The exclusion of the Dáil courts and the Privy Council appeal from the creation of the courts of the Irish Free State, 1922–1924

This article compares the attitude of the Irish government in power in the early 1920s towards two differing judicial institutions that were omitted from the Courts of Justice Act 1924. This pioneering legislation created the system of courts that largely persists in the modern Irish state. The first object of comparison concerns the attitude of the Irish government of this period towards the ‘Dáil courts’ that had been created by Irish nationalist authorities in 1920 in opposition to the official courts of the United Kingdom in Ireland. The second concerns governmental attitudes concerning the appeal from the Irish courts to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the final appellate court for most of the British Commonwealth and Empire. These were very different institutions and this article does not attempt to compare them directly. Instead, it compares the reaction of the Irish government in power in the early 1920s to these differing institutions with a particular emphasis on their exclusion from the 1924 Act. This article argues that the sidelining of these differing institutions in this important legislation has more shared features than is immediately apparent. Both institutions were influenced by the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State. The Irish government accused both judicial institutions of incompetence and bias in interpreting Irish law. Their common marginalisation by the Courts of Justice Act 1924 also reflects dual political challenges facing the Irish government in the early 1920s. The conclusion will assess parallels between governmental attitudes towards the Dáil courts and the Privy Council appeal in the wider context of Irish legal history in the 1920s and 1930s.