Qualla: Oireachtas (Irish Free State) https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/7/x/oireachtas-irish-free-state-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Oireachtas (Irish Free State) https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state Oireachtas (Irish Free State): Introduction https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state/ Photo credit Public domain. Thirty-seven senators returned home to find their houses burning. Others were kidnapped. A few were nearly assassinated. This was the welcome that Ireland's first independent parliament in over a century gave to those who agreed to serve in its upper house. The Oireachtas of the Irish Free State convened in Leinster House in late 1922, in a country still bleeding from civil war, and somehow held together long enough to draft the legal architecture of a nation - then dissolved itself fifteen years later, when that nation outgrew it.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/7/x/oireachtas-irish-free-state-wp/gc7x-oireachtas-irish-free-state-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Oireachtas (Irish Free State): A Parliament Forged in Treaty https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state/ Photo credit David Kernan, CC BY 4.0. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 had given Ireland a dominion, not a republic, and the Oireachtas was the price of that compromise. Its three components mirrored Westminster: a directly elected Dáil Éireann of 153 seats, a Seanad of 60, and the King - represented in Dublin by a Gov...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/7/x/oireachtas-irish-free-state-wp/gc7x-oireachtas-irish-free-state-a-parliament-forged-in-treaty.mp3 0:06 2 full Oireachtas (Irish Free State): The Yeats Senate https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state/ Photo credit David Kernan, CC BY 4.0. To launch the Seanad, President of the Executive Council W. T. Cosgrave made a deliberate gesture: half its initial members would be his appointees, and he would use that power to seat the Protestant minority left stranded in the new state. The result was the most extraordinary l...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/7/x/oireachtas-irish-free-state-wp/gc7x-oireachtas-irish-free-state-the-yeats-senate.mp3 0:06 3 full Oireachtas (Irish Free State): Houses Burned, Voices Heard https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state/ Photo credit David Kernan, CC BY 4.0. Anti-Treaty republicans treated the new senators as collaborators. The arson campaign that burned thirty-seven of their homes was not symbolic - it was meant to terrify the chamber into silence. It failed. The first Seanad amended legislation, slowed bad bills, and pushed the Fre...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/7/x/oireachtas-irish-free-state-wp/gc7x-oireachtas-irish-free-state-houses-burned-voices-heard.mp3 0:06 4 full Oireachtas (Irish Free State): The Quiet Revolution https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state/ Photo credit David Kernan, CC BY 4.0. Between 1936 and 1937, the Free State quietly dismantled the monarchy's role in Irish government. The Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act removed Royal Assent; from then on the Ceann Comhairle, the speaker of the Dáil, signed bills into law. The King ceased to be part of the Oire...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/7/x/oireachtas-irish-free-state-wp/gc7x-oireachtas-irish-free-state-the-quiet-revolution.mp3 0:06 5 full Oireachtas (Irish Free State): Leinster House Today https://qualla.com/oireachtas-irish-free-state/ Photo credit David Kernan, CC BY 4.0. Leinster House still stands on Kildare Street in the heart of Dublin, its grey Georgian facade now sheltering the modern Oireachtas - the direct legal descendant of the body that burned and rebuilt itself between 1922 and 1937. The Dáil chamber retains an unusual layout where the...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/7/x/oireachtas-irish-free-state-wp/gc7x-oireachtas-irish-free-state-leinster-house-today.mp3 0:06 6 full