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Ireland’s first head of state was a Fir Bolg chieftain, Sláine MacDela, who stepped ashore at Wexford about 4,000 years ago, give or take a few centuries. Or so the medieval annals would have us believe.
They list upwards of 200 men who succeeded him but the term high king wasn’t used until 980. Brian Ua Néill, the last, nominal, Irish monarch was killed by native mercenaries hired by the Normans during a skirmish near Downpatrick in 1260.
In truth, many of the names in the annals before the seventh century were inventions, the kings that existed had limited authority and we can only be reasonably sure about the historicity of a few such as Con of the Hundred Battles, Cormac MacAirt, Niall of the Nine Hostages, and Lóegaire who had an altercation with St Patrick.
From an English or British perspective, 36 men and women held the titles of Lord, Lord Protector, King or Queen of Ireland between John Lackland in 1177 and Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The list includes Philip II of Spain who was married to Mary Tudor, and Oliver and Richard Cromwell.
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Henry VIII was declared king by the Irish parliament in 1541 and Ireland was thenceforth described as a kingdom rather than a "land" (Terra Hiberniae).
George IV was the first king to visit without an army in tow when he landed at Howth in 1821.
Victoria visited on four occasions but only spent seven weeks here, compared with seven years in Scotland.
Following the parliamentary union of Ireland and Great Britain in 1801, monarchs were titled king or queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, etc, but at the Imperial Conference in London in 1926, the Irish minister for justice, Kevin O’Higgins, argued successfully that the title of George V and his successors should be changed to King of Great Britain, Ireland, etc, and the change became known as the “O’Higgins Comma”.
When Edward VIII abdicated on December 11th,1936, the government had two acts passed that abolished the office of the governor general and the role of the king in internal affairs but retained his services for signing international agreements and appointing diplomatic agents. One practical consequence was that, during the war years, Éire’s representatives in Berlin, William Warnock and later Cornelius Cremin, had the junior status of chargé d’affaires which didn’t require a letter of credence from George VI. King George’s involvement continued until 1949 when Ireland became a republic, even though the country had a president from 1938.
The purpose was to maintain a nominal connection with the Commonwealth and in the words of a UCC historian, James Hogan, the State remained “in” but not “of” that organisation.
At her coronation on June 2nd, 1953, Queen Elizabeth became monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but earlier, following the death of her father, on February 6th, 1952, she had inherited his Irish title, even though this country was no longer in the Commonwealth.
Between the adoption of Bunreacht na hÉireann on December 29th, 1937, and the inauguration of Douglas Hyde as president on June 5th, 1938, the functions of the head of state were vested in a commission composed of the chief justice, the president of the High Court and the chairman of Dáil Éireann. This commission continues to act when the president is unavailable because of illness, incapacity, foreign travel, etc.
When a new president enters office he or she has to make a declaration in front of a group that includes judges of the superior courts but the Constitution is silent on the number, except that the use of the plural suggests that at least two members of each court must be present.
A president may be charged with “stated misbehaviour” by either House of the Oireachtas. The other House must then investigate and the president will be removed from office if that House resolves by a two-thirds majority that the charge is sustained and that the misbehaviour was such as to render the president unfit to continue in office.
A first-term president who is removed may stand for re-election.
The Council of State established under article 31 of the Constitution must contain a number of ex-officio members and certain former office holders, if available, and up to seven people selected by the president.
It has a purely advisory role except in the unlikely circumstance that neither the president nor the commission is available. Under article 14 it can then make provision “as may seem meet” for the exercise and performance of the powers and functions of the president.
In July 1949, President Seán T O’Kelly received the first ambassador accredited to Ireland, V K Krishna Menon from India, based in London. Earlier envoys to and from the State had the lower rank of minister.
In April 1950, O’Kelly made the first presidential visit abroad when he travelled to Rome to meet the pope.
The seminal book about the presidency, The President of Ireland, His Powers, Functions and Duties, was written by Hyde's secretary, Michael McDunphy, in 1945.