Editing Cumann na nGaedheal (section)

==State building and reconstruction==
The first election the party contested was the [[1923 Irish general election|general election of 1923]], when it won 63 seats (out of 153), with 39% of the votes cast. Until 1932, Cumann na nGaedheal continued to form the Government of the Irish Free State, with Cosgrave as [[President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State|President of the Executive Council]].

In government, the party established the institutions upon which the current Irish state is still built. It also re-established law and order through a number of public safety acts in a country that had long been divided by war and competing ideologies. The party's Minister for Home Affairs, [[Kevin O'Higgins]], established the [[Garda Síochána]], an unarmed police force. As Minister for External Affairs in 1927, he was successful in increasing the Free State's autonomy within the British [[Commonwealth of Nations]].

Cumann na nGaedheal as a government party was characterized by conservatism. Thus, when J.J. Walsh, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, resigned in 1927 due to the government's lack of support for [[protectionism]], he sent an open letter to Cosgrave, claiming inter alia that the party had gone ″over to the most reactionary elements of the state″.<ref>Paul Bew, Ellen Hazelkorn and Henry Patterson, The Dynamics of Irish Politics (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1989), p. 29</ref>