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Tag Archives: Seanad Éireann (Irish Free State)


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Passage of the Constitution (Removal of Oath) Act 1933

The Constitution (Removal of Oath) Act 1933 (act no. 6 of 1933, previously bill no. 2 of 1932), an Act of the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State amending the Constitution of the Irish Free State and the Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) Act 1922, is passed on May 3, 1933. The Act removes the Oath of Allegiance required of members of the Oireachtas and of non-Oireachtas extern ministers.

The oath, pledging allegiance to the Constitution and fidelity to George V as King of Ireland, is required by the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in 1921, and has been the symbolic focus of Irish republican opposition to the Treaty in the 1922–23 Irish Civil War. When Fianna Fáil is founded in 1926 by veterans of the losing anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, abolishing the oath is a core aim. It is a main item in the manifesto for its successful 1932 Irish general election campaign, after which it forms a minority government whose first action is to introduce the Constitution (Removal of Oath) Bill 1932. Seanad Éireann has more ex-unionists and others conciliatory towards the United Kingdom and vote to reject the bill unless the Treaty can be amended by agreement. After the 1933 Irish general election, the Fianna Fáil majority government is able to override the Seanad and enact the law.

As well as amending the Constitution, the 1933 act also amends the Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) Act 1922, which had both created the Constitution in Irish law and also prohibited any Constitutional amendment incompatible with the Treaty. Since the Free State cannot unilaterally amend the Treaty, Fianna Fáil amends the 1922 act to remove the Treaty’s precedence over the Constitution. Later constitutional amendments are also incompatible with the terms of the Treaty, in particular by weakening and ultimately abolishing the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State. There is legal controversy over whether the Oireachtas has the power to amend the 1922 act, because it had been passed by the Third Dáil sitting as a constituent assembly before the Oireachtas had come into being. In 1935 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London rules that, in British law, the Oireachtas does have the power, under the Statute of Westminster 1931. Irish jurisprudence takes issue with many of the assumptions underlying the 1935 decision.

The question is rendered moot with the adoption of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937 which repeals the Free State Constitution. The 1933 act is itself repealed as spent by the Statute Law Revision Act 2016.

(Pictured: Great Seal of the Irish Free State)


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Birth of Pádraic Ó Máille, Founder Member of Sinn Féin

Pádraic Ó Máille, Irish politician, is born in Kilmilkin, in the Maam Valley (Irish: Gleann an Mháma) of County Galway on February 23, 1878. He is a founder member of Sinn Féin and of the Conradh na Gaeilge in Galway. He is a member of the Irish Volunteers from 1917 to 1921.

Before entering politics Ó Máille is a farmer. He is elected as a Sinn Féin Member of Parliament (MP) for Galway Connemara at the 1918 Irish general election.

In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refuse to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assemble at the Mansion House in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann. Ó Máille is re-elected as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Galway constituency at the 1921 Irish elections.

Ó Máille supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty and votes in favour of it. He is re-elected as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD for Galway at the 1922 Irish general election, and is elected as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Galway at the 1923 Irish general election. In the subsequent Irish Civil War, he is targeted for assassination by anti-Treaty forces and is shot and badly wounded in Dublin in December 1922.

Ó Máille is critical of the proposed Irish Boundary Commission and resigns from Cumann na nGaedheal and founds a new political party called Clann Éireann in 1926.

Ó Máille loses his seat at the June 1927 Irish general election and is unsuccessful at the September 1927 Irish general election. He later joins Fianna Fáil, the party which emerges from the anti-Treaty side in the civil war, and contests the 1932 Irish general election for that party in the Dublin County constituency but is not elected.

On each of these occasions Ó Máille is subjected to a smear campaign by his former party colleagues who his pro-Treaty stance during the civil war against him. It is alleged that he had personally selected his fellow county man Liam Mellows for execution. These smears persist despite denials from the Mellows family and from Ó Máille himself. In fact, Mellows is executed in reprisal for the attack on Ó Máille and Sean Hales on December 8, 1922.

Ó Máille serves as a Fianna Fáil Senator in Seanad Éireann from 1934 to 1936. He is re-elected to the new Seanad in 1938 on the Agricultural Panel. From 1939 until his death in 1946 he is re-appointed to the Seanad as a nominee of the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. He is Leas-Chathaoirleach (Deputy chairman) of the Seanad from May to November 1938.

Ó Máille dies on January 19, 1946. Accorded a guard of honour by the Dublin brigade, he is buried at Glencullen Cemetery, County Dublin.