The Act, which was signed into law on 12 December 1936, was one of two passed hurriedly in the aftermath of the Edward VIII abdication crisis to sharply reduce the role of the Crown.
In the aftermath of King Edward VIII's signing of an Instrument of Abdication on 10 December 1936, the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State enacted the Constitution (Amendment No.
27) Act 1936 abolishing the office of the Governor-General so that thereafter the powers of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, insofar as internal matters were concerned, ceased to be exercised in the name of the King.
Due to the Act's phrasing, King Edward VIII's abdication was actually back-dated to the day before that on which it took effect in the United Kingdom and most of the other Dominions.
The recent appointment of Patrick Lynch as the Attorney General of Ireland and even the pension of the outgoing Governor-General (Domhnall Ua Buachalla) needed to be legalised.