The use of this voting system was a natural progression in Irish politics. Arthur Griffith who was the founder of Sinn Fein had endorsed the system in the early 20th century and it was used by the British in the 1920 local elections in Ireland. Coakley states that "Thus by 1921 P.R.S.T.V had not only been endorsed by a significant section of the Nationalist movement but had actually reached the statute book" (Coakley, 2010: 113). This voting system is used to date in Ireland, with Malta being the only other country in the world using this voting system (Coakley, 2010: 112).
Fianna Fail had come to power in 1932 having been the party which opposed the Irish Free State Treaty and Constitution, it moved swiftly to remove the elements of the Free State Constitution that offended it the most (Litton, 1988: 6). The first article to be removed was the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. This was the point of argument along with the exclusion of the 6 counties that initiated the Civil War. In 1936 the position of governor general was also discarded. In 1934 Eamon De Valera began the process of constitutional reform. The process of actually creating a new Constitution took two years from 1935 to 1937. "The resulting document was debated and finally passed by 62 votes to 48 in the Dail in June 1937" (Coakley 2010: 75). "The Constitution was approved by a majority of the voters in a plebiscite held on 1 July along with the general election" (Hogan, 2012: 520).
The most controversial elements of the 1937 Constitution were articles 2 and 3. These articles defined sovereignty and territorial claims. Article 2 states the "National territory as the whole of the Island of Ireland, its Islands and territorial sea's"(Coakley 2010: 76). These articles caused great offence to Northern Unionists and was a point of contention until the Northern Ireland agreement of 1998.
