The IFS was officially established on the 6th of Dec 1921. The IFS under the Anglo Irish treaty obtained dominion status. This meant that Ireland had full economic autonomy, the British army would leave the state, we would be entitled to have our own foreign policy. Although these were incrementally positive to the Ifs we still had connections with Britain that had to sustain, such as the kings representative, the general governor, the IFS government had to also swear an oath of allegiance to the king and acknowledge the king as head of state. The IFS was set to lay its foundations. In the 1922 elections resulted with the pro-treaty party won the majority of seats and they formed the government of the IFS. They were lead by WT Cosgrave and in 1932 established themselves as Cumann na nGaedheal. They ensured that the IFS would survive its traumatic birth and they would establish a stable democracy.
Despite the Civil war ending in 1932 it left huge devastation in the state. Many men were killed and the physical and economical damage to the country was enormous. The violence hadn’t ended with the ceasefire in 1932 and so the Cosgrave government held the task to stabilize Ireland and restore peace in the IFS as this war was a huge threat to the democracy that CnaG envisaged for the foundations of the state. Although brutal CnaG fought with huge force against the violence, the introduced the emergency powers act and interned 1200 anti-treaty prisoners. CnaG also set up the garda siochana to replace the RIC, this was critical for maintaining order and the 5000 unarmed GS were successful in this task against the 10000 fully armed RIC, this was a huge step in removing the gun from Irish politics. As well, in 1925-36 the IFS took action to declare the IRA illegal as well as other parties who threatened the stability of the IFS. These actions were incredibly important to take