Qualla: Dáil Éireann

Dáil Éireann: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:O'Dea, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 21 January 1919, twenty-seven men gathered in the Round Room of Dublin's Mansion House and declared themselves the parliament of a country that did not officially exist. They were Sinn Féin MPs who had been elected the previous December to seats at Westminster -- and had refused to take them. Instead they convened in Dublin, swore allegiance to an Irish Republic nobody else recognised (except, oddly, Lenin's Russia), and read out a Declaration of Independence in three languages. Within eight months the British had banned them, and they were forced to meet underground in safe houses. Today their successors -- 174 Teachtaí Dála, or TDs -- still meet under the unbroken numbering that runs from that First Dáil. The current parliament is the Thirty-Fourth.

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Image: User:O'Dea | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dáil Éireann: Assembly of Ireland

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SGlennonB, CC BY-SA 4.0. The word dáil is gloriously ordinary in Irish: it just means a meeting, a tryst, an encounter of any kind. The men who chose the name in 1919 were making a point. The grand title of 'Parliament' belonged to the institution at Westminster they had abandoned; this new body would be...

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Image: SGlennonB | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dáil Éireann: The Long Walk to Leinster House

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jean Housen, CC BY-SA 3.0. The First Dáil met in the Mansion House. The Second Dáil met wherever it safely could; the British had outlawed it, and meetings shifted between houses and offices as raids closed in. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 ended the War of Independence, and on 6 December 1922 th...

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Image: Jean Housen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Dáil Éireann: Tá and Níl

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Houses of the Oireachtas from Ireland, CC BY 2.0. Voting in the Dáil still begins in Irish. The Ceann Comhairle -- the chair, currently the independent TD Verona Murphy -- puts the question, and members shout Tá or Níl (Yes or No). If anyone disputes the voice vote, the cry goes up: Vótáil! Division bells ring for six minutes ar...

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Image: Houses of the Oireachtas from Ireland | CC BY 2.0

Dáil Éireann: The Single Transferable Vote

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit House of the Oireachtas, CC BY 2.0. Ireland chose its electoral system at independence and has refused to change it twice. Constituencies return three, four or five TDs apiece using PR-STV -- proportional representation by single transferable vote -- in which voters rank candidates and surplus votes from successful...

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Image: House of the Oireachtas | CC BY 2.0

Dáil Éireann: An Old Lecture Theatre

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit House of the Oireachtas, CC BY 2.0. Visit Leinster House today and you sit in what was originally a lecture theatre, adapted in 1922 to do duty as the cradle of a nation. The Dáil typically sits Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday when the Oireachtas is in session, with Wednesdays running from 9.12 in the morning until...

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Image: House of the Oireachtas | CC BY 2.0