Dáil Éireann

Dáil Éireann (Irish, “Assembly of Ireland”), Irish legislative body. It was established as a revolutionary congress in 1919, when 73 members of Sinn Fein who had been elected in December 1918 to the British House of Commons from Ireland declared the independence of the Irish Republic. Among the leaders of this movement were Eamon e Valera, who was elected president of the Dáil; Arthur Griffith, vice president; and William Cosgrave, minister of local government. The Dáil continued to meet as a revolutionary body until a truce with Britain made possible the election of a legislature under the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. This Dáil met in 1921 and early the following year, over the opposition of de Valera and others, accepted the British proposal for the establishment of the Irish Free State, excluding Northern Ireland. Under the Irish Free State, the lower house of the legislature was called Dáil Éireann. In 1936 the Senate was abolished, and the Dáil became the legislature of the Irish Free State. The 1937 constitution, which established the Republic of Eire, provided for a bicameral national parliament, the Oireachtas, of which Dáil Éireann was the lower house.