Members of the Dáil were required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution of the Free State and to declare fidelity to the king.

Pro-Treaty members, who formed Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923, held an effective majority in the Dáil from 1922 to 1927 and thereafter ruled as a minority government until 1932.

In 1931, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, the Parliament of the United Kingdom relinquished nearly all of its remaining authority to legislate for the Free State and the other dominions.

[15] The following day, the Commons and the Senate of Northern Ireland passed resolutions "for the express purpose of opting out of the Free State".

The office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State replaced the previous Lord Lieutenant, who had headed English and British administrations in Ireland since the Middle Ages.

It had two elements; the first, an oath to the Free State, as by law established, the second part a promise of fidelity, to His Majesty, King George V, his heirs and successors.

[19] Although 'a new departure', and notably indirect in its reference to the monarchy, it was criticised by nationalists and republicans for making any reference to the Crown, the claim being that it was a direct oath to the Crown, a fact arguably incorrect by an examination of its wording, but in 1922 Ireland and beyond, many argued that the fact remained that as a dominion the King (and therefore the British) was still Head of State and that was the practical reality that influenced public debate on the issue.

The Oath became a key issue in the resulting Irish Civil War that divided the pro and anti-treaty sides in 1922–23.

The compromises contained in the agreement caused the civil war in the 26 counties in June 1922 – April 1923, in which the pro-Treaty Provisional Government defeated the anti-Treaty Republican forces.

These included a functioning, if disputed, parliamentary democracy with its own executive, judiciary and written constitution which could be changed by the Oireachtas.

Although an Irish republic had not been on offer, the Treaty still afforded Ireland more internal independence than it had possessed in over 400 years, and far more autonomy than had ever been hoped for by those who had advocated for Home Rule.

With no ensuing restrictions on his policies, he abolished the Oath of Allegiance (which Cosgrave intended to do had he won the 1932 general election), the Seanad, university representation in the Dáil, and appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

One major policy error occurred in 1936 when he attempted to use the abdication of King Edward VIII to abolish the crown and governor-general in the Free State with the "Constitution (Amendment No.

The new Saorstát pound was defined by the 1927 Act to have exactly the same weight and fineness of gold as was the sovereign at the time, making the new currency pegged at 1:1 with sterling.

It had blazed a trail in asserting the rights of the dominions to their own foreign policy, in the process establishing full diplomatic relations with the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, and the Holy See.

It had received the accolade of election to a non-permanent seat on the council of the League of Nations and asserted its full equality with Britain and the other dominions within the Commonwealth.By contrast, the military was drastically reduced in size and scope, with its budget cut by 82% from 1924 to 1929.

[citation needed] Through the works of priests such as Edward Cahill, Richard Devane, and Denis Fahey, Irish society saw capitalism, individualism, communism, private banking, the promotion of alcohol, contraceptives, divorce, and abortion as the pursuits of the old 'Protestant-elite' and Jews, with their efforts combined through the Freemasons.

Denis Fahey described Ireland as "the third most Masonic country in the world" and saw this alleged order as contrary to the creation of an independent Irish State.

With regard to religion, a section of Article 44 included the following: The State recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens.

The 1937 Constitution saw a notable ideological slant to the changes of the framework of the State in such a way as to create one that appeared to be distinctly Irish.

This was done so by implementing corporatist policies (based on the concepts of the Roman Catholic Church, as Catholicism was perceived to be deeply imbedded with the perception of Irish identity).

A clear example of this is the model of the reconstituted Seanad Éireann (the Senate), which operates based on a system of vocational panels, along with a list of appointed nominating industry bodies, a corporatist concept (seen in Pope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno).

Furthermore, Ireland's main political parties; Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour, all had an inherently corporatist outlook.

[33][34][35][36][37][38] The government was the subject of intense lobbying by leading Church figures throughout the 1930s in calling for reform of the State's framework.