Origins

The Irish Free State was officially established on 6 December 1922, under the terms of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. While Irish political leaders favoured the creation of a republic, 'the Treaty' required, instead, that the new state would be a Dominion within the British Empire under a form of constitutional monarchy. Central to the agreed system of government was to be a "representative of the Crown". The new office was not named in the treaty, but the committee charged with drawing up the Free State constitution, under General Michael Collins, decided, after considering a number of names, including "Commissioner of the British Commonwealth"^[4] and "President of Ireland",^[5] that the representative would bear the title of "Governor-General", the same as that used by the Crown's representative in other Dominions, i.e. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. However, the Irish language title was Seanascal,^[6] meaning "high steward", which was later used in English.^[7]

The Crown's representative was expressly bound by the same constitutional conventions as the Governor General of Canada, which would limit him to a largely ceremonial role. It was hoped that, if he was given the same title as that used in other Dominions, then, if the British government attempted to violate convention by using the Office of Governor-General to interfere in the Free State's affairs, these other nations would see their own autonomy threatened and might object.

Cosgrave executive

The first two Governors-General of the Irish Free State assumed office under the pro-Treaty, Cumann na nGaedheal government of W. T. Cosgrave. When it came to choosing the first governor-general, there was speculation about a number of possible candidates, including the famed Irish painter Sir John Lavery and Edward, Prince of Wales. However, the Irish cabinet let it be known that it wished Tim Healy, a former Irish Parliamentary Party MP, to be appointed, and the British government ultimately agreed.

When it came to selecting Healy's successor, the Irish cabinet chose James McNeill, an Ulsterman, from one of the six out of nine Ulster counties which had remained in the Union with Britain, who was a former member of Collins's constitution committee and a former Chairman of Dublin County Council. Because, unlike his predecessor, he was not the United Kingdom's official representative in the Free State, but merely the personal representative of the King, McNeill found himself with less influence than Healy had possessed.

De Valera executive

After the 1932 general election, the Cosgrave government left office and was succeeded by the anti-treaty Fianna Fáil party of Éamon de Valera, who now became President of the Executive Council. Fianna Fáil's immediate goal was to republicanise the Irish Free State and, as such, it opposed the very existence of the governorship-general. With this in mind, de Valera's cabinet decided to boycott and humiliate McNeill at every turn. This policy was followed, for example, during the Eucharistic Congress in 1932, when McNeill was sidelined and, on one occasion, the army's band was withdrawn from a function that he attended. On another occasion, two ministers publicly stormed out of a diplomatic function in Dublin when McNeill arrived as the guest of the French government. In late 1932, de Valera and McNeill clashed when the Governor-General published his private correspondence with de Valera and de Valera sought McNeill's dismissal. King George V, however, acting as peacemaker, persuaded de Valera to withdraw the request on the basis that McNeill was due to finish his term of office within a few weeks. He then persuaded McNeill to bring forward his retirement to 1 November 1932.

On McNeill's retirement, de Valera advised the King to appoint the aged Domhnall Ua Buachalla, a former Fianna Fáil TD, to the post. The new Governor-General (who almost always styled himself as Seanascal) was formally advised by the cabinet to withdraw from public life and confine himself to formal functions such as giving Royal Assent, issuing proclamations, dissolving Dáil Éireann, and appointing, on de Valera's advice, ministers to the Executive Council. In 1933, constitutional amendments were passed removing the Governor General's role in recommending the appropriation of money and the power to veto legislation.

Abolition

In December 1936, when King Edward VIII abdicated from all his thrones, including that of the Irish Free State (as created in the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act and Statute of Westminster 1931), the Irish cabinet decided to finally abolish the governorship-general. Taoiseach John A. Costello, speaking in 1948, described the Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act 1936, which effected the change, as follows:^[2]

This Act purported to vest all those powers in the Government, or rather, to put it more technically, to make all those powers exercisable by the Government. That Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act was signed by the Governor-General on the 11th December, 1936. It may be of interest to recall that that was his death warrant: he ceased, the minute he signed that, to be Governor-General. Also it might be of interest—it is of no interest now, except to constitutional lawyers—to consider how it was that the representative of the King who had abdicated the previous day was able to give the assent of that King to a constitutional amendment.

However, de Valera was later advised by the Attorney-General and senior advisors that the amendment was not sufficient to abolish the office entirely, which still continued by virtue of Letters Patent, Orders in Council, and statute law. Though officially insisting that the office had been abolished (de Valera instructed Ua Buachalla to act as though he had left office and to leave his official residence), de Valera introduced a second law, the Executive Powers (Consequential Provisions) Act 1937, to retrospectively eliminate the post from Irish law. Under its own terms, the act applied retroactively, so that the office would be deemed to have been fully abolished on 11 December 1936.

Ua Buachalla and de Valera, although once close friends, fell out over Ua Buachalla's treatment in the abolition of the viceregal post, with Ua Buachalla initiating legal proceedings to sue de Valera. However, their relationship was eventually healed and, when de Valera later became President of Ireland, he appointed Ua Buachalla to the Council of State in 1959. Ua Buachalla was the last surviving governor-general, dying aged 97 on 30 October 1963.

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