High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Ireland Act 1949 is a British Act of Parliament which was intended to deal with the consequences of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 as passed by the Irish parliament (Oireachtas). The Act is still largely in force but has been amended. Following the secession of most of Ireland from the United Kingdom in 1922, the then created Irish Free State remained a dominion of the British Empire and thus its people remained as British subjects with the right to live and work in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the Empire. The British monarch, as King in Ireland, continued to be head of state, but by 1936, systematic attempts to remove references to the monarch from Irish constitutional law meant that the only function remaining to the crown were: sign Letters of Credence accrediting Irish ambassadors to other states; and sign international treaties on Ireland's behalf.