A chara, – Mick Bourke (Letters, December 17th) asks whether Northern Ireland was even for a day part of the Irish Free State.
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 had come into force on May 3rd, 1921, and from then, the subnational entity of Northern Ireland was in operation, with a parliament and government in place by June 1921.
Under Article 11 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Northern Ireland was excluded from the Irish Free State for one month, the Government of Ireland Act was to remain in full force, and no elections were to be held for any Northern Ireland constituency for the Irish Free State. (Other legislation excluded seats in the future Irish Free State from the 1922 Westminster election).
Under Article 12 of the Treaty, the Northern Ireland parliament could issue an address to the king that the powers of the parliament and government shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland.
They promptly did so on December 7th, 1922, a day after the Irish Free State came into operation.
Northern Ireland was opting out of something which had not yet applied to them, therefore it seems tenuous to claim that Northern Ireland was for that day part of the 32-county state.
However, that tenuous day proved sufficient grounds to base claims of Irish citizenship for those born in all of Ireland under the laws of the Irish Free State. – Is mise,
WILLIAM QUILL,
Dublin 8.