The Houses of the Oireachtas: Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann

Historical Note

Ireland is a parliamentary democracy. The legislature consists of two Houses: Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann. The functions and powers of the Houses derive from the Constitution of Ireland – Bunreacht na hÉireann – which was adopted by the people in a referendum on 1 July 1937 and came into operation on 29 December 1937.

The first meeting of Dáil Éireann took place in the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, in the afternoon of 21 January 1919. The session lasted a mere two hours. They were two of the most momentous hours in Ireland’s history however. During this brief period the Dáil adopted a Constitution and approved the Declaration of Independence. By doing so the Dáil asserted a continuity of objectives with the leaders of the 1916 Rising in setting up a separate parliament, government and republic.

There was nothing new about parliamentary assemblies in Ireland. The Normans, who began to settle in Ireland from 1169 on, were the first to give Ireland a centralised administration. Our legal system and our courts of law are, in large measure, inherited from them. So too is our legislature which is directly descended from the parliament which developed in medieval Ireland. There is some evidence to suggest that the word ‘parliament’ may have been in use as early as 1234-35, but the earliest known Irish parliament for which there is a definitive record met on 18 June, 1264 at Castledermot in County Kildare.

Parliamentary assemblies took various forms down through the General Assembly of the Confederation of Kilkenny (1642-1649), the ‘Patriot Parliament’ of 1689 and the independent Irish parliament of 1782, popularly known as ‘Grattan’s Parliament’. These assemblies however all lacked the great principle on which Dáil Éireann was founded in 1919. This was that all legislative, executive and judicial power had its source in, and was derived from, the sovereign people of Ireland.

Grattan’s independent Irish parliament lasted a mere 18 years. The Act of Union of 1800, which came into force on 1 January 1801, created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and united the parliaments of the two kingdoms. From then until Independence in 1922 Irish Members of Parliament held seats in the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with its seat at the Palace of Westminster.

In the aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916 Sinn Féin, the party founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905, was reorganised and grew into a nation-wide movement. Abstention from Westminster and the establishment of a separate and independent Irish parliament had long been part and parcel of Sinn Féin’s policy. The party contested the December 1918 general election, called following the dissolution of the British Parliament, and swept the country winning 73 of the 105 Irish seats. Acting on the pledge not to sit in the Westminster parliament, but instead to set up an Irish legislative assembly, 28 of the newly-elected Sinn Féin representatives met and constituted themselves as the first Dáil Éireann. The remaining Sinn Féin representatives were either in prison or unable to attend for other reasons.

The first Dáil met in the Round Room of the Mansion House on 21 January 1919. The Dáil asserted the exclusive right of the elected representatives of the Irish people to legislate for the country. The Members present adopted a Provisional Constitution and approved a Declaration of Independence. The Dáil also approved a Democratic Programme, based on the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and read and adopted a Message to the Free Nations of the World. On the following day a private sitting was held to elect a Ministry.

Following the outbreak of the War of Independence in January 1919 the British Government determined to suppress the Dáil and on 10 September 1919 Dáil Éireann was declared a dangerous association and was prohibited. The Dáil continued to meet in secret however and ministers carried out their duties as best they could. In all the Dáil held fourteen sittings in 1919. Of these, four were public and ten private. Three private sittings were held in 1920 and four in 1921.

During this time the formal government of Ireland remained with Westminster. In an attempt to settle the Irish question however the United Kingdom Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act in December 1920. The Act created a separate state of Northern Ireland, consisting of the six north-eastern counties of Ulster, and proposed separate parliaments for Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. In May 1921 elections were held for the return of members to serve in the new Parliaments. At a private sitting of the Dáil on 10 May however the Sinn Féin representatives, who refused to accept the British concession of a Parliament for Southern Ireland, adopted a resolution declaring that the parliamentary elections which were to take place should be regarded as elections to Dáil Éireann. All Sinn Féin candidates in the twenty-six counties were returned unopposed and took 128 of the 132 seats. The remaining four seats were filled by Unionists representing Dublin University (Trinity College).

The inaugural meeting of the Parliament of Southern Ireland was held in Dublin on 28 June 1921 but, as Sinn Féin refused to recognise the parliament, only four members of the House of Commons – the Dublin University representatives – together with fifteen senators attended. The Parliament met for a brief period and then adjourned sine die. The Sinn Féin members, continuing in the footsteps of their predecessors, constituted themselves as the second Dáil which held its first meeting on 16 August 1921 in the Mansion House.

