THE IRISH CONSTITUTION
THE CONSTITUTION COMMITTEE IN SESSION.
From left to right:—R. J. P. Mortished (Secretary), John O’Byrne,B.L.; C. J. France, Darrell Figgis (Acting Chairman), E. M. Stephens,B.L. (Secretary); P. A. O’Toole, B.L. (Secretary); James MacNeill,Hugh Kennedy, K.C.; James Murnahan, B.L.; James Douglas. (Prof. AlfredO’Rahilly and Kevin O’Shiel, B.L. were absent from the Session).
THE
IRISH CONSTITUTION
EXPLAINED
BY
DARRELL FIGGIS
MELLIFONT PRESS, LTD.
KILDARE HOUSE,
WESTMORELAND STREET, DUBLIN
I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
TO MY FRIEND
ARTHUR GRIFFITH
CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| Introduction | 5 | |
| Explanation | 15 | |
| Draft Constitution | 63 | |
| Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland | 96 |
Introduction
IRELAND AND A COMMUNITY OF NATIONS.
The articles that are now gathered together in this little book were firstpublished in the Irish Independent at the invitation of its Editor. Theywere not written for publication in book-form; and they naturally suffer,in their present form, from the conditions that were first imposed onthem, conditions proper to their original setting. With the exception oftwo of them, they were written rather in a spirit of exposition than in aspirit of analysis and criticism; and this intention was only departedfrom because it seemed that the two matters so dealt with departed, withdiffering degrees of flagrancy, from the original purpose of theConstitution, which was to make the mechanism of Government malleable atevery stage to the will of the people of Ireland.
Whether one believes ardently in the faith that the will of a peopleshould under all circumstances prevail, and that the forms of Governmentshould at all times be submissive to that will, is indifferent. That is aquestion for the individual, with which I