The first British woman MP was Countess Markiewicz. Because she was a Sinn Féiner, she went to the first Dáil Éireann instead. That is why many people think Lady Astor was Britain's first woman MP.
In 1922, during the War of Independence, the British passed the Government of Ireland Act. The act set up two parliaments, one for Northern Ireland and one for Southern Ireland. There was no election in Southern Ireland because only Sinn Féin candidates stood. They did not meet as the House of Commons of Southern Ireland. Instead they, and the only Sinn Feiner elected only in Northern Ireland met as the Second Dáil.
On the first day of the Second Dáil Éamon de Valera, President of the Irish Republic, said there would be no need to fight or negotiate with Britain if the British prime minister remembered that he had said De Valera said that if Poland had the right to its own government, so did Ireland.
The Second Dáil ratified (that is, confirmed) the Anglo-Irish Treaty, by a vote of 64 to 57. After this the 64 pro-treaty members met as the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, with the four University MPs, and voted to accept the treaty again.
The Third Dáil was two things.
The Third Dáil passed the constitution of the Irish Free State, and after 6 December 1922, it was the lower house of the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State.
The official record of everything said in the Dáil is called or . Volume (book) one starts on the day the Third Dáil met, so the record of the First Dáil is called Book F, and the Second Dáil starts with book S.
TDs are elected in multi-member constituencies, unlike the British House of Commons or the American House of Representatives, which are single-member constituencies. There can be three, four, or five TDs in each constituency. Voters can vote for as many candidates as they want, but they rank them in order of preference, 1,2,3...
Working out who has been elected can sometimes take two or even three days, because the votes are counted several times under the Single Transferable Vote system.
If the Chairman of Dáil Éireann, called the Ceann Comhairle, wants to stand for re-election he is does not have to be elected. The law and the constitution say that he is given a seat in his old constituency.
The Dail is the more powerful of the two Houses of the Oireachtas.
The Taoiseach, (Prime Minister), the Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) and the Minister of Finance must be members of Dáil Éireann.
Bills to raise tax have to start in the Dáil, and cannot be vetoed by the Seanad.
The Dáil can pass a bill even if the Seanad objects, but the Supreme Court can decide that the act is not allowed by the Constitution. The President can also ask the Supreme Court if the bill is not allowed by the constitution before he/she signs it.
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach (), also referred to as An Taoiseach (), is the head of the government in Ireland. The term "prime minister" is not used by the Irish media.
When a new Dáil Éireann meets after an election it nominates one of its members to be Taoiseach. He then visits the President, and is appointed. He then presents a list of ministers to the Dáil and when this is approved they are also appointed by the President.
If the Taoiseach resigns all members of the government are said to have resigned as well. If a minister does not resign when asked by the Taoiseach, the Taoiseach can ask the President to sack the minister. The President cannot refuse to do this.
The Department of the Taoiseach helps the Taoiseach to do his job. The main duty of the Taoiseach is to start policy and coordinate policy of the rest of government. Especially policies on Economic and Social Development, Northern Ireland, the European Union and Public Sector Change and Oireachtas Reform.
The Government Chief Whip, who has to make sure the government's policies and ideas are turned into law, is a part of the Taoiseach's department.
The current Taoiseach is Leo Varadkar since 14 June 2017.
Anton Webern
Anton Webern (born Vienna 3 December 1883; died Mitterill 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer. Webern and Alban Berg were the most famous pupils of Arnold Schoenberg, the composer who had invented the twelve tone system. This style of composition is often called the “Second Viennese School”. Webern was probably Schoenberg’s first pupil, and Berg joined them a few weeks later. Webern used the rules of the twelve tone system very strictly in his music. His compositions had a lot of influence on composers of the mid-20th century who were interested in serialism, especially Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez. Most of Webern’s compositions are very short.
Anton was born Anton von Webern. Webern’s father was a mining engineer who later got an important government job. The family had belonged to the nobility which is why they had “von” before the family name. In 1918 a law was made in Austria to stop people from using “von” as part of their name, and so from then onwards he was always known as “Anton Webern”. Anton learned to play the cello and the piano. They had a country house where the family spent the summer, and the young boy spent a lot of time composing, especially songs to the poems of famous German poets such as Stefan George and Richard Dehmel. Together with his friend and cousin Ernst he read the philosophical books of Friedrich Nietzsche, studied modern paintings and listened to the music of Richard Wagner. His father took him to the Bayreuth Festival.
He went to study at the University of Vienna where he continued to compose a lot of music. By 1906 he had been given a doctorate for writing about the composer Heinrich Isaac.
When Webern became a pupil of Schoenberg he was joining a small group of musicians who were to be lifelong friends. Alban Berg was a member of this group. The music these people were writing sounded very modern at the time and they had to face a lot of criticism. Berg and Webern were official pupils of Schoenberg only for two years, but they continued to work with him, often copying out music for him. They also helped him financially and, when Schoenberg moved to Berlin, Webern moved there to be near him.
Webern composed more twelve-tone music during these years. He also worked as a conductor to earn some money. He was only interested in music by German and Austrian composers. He tried to get several teaching jobs, but the only one he managed to get was at the Israel Institute for the Blind in Vienna, where he taught for six years.
During the 1930s Webern faced many difficulties. He did not have much money, Schoenberg went to live in France and then the United States because of the political situation in Europe. Alban Berg died in 1935 and his own conducting career came to an end. When the Nazis came to power in Austria they banned Webern’s music because they thought it was bad (they called it “degenerate art”). His son was killed fighting in World War II. Four months after the war had ended he was sitting on the veranda of his daughter’s house smoking a cigar after dinner when he was shot dead by one of the occupying troops. He should have been inside because there was a curfew on. His son-in-law had just been arrested for selling things on the black market.
Webern’s early music was in the style of expressionism. Later he wrote using the twelve tone system. He liked using very high and very low notes, as well as silences in his music. Although most of his pieces were very short, every note was carefully planned. Officially he composed 31 works, and these fit onto 6 CDs. A lot of his music still sounds very modern to us today.
Groves Dictionary of Music Online
Seanad Éireann
Seanad Éireann (; "Senate of Ireland") is the second house of the Irish parliament, the Oireachtas.
Seanad Éireann's main business is the revising of legislation sent to it by Dáil Éireann.