The Irish Constitution Explained by Darrell Figgis. Dedicated to Arthur Griffith. Dublin: Mellifont Press, [1922]. First Edition. Pp 100. Mustard cloth boards titled in black, in publisher’s dust jacket. Jacket worn along spine with loss, book in fine bright condition. contents in fine condition.

Frontispiece plate of “The Constitution Committee in Session.”

By 1920 Darrell Figgis was a prominent member of the first Dáil and he chaired the committee that drew up the State’s first Constitution. When Michael Collins sat down to sign the new Irish constitution in the Shelbourne Hotel in 1922 the document was largely the work of Darrell Figgis (an event which is commemorated with a plaque in the aptly named Constitution Room of the Shelbourne Hotel). Following the Civil War Figgis refused to side with either De Valera or Cosgrave and in the 1922 elections ran successfully as an independent for South Dublin. He died tragically in 1925 at the age of 43.