constitution that preceded it, contained many provisions typical of those found in republican constitutions, stating, for example, that sovereignty resided in the people and prohibiting the granting of titles of nobility. Article 29 of the new constitution mirrored the amendment to its predecessor passed the previous year, by permitting the state to allow its external relations to be exercised by the king. Article 29.4.2° provided that: This provision meant that the External Relations Act continued to have the force of law until the legislature decided otherwise, and so the monarch continued to represent the state abroad when empowered to do so. Ambiguity from 1936 to 1949 After the passage of the External Relations Act, some commentators consider that it was unclear whether the Irish state had become a republic or remained a form of constitutional monarchy and (from 1937) whether its head of state was the President of Ireland or King George VI. Executive power continued to be exercised by the head of government. Nevertheless, the exact constitutional status of the state during this period has been a matter of scholarly and political dispute. From 1936 until 1949, the role of the king in the Irish state, having been reduced to a few formal duties in foreign affairs, was invisible to most Irish people. The monarch never visited the state during that period and, due to the abolition of the office of Governor-General, had no official representative there. The Irish government had also ceased to actively participate in the institutions of the British Commonwealth after the 1932 Imperial Conference. The president, on the other hand, played a key role in important public ceremonies. Asked to explain the country's status in 1945, de Valera insisted that it was a republic. He told the Dáil that: Referring to the External Relations Act he insisted that: Despite de Valera's views, many political scholars consider representing a nation abroad to be the key defining role of a head of state. The issue seems to have come to a head in 1948 on an official visit to Canada by new Taoiseach John A. Costello, whose Fine Gael party carried the tradition of the pro-Treaty political forces in Ireland. During a state dinner with the Governor-General of Canada, Lord Alexander, an agreement that there would be separate toasts for the King and for the President of Ireland was broken. Only a toast to the King was