theory, Northern Ireland was included under the terms of the Treaty but under Article 12 was, given the option to opt out within a month. (See Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922) Thus for three days from midnight on 6 December 1922 the newly established Irish Free State, in theory included all of the island of Ireland (including Northern Ireland). However, in practice, Northern Ireland was already a functioning autonomous area by this time and it formally left the Irish Free State on 8 December 1922.