[4] The Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922 also created a separate Governor and Great Seal for Northern Ireland.

[7] Regarding the design of the Great Seal, an approach was made by Hugh Kennedy, the Attorney General, to Thomas Sadleir, Registrar of the Office of Arms at Dublin Castle.

The 1919–1922 seal of the revolutionary Dáil of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic showed a harp surrounded by the words "Sigullum Reipublicae Hibernicae — Seala Saorstáit Éireann".

[9] The Provisional Government's private secretary suggested to Hugh Kennedy a similar seal for the Free State: "If considered desirable to symbolise in the design the present partition of Ulster, this could be done by leaving the Arms incomplete and broken at the corner.".

[10] George Sigerson, the President of the National Literary Society, recommended to Tim Healy, the new Governor-General, that the harp should be adopted as the symbol of the Free State.

[1] Mabel McConnell, from a family of heraldic artists, was contracted by the Executive Council to make the sketches which the Royal Mint in England used to cast the die matrix for the seal.

[14] Archibald McGoogan of the Art Department of the National Museum of Ireland perfected the design,[1] and the Royal Mint in January 1924 said it was "delighted" with the revised version.

[18] In 1926, the Colonial Office discovered the existence of the Free State's new seal and complained to Robert Johnson, Deputy Master and Controller of the Royal Mint, that proper procedures had not been followed:[18] the design ought to have been submitted for pre-approval by the King-in-Council: that is, submitted via the Colonial Office to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, which would advise the King to issue an Order in Council for formal approval.

[38] However, the matrix die was made at Royal Mint Court in London, both sides cut from a single piece of silver by applying a reducing machine to Metcalfe's model.

[50][nb 3] After the Statute of Westminster 1931, following the Free State's lead, the Union of South Africa in 1934[24] and Canada in 1939[52] passed laws permitting themselves to use their own Great Seals for diplomatic functions.

Although the republicans lost the war, Free State leaders sensitive to the controversy gradually abolished the Governor-General's formal powers, or transferred them elsewhere.

[54] When republican Civil War leader Éamon de Valera became President of the Executive Council after the 1932 Irish election, sidelining the Governor-General accelerated, until the Constitution (Amendment No.

"[55] The die of the internal Free State seal is now on public display at National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History in Dublin.

[58] The text on the reverse of External Great Seal was changed likewise, and the British monarch, George VI, continued to sign diplomatic documents using it.