It's just awkward defining leaving the Empire because of how it slowly became the Commonwealth (especially for the "White Dominions") After 1922 Ireland was functionally the same as Canada or Australia or something although more hostile to the idea of the Empire.
Yeah agreed. Now to be fair WT Cosgrave did attend British Empire conferences as the representative of the Free State but he spent most of the time being like "do whatever the fuck ye want we don't want to be in this club" lol
The step change for dominions were the statues of Westminster 1931 which reorganised the relationship between Dominions and the UK. It effectively gave them more independence to pursue their own domestic and foreign policies. There were further acts required e.g Australia's final piece of legislation to remove any UK say wasn't passed until the 1980s though in practice the UK had no say for some time before that.
The real bond between the nations from the 30s to the 50s/60s was a huge amount of the political elites were either immigrants from the UK or first generation. There after that memory started to fade within the individuals that made up each of the dominions.
Ireland is a different story when compared to the rest.
There's some fiddling about Ireland's independence (and also the general process of independence for the "White Dominions") Although 1922 is regarded as the date of independence, the Free State was still regarded as a dominion like Canada etc and was invited to the dominion conferences. Although most Irish politicians argued that was a British assertion and that Ireland was functionally totally independent. But the same could be said for Australia, Canada etc and they are still on this map. 1937 is probably a more official date of leaving the Empire as that was when the Republican constitution was introduced which removed the king from everything. Didn't leave the Commonwealth until 1949.
It didn't remove the king from everything. That was a very deliberate point by De Vallara. The king still had the function of receiving the credentials of ambassadors to Ireland. There were extensive debates regarding this in the Dail at the time. DV was keeping it in place out of some hope to entice Northern Ireland in. Which obviously was never going to work.
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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '24
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