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Monarchy of Ireland
The designation King of Ireland () and Queen (regnant) of Ireland was used during three periods of Irish history. OverviewIn 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 Spainhttp://www.heraldica.org/topics/national/ireland_docs.htm. 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. After creation in 1922 of the Irish Free State as an independent dominion within the British Empire, King George V continued to reign in Ireland as King of the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland this was unsurprising; six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster remained within the UK and were not part of the Free State. Continued use of this title in the Free State was problematic, however, and in 1927 the old Anglo-Irish title "King of Ireland" was revived to emphasize the Irish Free State's status as one of several independent countries worldwide under a shared monarchy. 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 and making the title "King of Ireland" inappropriate. The title "King of Ireland" was finally abolished when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Royal Styles and Titles Act, 1953. This gave the monarch the following title in 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. HistoryKings of Ireland to 1607Gaelic 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.
Kingdom of Ireland (1542–1801)
Henry VIII claimed the title "King of Ireland" in 1542. 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)
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 conjunction with the change, the Free State achieved greater autonomy within the British Empire. For example, the British Cabinet could no longer advise the King on matters pertinent to the Irish Free State. Instead the King, through his Governor General (after 1937, through the President of Ireland) took the advice of his Irish Prime Minister. The Free State was also granted its own Great Seal and began to sign treaties in its own right, instead of through Britain. Irish Free State / Ireland (1936–1949)From 1936 to 1949 the role of the King of Ireland in the Irish 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 King of Ireland ceased with the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force in April 1949. This act, as the name suggested, declared the state to be 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, Kings and Queens of Ireland (non-native)Lords of Ireland (1171–1541)
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 (1801–1927)
Kings of the United Kingdom of Great-Britain and Northern Ireland and Kings of Ireland (1927–1949)
Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom 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." As the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom were separate from 1922 and the royal titles from 1927, it might be supposed that George V, once again called "King of Ireland", should be numbered "IV" as the 4th of that name to be "King of Ireland." This is not the convention, however; regnal numerals are always fully cumulative and do not depend on the precise wording of actual titles; if they did, George III would have suddenly become "George I of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" at that constitutional change. Edward VIII was the first monarch to accede to the British throne with the Northern Irish designation attached to his title. His brother, George VI was the first actually so crowned, and the last to be crowned King of Ireland. Monarchs' names in IrishBelow is a list of the names of the monarchs and ruling Lord Protectors of Ireland in the Irish language.
See also
es:Monarquía de Irlanda fr:Roi d'Irlande no:Liste over Irlands monarker pl:Angielscy w?adcy Irlandii sv:Lista över Irlands regenter Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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