The Executive Council of the Irish Free State reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Executive Council of the Irish Free State

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The Executive Council was the cabinet and de facto executive branch of government of the 1922-1937 Irish Free State. Formally, the role of the Executive Council was to 'aid and advise' the Governor-General who would exercise the executive authority on behalf of the King of Ireland. In practice, however, it was the Council that governed. The Executive Council included a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council and a deputy prime minister called the Vice-President. The Executive Council was nominated by Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament), and could be removed by a vote of no confidence in the chamber. Individual ministers could not be removed by the President of the Executive Council. Rather, the whole council had to be dismissed and reformed en bloc in order for a member to be dimissed. The Executive Council was succeed in the 1937, by the Government established under the new Constitution of Ireland.

List of Executive Councils

Dáil Election/Year formed Council President Vice President Parties
3rd 1922 1st Executive Council W.T. Cosgrave Kevin O'Higgins Sinn Féin (pro-Treaty wing)
4th 1923 election 2nd Executive Council " " Cumann na nGaedheal
5th 1927 (Jun) election 3rd Executive Council " " Cumann na nGaedheal
6th 1927 (Sept) election 4th Executive Council " Ernest Blythe Cumann na nGaedheal
1932 5th Executive Council " " Cumann na nGaedheal
7th 1932 election 6th Executive Council Eamon de Valera Seán T. O'Kelly Fianna Fáil
8th 1933 election 7th Executive Council " " Fianna Fáil

See also