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The designation King of Ireland (Irish: Rí na hÉireann) and Queen (regnant) of Ireland was used during three periods of Irish history.

Contents

Overview

In the centuries prior to 1169, Ireland was ostensibly in the process of becoming a national kingdom under a High King of Ireland. In the aftermath of a Cambro-Norman incursion into Ireland in 1169 Henry II and his successors became "Lord of Ireland". The Treaty of Windsor in 1175 recognised the last native king as overlord of all Ireland outside Norman control but further Cambro-Norman incursions weakened his authority and after his abdication the office fell dormant.

After Henry VIII of England made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, he also requested and got legislation through the Irish Parliament, in 1541 (effective 1542, see Crown of Ireland Act 1542), naming him King of Ireland and head of the Church of Ireland (which today, both in Ireland and Northern Ireland, remains a member of the Anglican communion but is no longer an established church like the Church of England). The title "King of Ireland" was then used until 1 January 1801, the effective date of the second Act of Union, which merged Ireland and Great Britain to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

However, in 1555, Pope Paul IV also issued a papal bull granting the title King of Ireland to Philip II of Spain[1]. This followed the Pope's excommunication of English King Henry VIII, after his break with Rome's papal authority, and was a reaction to Henry VIII arrogating to himself the title "King of Ireland", following the act of the Irish Parliament in 1541, thereby subverting the prior feudal overlordship of the Papacy which under the English Pope Adrian IV had granted Ireland as a Lordship to the King Henry II of England in 1155. Philip did become King consort from 1554 to 1558 with his marriage to Mary I, and King's County was named for him. Later, with the failure of the Spanish Armada, Philip could not establish a foothold in Ireland, and Gaelic Irish-Spanish efforts to roll-back English rule in Ireland were routed at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601.

In 1949 the Irish state, now named simply Ireland (as the Irish Free State had been renamed in 1937) severed its last link with the monarch when it declared that it was a republic, thereby leaving the Commonwealth. Partly to reflect the fact that the King was no longer King in all of the island of Ireland, the Monarch's Style was once again revised in 1953. The following title was adopted for the United Kingdom: Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. The Act also marked the first time that Northern Ireland was explicitly referred to in the monarch's title. 1953 was also the first year in which the Monarch adopted more than one Royal Style, adopting separate Styles for her various realms, e.g. Queen of Canada.

History

Kings of Ireland to 1607

Gaelic Ireland consisted as few as five and as many as nine main kingdoms, subdivided into dozens of smaller kingdoms. The primary kingdoms were Connacht, Ailech, Airgíalla, Ulster, Mide, Leinster, Osraige, Munster and Thomond. Until the end of Gaelic Ireland they continued to fluctuate, expand and contract in size, as well as dissolving entirely or being amalgamated into new entities.

The names of Connacht, Ulster, Leinster and Munster are still in use, now applied to the four modern provinces of Ireland. The following is a list of the main Irish kingdoms and their kings.

  • List of High Kings of Ireland – historical, legendary and mythical rulers up to 1198.
  • Kings of Ailech – divided into Tír Eógain and Tír Conaill in the 12th century.
  • Kings of Airgíalla – a federation of nine kingdoms in central Ulster.
  • Kings of Breifne – an expansionist kingdom of Connacht, separating Ulster and Leinster.
  • Kings of Connacht – all the land west of the Shannon except Thomond; its last king inaugurated 1643, and its dynasty still survivies, among the most ancient in Europe.
  • Kings of Dublin – First new aged kingdom, founded by the Vikings, annexed by the High Kings.
  • Kings of Leinster – Its last de facto king died in 1632.
  • Kings of Mide – Ireland's central kingdom, annexed by Connacht in the 11th century.
  • Kings of Moylurg – created in the 10th century for a prince of the Sil Muiredaig.
  • Kings of Munster – an overkingdom created by the Eóganachta in the early 400s.
  • Kings of Osraige – buffer state between Munster and Leinster; dissolved in 1550s.
  • Kings of Tara – the most sacred title in Irish history; often confused with "High King."
  • Kings of Tir Eogain – a successor kingdom of Ailech; dissolved in 1607.
  • Kings of Ulster – properly, Ulster east of the lower and upper Bann;
  • Edward Bruce proclaimed King of Ireland by the Irish bishops and lords in the aftermath of an invasion of Scottish forces into Ireland in 1316.

Kingdom of Ireland (1542–1801)

Henry VIII claimed the title "King of Ireland" in 1542.

