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Abstract
This article traces the significance of offices which preceded that of President of Ireland (the lord lieutenancy and the governor-generalship) and of models on which the President of Ireland was based, notably the British monarchy, for the post-1937 presidency. It argues that the relatively powerless role of the Irish President – a political anomaly, as the office holder is directly elected – is attributable to an important historical legacy. A key component in this is the set of attitudes towards Great Britain and its monarch that has formed a central part of Irish nationalist ideology, and that has sought to marginalise or eliminate the British presence in Ireland, as symbolised by the monarch and his or her representative in Dublin. This created a distribution of power that was strongly tilted in the direction first of the President of the Executive Council (1922–1937) and then of the Taoiseach. Reversing this political cultural bias has presented a major challenge for Irish presidents.
Notes
In an influential but contested reformulation by Elgie (Citation1999: 13), semi-presidentialism has been defined as ‘the situation where a popularly elected fixed-term president exists alongside a prime minister and cabinet who are responsible to parliament’, a definition that covers typical popularly elected presidents in parliamentary democracies, regardless of their powers.
In addition to the Lord Lieutenant, the Irish government was normally seen as including the Chief Secretary, the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General. On the evolution of the office, see Gray and Purdue Citation(2012).
Parliamentary Debates, 17 May 1850, 3rd ser., vol. 111, cols 184–192.
These data are derived from O'Brien (Citation1912: 12–13), updated by the inclusion of the three last Lords Lieutenant. Of these, it has been assumed that Wimbourne and FitzAlan would have been regarded as ‘in sympathy with national feeling’, though O'Brien's nationalist contemporaries would no doubt have disputed this.
For a record of the ceremonial on this occasion, see Dublin Gazette, 3 May 1921, pp. 639–640.
Information on the Lord Lieutenant's establishment is contained in successive annual editions of Thom's Directory.
The office of Governor-General has been the subject of a definitive study by Timothy Sexton Citation(1989), and this is relied on heavily in this section.
Sir Clive Wigram to Geoffrey Dawson, Editor, The Times, 2 November 1932; Royal Archives (RA) PS/PSO/GV/L-/2138/222. I am indebted to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for permission to use material from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle, and to Lady Sheila de Bellaigue and Mrs Jill Kelsey for making the relevant material available.
The Irish High Commissioner in London, John Dulanty, sought to put a positive spin on the nominee by describing him as owner of ‘an emporium in the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland’ (McMahon, Citation1984: 99).
With the disappearance of the Governor-General's role as an agent of the British government, British High Commissioners, occupying quasi-ambassadorial functions, were appointed in the dominions – except in Dublin, where such an appointment was made only in 1939. This meant that the British government had an extraordinarily low level of information on political developments in Ireland, and this was exposed at its most deficient in 1932 during the transition to the new de Valera administration (O'Halpin, Citation2000: 62–63).
The King's secretary complained that ‘what strikes His Majesty as unusual is, that the President summoned the Governor-General, instead of the Governor-General summoning the President to Viceregal Lodge, but I suppose this is the “Irish way” of doing things and unlike the procedure in the other Dominions’ (Wigram to Colonial Secretary James Thomas, 11 March 1932, RA PS/PSO/GV/L/2138/70). Neville Chamberlain commented: ‘It is amazing that our leading papers took no notice of this “outrage”. Fancy H.M.'s representative being treated like this!’ (Note, 17 March 1932, Neville Chamberlain to Wigram, RA PS/PSO/GV/L/2484/E/1).
Statement by John A Costello, Dáil Debates, 12 December 1936, vol. 64, cols 1480–1481.
The King initially refused to sign the Irish versions, as he ‘does not at all like the idea of signing a document in a language with which he is not acquainted’ (Wigram to Sir Edward Harding, Dominions Office, 20 October 1932, RA PS/PSO/GV/L/2484/C/7). His private secretary suspected that ‘this may be a “try-on” and possibly a trap’, adding sarcastically that the letters were ‘most beautifully designed and all that is lacking is illustrations of Irish life around the outside’ (Wigram to Attorney-General Thomas Inskip, 14 October 1932, RA PS/PSO/GV/L/2484/C/1-7).
From de Valera's perspective this was a point of constitutional propriety, but the King's private secretary reported to the King that he had ‘explained to Mr Dulanty [Irish High Commissioner in London] that this was a personal matter and not a constitutional one, and that gentlemen did not open letters not addressed to them’ (note from Wigram to the King, 26 March 1936; RA PS/PSO/GVI/C/18/4). Nine years later, the tactful Dulanty was still on the case, explaining that ‘De Valera hates like hell having to break the seals, but he is convinced that it is his constitutional duty to do so’ (Sir Alan Lascelles, Private Secretary to the King, to Sir Eric Machtig, Under-Secretary at the Dominions Office, 16 August 1945, RA PS/PSO/GVI/C/18/18).
See Northern Ireland cabinet papers, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), ‘Ceremonial [Governor]’, CAB/9T/3/9.
See Northern Ireland cabinet papers, ‘Office of Ulster King of Arms, 1922–66’, PRONI, CAB/9R/52/1.
Denis Gwynn to Sir Clive Wigram, 14 December 1932, RA PS/PSO/GV/L/2138/318.