Talk:Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936

Comments by anonymous user

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While de Valera sought later to suggest that the new king was not actually 'King of Ireland', as shown above in the line "the king for those purposes shall henceforth be the person..." George VI was unambigiously declared 'king of Ireland' by the Act

How so, there is no such quote in the act, or any Irish act? Rather, he was delared to be "king," the same wording as in, say, the 1922 consitution, which no one reads as "King of Ireland."

The only change was that his kingship was more limited than had been his brother's. This point was conceded by then Taoiseach John A. Costello in a speech to the Seanad Éireann a decade later.

though he also affirmed the opposite position in the Dail.

The only functions left for the king to carry out were to

• accept credentials of foreign ambassadors to Ireland;

This is incorrect - a glance at relevant historical works shows that credentials were accepted by the Government in Dublin, not by the King, a practice that started in 1933

These role had all belonged to the king previously via the Free State constitution.

except as just noted that the King did not have the first role from 1933.

Silverhelm 02:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

There edits are also incorrect. The Government did not accept credentials from 1933. Legally the King accepted credentials until 1 April 1949. Until 1934 the Governor-General accepted the credentials on the King's behalf. In 1934, as part of his policy of making the Governor-General invisible in the daily life of the state, the President of the Executive Council, Éamon de Valera got the permission of the King to allow him as president of the council, rather than the Governor-General, to receive the credentials on the King's behalf. He never received the credentials on his own or the government's behalf. Once received in the name of the King, the credentials were then opened by deV as the King's representative, then sent to the King in Buckingham Palace, Windsor, or whereever the King was at the time. After 1937 the Minister for External Affairs received the credentials, again on behalf of, and in the name of, the King and sent the credentials to him. This only stopped in 1949 when the role of accepting credentials was given to the President of Ireland, who did so in his own name, not that of the King. (Irland in 1949 ceased to have a king. Curiously between 1937 and 1949 it had both a king and a president.) FearÉIREANN\^{(caint) 20:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)}

On such short notice?

Much of what you read about this act basically boils down to de Valera using the abdication crisis to do what he already kind of wanted to do. I wonder, though, with such short notice on the abdictation, did de Valera already have something planned along these lines for the constitutional changes that were already under way? Or was this scheme really cooked up over the course of a few weeks? --Jfruh (talk) 17:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Based on some other articles, the 1937 constitution has already been drafting at this point; de V already notified the Foreign Office of a new constitution half an year ago. The 27th amendment practically embodies most of the 1937 constitution on a 1922 constitution framework as long as the political system is concerned. So, I would say, the 27th amendment, this act, and the Consequential Act effectively made parts of the 1937 Constitution effective in late 1936. So, yes, de V "already have something planned along these lines for the constitutional changes that were already under way."--Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori 15:17, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

There're now citations for this claim: As of 1935 the de V administration already planned to do something like that.--Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori 19:32, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

How, exactly, did an abdication crisis enable this Act?

The article doesn't explain why Dev had an opportunity to bring in this law due to the abdication crisis. Could he not have brought it in just as easily a month or a year beforehand? 2A02:8084:6A22:4980:5D53:18FB:61B:6F24 (talk) 19:12, 15 October 2019 (UTC)