The title "King of Ireland" was created by an act of the Irish Parliament in 1541, replacing the Lordship of Ireland, which had existed since 1171, with the Kingdom of Ireland. The Crown of Ireland Act 1542 established a personal union between the English and Irish crowns, providing that whoever was king of England was to be king of Ireland as well, and so its first holder was King Henry VIII of England. This was after the plan to make Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, King of Ireland, had fallen through upon his death. Although FitzRoy was made Lord-Lieutenant, the King's counselors feared that making a separate Kingdom of Ireland, with a different ruler than England's, would create another King of Scotland. (J.J. Scarisbrick, English Monarchs: Henry VIII, University of California Press)

For a brief period in the 17th century, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, from the impeachment and execution of Charles I to the Restoration of the monarchy in England, there was no 'King of Ireland' in fact, only in name. After the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Irish Catholics, organised in Confederate Ireland, recognised Charles I and later Charles II as legitimate monarchs, in opposition to the claims of the English Parliament, and signed a formal treaty with Charles I. But in 1649, the Rump Parliament, victorious in the English Civil War, executed Charles I, and made England a republic, or "Commonwealth". The Parliamentarian general Oliver Cromwell came across the Irish sea to quash any attempt to restore the monarchy by temporarily — though illegally — uniting England, Scotland, and Ireland under one government, styling himself "Lord Protector" of the three kingdoms. (See also Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.) After Cromwell's death in 1658, his son Richard emerged as the leader of this pan-British republic, but he was not competent to maintain it. Parliament at London voted to restore the monarchy, and Charles II returned from exile in France in 1660 to become King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

When the first Acts of Union took effect in 1707, merging England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, the personal union between the Irish, Scottish, and English crowns became a personal union between the Irish and British crowns. The Kingdom of Ireland was then merged to Great Britain on 1 January 1801 when the second Act of Union took effect, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (renamed in 1927 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland five years after the establishment of the Irish Free State).

Irish Free State (1927–1936)

Main article: Monarchy in the Irish Free State
Leinster House, decorated for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.
Within a decade it was the seat of the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State.

In 1922, 26 of Ireland's 32 counties left the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State (renamed Ireland in 1937), a self-governing Dominion of the British Empire. (Ireland's six northeastern counties opted to remain in the UK.) As a Dominion, the Free State was a constitutional monarchy with the British monarch as its head of state.

The King's title in the Irish Free State was exactly the same as it was elsewhere in the British Empire, being:

  • From 1922–1927 - By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India
  • From 1927–1937 - By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India

The change in the King's title was effected under an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom called the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927. The Act was intended to update the name of the United Kingdom as well as the King's title to reflect the fact that most of the island of Ireland had left the United Kingdom. The Act therefore provided that:1

  • "It shall be lawful for His Most Gracious Majesty by His Royal Proclamation under the Great Seal of the Realm, issued within six montlhs after the passing of this Act, to make such alteration in the style and titles at present appertaining to the Crown as to His Majesty may seem fit";
  • "Parliament shall hereafter be known as and styled the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and NorthernIreland" (instead of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland);
  • "In every Act passed and public document issued after the passing of this Act the expression "United Kingdom" shall, unless the context otherwise requires, mean Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

According to The Times the "Imperial Conference proposed that, as a result of the establishment of the Irish Free State, the title of the King should be changed to "George V., by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Dominions beyond the seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India."2 The change did not mean that the King had now assumed different Styles in the different parts of his Empire. That development was did not formally occur until 1953, years after Ireland had left the Commonwealth.

Irish Free State / Ireland (1936–1949)

Main article: Irish head of state from 1936 to 1949

From 1936 to 1949 the role of the King in the Irish Free State was greatly reduced and ambiguous. An amendment to the Free State constitution in 1936 all but eliminated all of the King's official duties but one. Under the External Relations Act of the same year he continued to represent the Free State in international affairs. This purely external role continued when the new Constitution of Ireland was introduced in 1937.

The position of the King in the Irish state ended with the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force in April 1949. This Act declared the state was a republic. The Crown of Ireland Act was formally repealed in the Republic of Ireland by the Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act, 1962.

The monarchy continues in Northern Ireland, which remains a part of the United Kingdom.

List of Lords of Ireland (non-native) (1171–1541)

List of Kings and Queens of Ireland (non-native)

Kings and Queens of Ireland (1541–1801)

Henry VIII claimed the title "King of Ireland" in 1542.

Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922)

Kings of Great Britain and Ireland (1922–1949)

Kings and Queens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1949–)

Kings George I, II, and III had reigned as "King of Ireland"; after a constitutional change Georges III & IV had reigned as "King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." Edward VIII was the first monarch to accede to the British throne with the Northern Ireland designation attached to his title. His brother, George VI was the first actually so crowned. He was also the last Monarch to reign as King in all of the island of Ireland.

Monarchs' names in Irish

Below is a list of the names of the monarchs and ruling Lord Protectors of Ireland in the Irish language.

  • Henry: Einrí
  • Richard: Risteárd
  • John: Seán or Eoin
  • Edward: Éadhbhard or Éamonn
  • Jane: Sinéad
  • Mary: Máire
  • Elizabeth: Eilís
  • James: Séamas or Séamus
  • Oliver Cromwell: Oilibhéar Cromail
  • Richard Cromwell: Risteárd Cromail
  • Charles: Cathal or Séarlas
  • William: Uilliam
  • Anne: Áine
  • George: Seóirse
  • Victoria: Victeoiria

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