The Vocational Senate in Ireland1

Out of an Irish dilemma has come one of the most striking legislative experiments in modern government. After a short life from 1922 to 1936, the first Irish upper house proved so inept as to be abolished. Then came an interval of unicameralism, and now under the constitution of 1937 another senate has been brought into existence, differing radically from the old. In the early days of her independence, Ireland was confronted with the problem of precisely how to constitute an upper house, how to differentiate it from the lower house, and whom to represent in it. Now, after a vicissitudinous history, she has embarked upon a course of advanced ideas in parliamentary practice—upon a plan which attempts to secure vocational representation.Why has it been difficult to fit a second chamber into the structure of the Irish state? In feudal society, class cleavage produced assemblies of more than one house. Since democratization of the social order, this basis of separation, has lost significance, but the tradition persists in the bicameralism of such countries as England.