The Act came into effect in 1921. Northern Ireland was duly created in this year, but "Southern Ireland" never really came into being. Irish republicans had proclaimed independence in 1916 as part of the Easter Uprising; support for independence had grown subsequently, and Sinn Fein had won a landslide victory in Ireland at the 1918 general election. A breakaway government (the Dáil Eireann) was formed in January 1919, and independence was declared.
On 21 November 1920 – the original Bloody Sunday – the Royal Irish Constabulary opened fire on the crowd at a Gaelic football match in Dublin, after fourteen British intelligence operatives had been assassinated. A week later, seventeen Auxiliaries were ambushed and killed by the IRA at Kilmichael in County Cork. Violence continued to escalate, with around 1,000 people killed. Partition took effect on 3 May 1921, and on 11 July a ceasefire was agreed. The Anglo–Irish Treaty, signed on 6 December 1921, ended British rule in Southern Ireland and, after a ten–month transitional period overseen by a provisional government, the Irish Free State was created as a self–governing dominion of the Commonwealth on 6 December 1922.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) refused to recognise the Free State (objecting to the terms of the Treaty) and opposed the government in what became known as the Irish Civil War. This ended in victory for the government forces in May 1923, but Sinn Féin (the political opponents of the treaty) refused to take its seats in the Dáil, objecting to the requirement to swear the Oath of Allegiance to the British monarchy. In 1926, when Sinn Féin president Éamon de Valera failed to have this policy reversed, he resigned from Sinn Féin and founded Fianna Fáil. The new party entered the Dáil following the 1927 general election, and five years later it became the largest party, enabling de Valera to form a government with himself as President of the Executive Council (i.e. head of state).
Meanwhile (in 1931) the British parliament had enacted the Statute of Westminster, relinquishing its remaining authority to legislate for the dominions. De Valera abolished the Oath of Allegiance, and embarked on an economic war with the UK. In 1937 he drafted a new constitution, which was passed by a referendum and came into force on 29 December that year. This was effectively the end of the Irish Free State, and in 1948 the Irish legislature passed an Act allowing Ireland to be officially described as the Republic of Ireland.
© Haydn Thompson 2018