Produced by Brian Foley and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE IRISH CONSTITUTION [Illustration: THE CONSTITUTION COMMITTEE IN SESSION. _From left to right_:--R. J. P. MORTISHED (_Secretary_), JOHN O'BYRNE, B.L.; C. J. FRANCE, DARRELL FIGGIS (_Acting Chairman_), E. M. STEPHENS, B.L. (_Secretary_); P. A. O'TOOLE, B.L. (_Secretary_); JAMES MACNEILL, HUGH KENNEDY, K.C.; JAMES MURNAHAN, B.L.; JAMES DOUGLAS. (PROF. ALFRED O'RAHILLY and KEVIN O'SHIEL, B.L. were absent from the Session).] THE IRISH CONSTITUTION EXPLAINED BY DARRELL FIGGIS MELLIFONT PRESS, LTD. KILDARE HOUSE, WESTMORELAND STREET, DUBLIN I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK TO MY FRIEND ARTHUR GRIFFITH CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 5 EXPLANATION 15 DRAFT CONSTITUTION 63 ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT FOR A TREATY BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 96 Introduction IRELAND AND A COMMUNITY OF NATIONS. The articles that are now gathered together in this little book were first published in the _Irish Independent_ at the invitation of its Editor. They were not written for publication in book-form; and they naturally suffer, in their present form, from the conditions that were first imposed on them, conditions proper to their original setting. With the exception of two of them, they were written rather in a spirit of exposition than in a spirit of analysis and criticism; and this intention was only departed from because it seemed that the two matters so dealt with departed, with differing degrees of flagrancy, from the original purpose of the Constitution, which was to make the mechanism of Government malleable at every stage to the will of the people of Ireland.