King of Ireland

The title King of Ireland was first created by an act of the Irish Parliament of 1541, which replaced the Lordship of Ireland which had existed from 1171 with the Kingdom of Ireland. Its first holder was King Henry VIII of England.

The title 'King of Ireland' remained in legal existence until 1801, when the Act of Union which merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain, came into force. The new kingdom was called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This version of the United Kingdom was abolished when twenty-six of Ireland's counties left to form the Irish Free State in 1922. Under the 1922 Constitution of the Free State, the King became king in Ireland. However evolution in the concept of the monarchy in the late 1920s replaced the British Empire's concept of a shared crown with a multiple crown, whereby the sovereign became king separately in each of his dominions. This change, introduced in the Royal Titles Act[?], recreated the office of King of Ireland.

In this role, the King exercised a role in the Irish state independent to his role in Britain. The full meaning of this fact was shown when in 1931 the King as 'King of Ireland' signed an international treaty on Ireland's behalf as King of Ireland personally presented to him by Ireland's Minister for External Affairs, Patrick McGilligan, in the absence of any British minister. The King also awarded the Irish Free State an unprecedented degree of independence from Britain, namely its own Great Seal to use. The rest of the Commonwealth still used Britain's Great Seal of the Realm. (See also Victor Emmanuel III of Italy)

In 1936, the 1922 Constitution was amended to remove references to the King, Crown and Governor-General of the Irish Free State. However the King of Ireland's role continued by virtue of the External Relations Act, 1936. This procedural role of representing the Irish Free State in international affairs continued when a new constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, was introduced in 1937. It only ceased with the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act, 1948, which came into force in April 1949. This act, as the name suggested, made Ireland a republic.

Kings or Queens of Ireland

under the Kingdom of Ireland

• Henry VIII
• Edward VI
• Mary I
• Elizabeth I
• James I
• Charles I
• Charles II
• James II
• William III & Mary II
• Anne
• George I
• George II
• George III to 1801

(George III from 1801, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII and George V served as monarchs as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland between 1801 and 1922)

under the Irish Free State/Éire

• George V (1922-36)
• Edward VIII (1936)
• George VI (1936-1949)

Though the 1937 constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, provided for a 'president of Ireland', King George VI was proclaimed 'King of Ireland' in 1936. No legislative amendment was introduced to amend that title, which in Ireland operated under a combination of the External Relations Act, 1936 and Article 28 of the Bunreacht. (When in 1952, the Union of South Africa accidentially included the title 'queen of Ireland' among Queen Elizabeth II's titles, the mistake was immediately rectified.)

The last surviving Queen of Ireland was the Queen Consort of King George VI (after his death known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.) She died, aged 101, in 2002. The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, attended Her Majesty's funeral.