De Valera's Irelands by Dermot Keogh, Keogh Doherty

state in its early years and by so doing challenged its legitimacy. The resolution of this fundamental problem of the legitimacy of the state required a de­velopment of its initial status. For, like the other dominions of the com­monwealth at that time, that state when established was an autonomous, self-governing, political unit – but one with a question mark over its com­plete sovereignty vis-à-vis Britain.
    Another different but related problem was that created by the parti­tion of the island, that had been brought about by the decision of the provincial parliament in Northern Ireland to opt out of the new state on the day after its foundation as an internationally recognised political unit through the enactment of its constitution, vis., 6 December 1922. This right for Northern Ireland to opt out had been agreed as part of the Treaty terms and, contrary to popular mythology, had not been the subject of much dis­cussion in the debate on the Treaty in Dáil Éireann which had preceded the outbreak of the Civil War. That debate had, of course, centred instead on the issue of the symbols of monarchy that the Treaty had imposed upon the independent Irish state. Would this division of the island, a divi­sion that had no historical prec­edent, endure – or could it be re­versed, and the parts brought together again?
    Next, there was a fundamental question as to what would be the political ethos of this new state. Would it be pluralist, giving full recog­nition to the cultural and religious tradition of many centuries of settlers, as well as the native cultural and religious tradition, or would it attempt to become mono-cultural, elevating to a position of primacy the native Gaelic and Catholic tradition of the great majority of its people – those who had sought and secured its independence – with all the problems that this might create for an eventual coming-together of the predom­i­nantly Protestant north with the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic state comprising the remainder of the island?
    There was also the problem of the economics of a country that had suffered colonial exploitation in the eighteenth century and earlier, as well as considerable neglect at the hands of laissez-faire Britain during much of the nineteenth century. This unhappy economic history, to­geth­er with the state’s peripheral geographical location, had deprived Ire­land of the possibility of industrial development. And this had left it a predominantly agricultural country with a high fertility and birth-rate.
    In the absence of opportunities for employment in its weak agricul­tural sector, the state continued to suffer a massive erosion by way of emigration of a high proportion of those born within its territory during the first quarter-of-a-century of political independence. Of that genera­tion one-third had emigrated by the age of 35, and one-sixth had died, principally due to infantile mortality or TB, thus reducing the size of each age cohort by one-half.
    Finally, there was the question of the social organisation of the new state: would it develop into a property-owning democracy or into a soci­alist state; and, if the former, would it be a socially-conscious democracy, caring for the under-privileged in Irish society?
    These were the five main challenges that faced the new state, al­though, of course, there were many others, including the immediate task of physi­cal reconstruction in the immediate aftermath of a civil war that had in­volved much more damage to its infra-structure than the struggle against Britain that immediately preceded independence.
    Consensus and Legitimacy
    In the midst of the Civil War, in which the very foundations of the new state were challenged in arms, albeit unsuccessfully, the legitimacy of the new state was juridically established and internationally recognised. In 1923 it also became a member of the League of Nations. Moreover,