From Department of Finance; Central Bank of Ireland
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I would like to thank Governor, Philip Lane, and the Central Bank of Ireland for producing these beautiful coins.
This a significant coin theme marking 100 years since the first Dáil assembled and I would like to thank the Lord Mayor for hosting today’s launch in this wonderful, and very apt, venue.
On Monday next, the 21st of January 2019, a century will have passed since the elected representatives of Ireland met in this very building and established an independent parliament for Ireland called "Dáil Éireann".
Twenty-seven names were recorded as present on that date but over forty Members of the first Dáil were unable to attend on account of being either imprisoned or on-the-run.
The first meeting of that first Dáil lasted a mere two hours.
Two of the most significant hours in the democratic history of this country; two formative hours in the birth of the Irish Republic as we know it today.
The Members adopted a Provisional Constitution, approved a Declaration of Independence and a Democratic Programme, and read and adopted a Message to the Free Nations of the World .
An impressive amount of work for any Dáil to get through at the best of times, and these were not the best of times.
Dark clouds were gathering. On the very same day, the first shots in the War of Independence rang out in Soloheadbeg in Tipperary. The gunfire would not silence for many years to come.
In the Mansion House, the Declaration of Independence was read, first in Irish, then in French and, finally, in English.
That Declaration ratified the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed on Easter Monday 1916, and asserted that
“the elected Representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland”.
It should not be overlooked that the Members of this first Dáil had been elected in the General Election held a month earlier on the 14th of December 1918.
This was the first General Election to be held since the Representation of the People Act 1918 had almost tripled the Irish electorate from 700,000 in 1910 to 1.93 million.
Working-class men over the age of 21 were able to vote for the first time.
Women had finally won the right to vote as well, an achievement recently remembered in a commemorative coin launched in Leinster House on 20 November last year.
This was the beginning of universal suffrage in Ireland, and the results were seismic.
Following what was by far the biggest exercise in democracy seen to date on the island, parliamentarians gathered here in a reflection of the will expressed by the Irish people to have their own Government and institutions.
The first Dáil reaffirmed the resolution of the people of Ireland to secure and maintain complete independence.
Not independence for its own sake, but independence:
“in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home and goodwill with all nations and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen.”
These values – peace, justice, the interests of all of the people, good international relations, and equal rights and equal opportunities – are timeless.
They remain as fundamental to the work of the thirty-second Dáil as they did to the work of that first Dáil.
To achieve those values, the first Dáil established a system of government based on a classic separation of powers.
This tripartite system provides the necessary checks and balances to help ensure that the values we hold dear are maintained, even in inclement times.
Article 1 of the first Constitution of Dáil Éireann created a legislature in the form of the Dáil, and an executive in the form of “Aireacht” or Ministries .
Separately, a system of courts was also being established.
It might seem a little odd to recall, at this event, some words of Winston Churchill, who was Secretary of State for War during the time we are commemorating.
I will do it anyway, as those words are so fitting. In 1947, he said:
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
The democratic structures established 100 years ago in this Mansion House were built on firm foundations.
They have changed a little down the years, but the fundamentals endure to this day.
Our system of government and our electoral system preserve that century-old vision that all voices should be heard, and that the interests of all of the people should be served.
I am delighted to be here at today’s launch to mark such a significant commemoration.
Commemorative coins are an important way by which we recognise the people and events that are important to us as a nation.
Today we remember those first elected representatives who gathered together in this building at half-three in the afternoon on a January day 100 years ago.
We also remember the important foundations they laid that started our journey to becoming the confident, modern, outward-looking country we are today.
It is important that we value those foundations and work to maintain them.
I would like to again thank the Lord Mayor for allowing us the privilege to hold this event in the oldest mayoral residence in Ireland or Britain, and the oldest free-standing house in Dublin.
Finally, I’d like to thank the Central Bank for all the work involved in bringing this initiative to fruition.
These coins are a wonderful way to commemorate one of the most important events in Ireland’s recent history.
ENDS