By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr Marriage was often afforded high status as a societal stabiliser in newly established states, and the Irish Free State, operative from 1922, was no exception. Unlike Northern Ireland, which adopted the parliamentary system of divorce, the Irish Free State provided no mechanism for private bills of divorce to proceed. Although … Read more
By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr On 8 December 1924, the Dáil formally approved the merger of all railway companies in Saorstát Éireann to form the Great Southern Railway Company. During the revolutionary period the railways suffered considerably at the hands of all parties. In the 1916 Easter Rising, stations in Dublin were taken over by … Read more
By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr At the end of the Civil War the new Irish Free State set about providing a legal status for its armed forces. Under the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Act (1923), the Executive Council officially established Óglaigh na hÉireann on 1 October 1924. The Defence Forces trace their origins to the … Read more
By Joseph E.A. Connell On 3 July 1924, Minister for Education Eoin MacNeill announced that the teaching of Irish was to be made compulsory in all schools. A key figure of the Gaelic revival, MacNeill was a co-founder of the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) in 1893. He has been described as ‘the father of … Read more