Comhairle na dTeachtaí

Comhairle na dTeachtaí was an Irish republican parliament established by opponents of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and the resulting Irish Free State, and viewed by republican legitimatists as a successor to the Second Dáil. Members were abstentionist from the Third Dáil established by the pro-Treaty faction. Just as the First Dáil established a parallel Irish Republic in opposition to the British Dublin Castle administration, so Comhairle na dTeachtaí attempted to establish a legitimatist government in opposition to the Provisional Government and Government of the Irish Free State established by the Third Dáil. This legitimatist government, called the Council of State, had Éamon de Valera as President. In 1926 de Valera resigned as President, left the Sinn Féin party and founded Fianna Fáil, which in 1927 entered the Fourth Dáil. Comhairle na dTeachtaí, never more than a symbolic body, was thereby rendered defunct. In 1930 Cumann na nGaedheal TDs alleged in the Dáil that de Valera had addressed Comhairle na dTeachtaí in December 1926, after the foundation of Fianna Fáil; this was to cast aspersions on de Valera's commitment to the Constitution of the Irish Free State.