Editing Southern Ireland (1921–1922) (section)

==Treaty and Free State==
[[File:Northern and Southern Ireland.png|thumb|left|Map of Northern and Southern Ireland.]]
The [[Anglo-Irish Treaty]] was further ratified for the Irish on 14 January 1922 by "a meeting summoned for the purpose [of approving the Treaty] of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland".<ref>[http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/anglo_irish/dfaexhib2.html Anglo-Irish Treaty] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108213900/http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/anglo_irish/dfaexhib2.html |date=8 November 2017 }}.</ref> The treaty, in specifying a "meeting of members", did not state that the treaty needed to be approved by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland as such. Hence, when that "meeting" was convened, it was convened by [[Arthur Griffith]] in his capacity as "Chairman of the Irish Delegation of Plenipotentiaries" (who had signed the Treaty). Notably, it was not convened by [[Edmund FitzAlan-Howard, 1st Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent|Viscount FitzAlan]], the [[Lord Lieutenant of Ireland]], who, by the [[Government of Ireland Act 1920]], was the office-holder with the entitlement to convene a meeting of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland.

The [[Provisional Government of Ireland (1922)|Provisional Government]] established by the treaty was constituted on 14 January 1922 at the above-mentioned meeting of members of the Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland. It began office two days later when [[Michael Collins (Irish leader)|Michael Collins]] became Chairman of the Provisional Government. Collins assumed charge of Dublin Castle at a ceremony attended by Lord FitzAlan. The new government was not an institution of Southern Ireland as provided by the Government of Ireland Act. Instead, it was a government established by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and was a necessary transitional entity before the establishment of the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922.

Southern Ireland was self-governing but was not a sovereign state. Its constitutional nature derived from the [[Act of Union 1800|Acts of Union]], two complementary acts, one passed by the [[Parliament of Great Britain]], the other by the [[Parliament of Ireland]].

On 27 May 1922 (some months before the establishment of the [[Irish Free State]]), Lord FitzAlan, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in accordance with the [[Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922]], dissolved the Parliament of Southern Ireland and by proclamation called "a Parliament to be known as and styled the Provisional Parliament".<ref name="DCU Website">Macardle (1999), p718 and [http://www.dcu.ie/~foxs/irhist/may_1922.htm DCU Website.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120212182946/http://www.dcu.ie/~foxs/irhist/may_1922.htm |date=12 February 2012 }}</ref> From that date, the Parliament of Southern Ireland ceased to exist. With the establishment of the [[Irish Free State]] on 6 December 1922 by the terms of the treaty, Southern Ireland ceased to exist.