I’m curious about the origins of the name “Irish Free State”, which was used between 1922 and 1937. Skimming Wikipedia on the establishment of the State, the Anglo-Irish Treaty and so on, I don’t see any explanation for who came up with it as a name?
Note: I’m putting this into FQ because I’m interested in the origins of the name; don’t want a lengthy debate on the events leading up to the Treaty, etc.
We have a published Irish Historian among the members of the board, I’ll page him but he’s been missing for over a year.
I couldn’t say how they landed upon the exact phrase “Free State”–I believe it was in part something translatable from the Irish language.
However, I do believe that the British government definitely wanted to avoid any terminology that would imply or explicitly label Ireland as a republic. The British wanted to keep Ireland under the sovereignty of the British monarch.
On the other hand, they wanted to satisfy the Irish independence movement that they were getting some kind of freedom or independence from British rule.
There was also Orange Free State, a Boer republic in present-day South Africa. And Wikipedia has an article about the term “free state”, with a long list of examples.
This corner of Wikipedia discusses the origins of the name.
Key sentence from that article:
The self-proclaimed Irish Republic had used Saorstát Éireann as its Irish name, and “Irish Free State” was derived by literal translation of Saorstát Éireann back into English.
There also were the Free Territory of Trieste and the Free City of Danzig, and heaven only knows how many other political jurisdictions with some sort of qualifier in their names.
“The term saorstát thus represented a compromise in terminology: constitutional monarchists could accept it as a less explicit rejection of the monarchy than the term republic itself, while republicans could choose to interpret it as signifying a republic by any other name.”
So it is a diplomatic term.
In the case of Danzig (and other historically “free” cities in the German-speaking parts of Europe), this is reminiscent of the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire. It designates a city-state, i.e., a state which consists of only one city.
It was still the name of a province of South Africa until the 1990s. I remember seeing it on a map as a kid and thinking it meant oranges were outlawed there…
I thought the same thing. Broccoli Free State would be a popular holiday destination for kids.
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 had originally created an entity called Southern Ireland to go with Northern Ireland, the partitioned state for the Unionists. As it turned out, Southern Ireland was stillborn, the Nationalists would have nothing to do with the structures it created.
Ah, so I was right on both counts:
During the negotiations on secession leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Irish politicians wanted the state to be a republic, and its name to be the Republic of Ireland or the Irish Republic . However the British government refused to contemplate a republic because this would have entailed the Irish state severing the link with the British crown and ceasing to be a part of the British Empire. Instead, the parties agreed the state would be a self-governing Dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations. The self-proclaimed Irish Republic had used Saorstát Éireann as its Irish name, and “Irish Free State” was derived by literal translation of Saorstát Éireann back into English.
Free Willy State never even got around to adopting a constitution.
This could be relevant. Jan Smuts was very involved in influencing events leading up to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, including visits to Dublin to meet de Valera and attempting to persuade Lloyd George against a violent response to Irish national aspirations. He is reputed to have said to de Valera “ask what you want, but not a republic”, meaning that the one red line for the British government would be a rejection of the king as head of state. He wanted to persuade both sides to accept a Dominion status for Ireland.
It is in this context that I am certain I have read that Smuts proposed the term “Free State” as a compromise, having asked the Irish for a literal translation of their word for “Republic”, and being reminded of the name of the Orange Free State. Sadly I don’t remember where I came across this story.
The “Orange” was dropped but the South African province is still named “Free State”.
This has all been fascinating. Thanks, everyone! 
Thanks for that. I missed that in my wiki-browsing.
That line-up fits. Smuts was a strong go-between between the British government and other Dominions.
When the Balfour Déclaration was in the works four years later, the Irish, South Africans and Canadians were the ones who pressed for it most strongly. The Australians, New Zealanders and Newfoundlanders were much more ambivalent.
That same ambivalence showed up five years later with the Statute of Westminster. Ireland, South Africa and Canada wanted it to apply automatically, so it did for them. Cosgrave said that the Declaration and the Statute fulfilled Collins’ assessment of the Treaty: « It gives us the freedom to be free. »
Australia, NZ and Newfoundland didn’t want the Statute to apply until ratified by local legislation. Oz and NZ didn’t do so until WWII, and Newfoundland never did.
Newfoundland can decide for themselves separately from the federal government of Canada?