Constitution of the Irish Free State

The Constitution of the Irish Free State was adopted by an Act of Dail Éireann, sitting as a constituent assembly, on 25 October 1922. The Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 of the British Parliament received royal assent on 5 December 1922, and the Constitution itself came into effect the following day by royal proclamation. As enacted, it was firmly shaped by the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and established a parliamentary system of government under a form of constitutional monarchy, with guarantees of certain fundamental rights. It was originally meant to be a rigid document, amendable only by referendum after an initial period, but a series of amendments following the 1932 change of government and the Statute of Westminster instead allowed it to be amended by ordinary Act of the Oireachtas, progressively stripping out the Treaty-derived provisions. It was replaced in 1937 by the modern Constitution of Ireland.