First Meeting
of the Third Dáil
Introduction from Chronology
Anti-Treaty deputies do not attend except the aging Laurence Ginnell who asked if he was in Dáil Éireann
or a partition assembly. He was
ejected. (There was considerable debate among anti-Treatyites
about attending but, in the end, they decide against it.)
Cosgrave was elected President of the Dáil. There was much
debate as to correct terminology but Cosgrave announces his intention to
formally merge Dáil and Provisional Parliament. All the ministers appointed on
August 25th (see Aug-25-22/1) are approved by the Dáil.
All members take the oath of allegiance to the Irish constitution
and swear fidelity to King George V and his successors. (This is done, not in
public, but privately in the office of a minor official.)
More Detail
Cosgrave
appoints a cabinet as follows: Cosgrave – President and Minister of
Finance; Desmond Fitzgerald – Foreign Affairs; Ernst Blythe – Local Government;
Patrick Hogan – Agriculture; Joseph McGrath – Labour,
Industry, Commerce and Economic Affairs; J.J. Walsh – Postmaster General; Eoin
MacNeil – Education; Home Affairs – Kevin O’Higgins; Richard Mulcahy – Defense;
and two ministers without portfolio – E. J. Duggan and Finian Lynch.
There were objections to Mulcahy holding both Minister of Defense and C-in-C
but he was soon replaced as C-in-C by Sean McMahon.
Circulars
to the press ordered that the government should be referred to as ‘The National
Government’ and not ‘The Provisional Government’ and that the Republican
opposition, of all shades, should be known as ‘Irregulars’
Dorney argues that the opening of
the Third Dáil (with Labour in the role of ‘loyal opposition’) robbed the
anti-Treaty side of one of its strongest arguments i.e.
that the Provisional Government was an unrepresentative ‘junta’ waging war
because of a British ultimatum.