Following the Truce between Britain and Ireland in July 1921, which led to the suspension of the War of Independence, peace negotiations between the two countries were initiated and culminated in the signing of the ‘Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland’ on 6 December 1921. The Treaty provided for the establishment of the Irish Free State with jurisdiction over twenty-six of the thirty-two counties. After a bitter and divisive debate, which began on 14 December 1921, the second Dáil approved the Treaty by 64 votes to 57 on 7 January 1922.

In accordance with the terms of the Treaty a meeting of ‘the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland’ was held on 14 January 1922. The meeting, which was attended by the pro-Treaty members of the Dáil and the four members for Dublin University, formally endorsed the Treaty and set up a Provisional Government, under the chairmanship of Michael Collins, to administer the twenty-six counties pending the establishment of the Free State parliament and government. Following the death of Michael Collins on 22 August 1922 William T. Cosgrave became chairman of the Provisional Government. The Provisional Government and the government of Dáil Eireann, which was not recognized by Britain, existed in parallel and with overlapping membership.

The Provisional Government called a General Election for 16 June 1922 and the new Dáil – the third Dáil – held its first meeting in Leinster House on 9 September 1922. The Dáil enacted a Constitution for the Free State and on 6 December 1922, a year after the signing of the Treaty, the Irish Free State – Saorstát Éireann – came into existence. The provisional Government became its first government. From then until 1937 the governments of the Irish Free State were known as Executive Councils.

The Irish Free State Constitution remained in force until it was replaced by the Constitution of Ireland – Bunreacht na hÉireann – in 1937

The pre-Union Irish Parliament consisted of an Upper and a Lower House, The House of Lords and the House of Commons. The Home Rule Bills of the 19th and early 20th centuries also provided for a bicameral legislature. This was continued in the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which provided that the Senate, the Upper House of the Southern Ireland Parliament, should consist of 64 members. Elections to this House were held in 1920 at the same time as the elections to the Lower House. The Dáil however refused to recognise these elections.

The Irish Free State Constitution of 1922 provided for the establishment of a second parliamentary chamber – Seanad Éireann (Senate) – consisting of 60 members. The Constitution provided that the Seanad should be composed of citizens who had done honour to the nation by reason of useful public service or who, because of special qualifications or attainments, represented important aspects of the nation’s life. While the Seanad was to be directly elected by the people, as a transitional measure one-half of the first Seanad was nominated by the President of the Executive Council and the other half was elected by the Dáil.

The Seanad of the Irish Free State met for the first time on 11 December 1922. This was an historic occasion. For the first time representative Irishmen, irrespective of racial origin or religious belief, were assembled together in a Second Chamber to enact laws for their common country.

The functions and powers of the first Seanad were modelled on those of the British House of Lords. Substantial changes were made to these in subsequent years and the election process was also amended. The first, and last, direct election took place in 1925, as provided for in the constitution. The choice of the electorate was limited to a panel of candidates nominated by the Dáil and Seanad. Following the recommendations of the Joint Committee on the Constitution of Seanad Éireann in 1928, the electoral system was changed with the electorate now consisting of the members of the Dáil and the outgoing senators.

Following somewhat unsatisfactory relations between the two Houses over a number of years serious conflict developed after the change of government in 1932. Legislation to remove the oath required to be taken by Members of the Oireachtas, as laid down in Article 17 of the 1922 Constitution (commonly referred to as the Oath of Allegiance), was opposed by the Seanad and its enactment postponed for almost a year. Having rejected later Bills, the Seanad, as it then existed, was abolished by the Executive Council in 1936 under the Constitution (Amendment No. 24) Act. The final sitting was held on 19 May.

The period of single chamber legislature was short however. When the new Constitution was being drafted the Executive Council appointed a Commission – Second House of the Oireachtas Commission – in June 1936 to "consider and make recommendations as to what should be the functions and powers of the Second Chamber of the Legislature in the event of its being decided to make provision in the Constitution for such Second Chamber.….". Following the report of the Commission, Bunreacht na hÉireann – the Constitution of Ireland – provided for the establishment of a Seanad more firmly under the control of the government. The election for the new Seanad took place on 28 March 1937 and the first sitting was held on 27 April 1938.