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Form of the Irish state from 1936 to 1949

The abdication of Edward Windsor as king of the United Kingdom provided an opportunity for Éamon de Valera to change the form of the Irish government for good.

A veteran of the Easter Rising and a former member of Sinn Féin, Mr de Valera resolved to obtain independence and a republican form of government for Ireland via peaceful means instead of violence, with the abdication being the perfect moment for the reform.

He and his colleagues worked on a constitution that would replace that of the Irish Free State.

The resulting Irish constitution of 1937 provided a republican form of government with a president to replace the governor-general, yet it obliquely retained the British king (George Windsor at the time) only to specialize in foreign relations.

This led to an ambiguity over which of the two was the Irish head of state from the abdication in 1936 to the declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1949.

If the king was the head of state, then the republic must have served as some sort of a regency.

If the president was the head of state, then he king must have functioned similarly to an arrangement where one country takes charge of the foreign affairs of another country.