The Representative of the Crown and the Governor-General of the Irish Free State: Text and Context

Included in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 was the concept of ‘[t]he representative of the Crown’ who would act in place of the Crown in the newly created Irish Free State. Without the Treaty necessarily stipulating that such a representative would be a Governor-General, that is the style of office that was chosen and created by the Irish Free State Constitution of 1922. In other words, it was agreed between the British government and the Irish plenipotentiaries that there would be a representative of the Crown, but it left it open to the State to interpret and decide on how such a representative would be styled and empowered. The Governor-General of the Irish Free State replaced the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and 100 years ago, the first Governor-General was newly installed in office. The centenary of these developments provides for the opportunity to revisit the text and context of the Treaty and Constitution, to understand the nature of the representative of the Crown as emboldened in the office of the Governor-General, which in turn laid the foundation for what subsequently became the office of the President of Ireland in the Constitution of Ireland of 1937.