‘This is a sovereign assembly’: popular sovereignty, parliament and the people in the Irish Free State

Abstract

The stability of Irish democracy since 1922 is often a cause for contentment with lines of succession drawn from ‘Grattan’s parliament’, O’Connell’s popular movement, and the achievements of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) at Westminster through to Dáil Éireann. The IPP certainly disrupted the Commons, yet Irish politics was also shaped by the ‘mother of parliaments’–MPs mastered parliamentary procedure and home rule legislation drew on British and colonial parliamentary models. By 1918, the party’s machine and parliamentary behaviour were rejected as much as British rule–but as Michael Laffan suggested, Sinn Féin triumphed by beating the home rulers at their own game. However, the 1922 constitution gave generous expression to the sovereignty of the people, and for judicial review. But, within short succession, facility for popular initiative was overridden. Ironically, the Irish Free State would never be amended by popular will or judicial review but by parliamentary majority in 25 amendments as the people only voted to adopt it in 1922 and replace it in 1937. In practice then, it was closer to a vision of Dicey's supremacy of parliament dogma that prevailed, so much so, that Seán Lemass acrimoniously proclaimed in 1934: ‘this is a sovereign assembly’.