By doing so the Act abolished the last remaining functions of the British monarch (then King George VI) in relation to the Irish state.
These functions had related to the issuance and acceptance of letters of credence of diplomatic and consular representatives and the conclusion of international agreements.
Until Ireland brought the Act into force, it was still regarded by the members as forming part of "His Majesty’s dominions".
With that Irish Act now being repealed, there was no longer any basis, however tenuous, to consider Ireland as continuing to have a King or to be part of His Majesty’s dominions and therefore within the Commonwealth.
Ironically, the Taoiseach chose to announce the repeal of the External Relations Act while on an official visit to Canada, the same country whose constitutional status had been the basis for the establishment of the Irish Free State.
The London Declaration, which permitted republics to remain within the Commonwealth, was made shortly afterwards in response to India's desire to continue as a member once its new republican constitution was finalised.
[8] Section 2 of the Act provides: It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland.The Act did not declare that Ireland a republic, nor did it change the official name of the state which continued to be Éire (in Irish) and Ireland (in English) as prescribed in the Constitution.
By the eve of the 1948 Irish general election the United Kingdom's Representative to Ireland, Lord Rugby, reported that the annulment of the External Relations Act was inevitable.
Costello made the announcement that a bill to repeal the External Relations Act was to be introduced when he was in Ottawa, during an official visit to Canada.
David McCullagh has suggested that it was a spur of the moment reaction to offence caused by the Governor General of Canada,[14] Lord Alexander, who was of Northern Ireland descent, who allegedly placed loyalist symbols, notably a replica of the famous Roaring Meg cannon used in the Siege of Derry, before an affronted Costello at a state dinner.
[15] Costello's revelation of the decision was because the Sunday Independent (an Irish newspaper) had discovered the fact and was about to "break" the story as an exclusive.
There is no record of a prior decision to repeal the External Relations Act before Costello's Canadian trip, among cabinet papers for 1948, which supports Browne's claim.
Nonetheless, the United Kingdom statute provided that Irish citizens would not be treated as aliens under British nationality law.
[21] On the day the Act came into force, 18 April 1949, King George VI sent the following message to the President of Ireland, Seán T. O'Kelly:[22] I send you my sincere good wishes on this day, being well aware of the neighbourly links which hold the people of the Republic of Ireland in close association with my subjects of the United Kingdom.
I hold in most grateful memory the services and sacrifices of the men and women of your country who rendered gallant assistance to our cause in the recent war and who made a notable contribution to our victories.
I pray that every blessing may be with you today and in the future.From the Acts of Union 1800, when the UK House of Lords noted someone's succession to an Irish peerage, the Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland in Dublin to update the electoral register for Irish representative peer.
Such elections ceased in 1922 and the office of Clerk of the Crown was formally abolished in 1926, when the last holder, Gerald Horan, became first Master of the High Court.