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The Irish Problem of Cohesion: When solidarity becomes groupthink

[Deleted User]

We have the good fortune to live in, arguably, one of the most successful and cohesive states in Europe. There is no serious class-antagonism like that which observed in England, Belgium or France.
We are prosperous, unlike other socially-cohesive countries in the Mediterranean and eastern bloc.
In some ways, we have a lot to be happy about. Irish social cohesion is an undeniable fact.

We have probably always been cohesive. We were cohesive when the nuns and the priests were running the show; we were cohesive when the banks replaced them.

Does our social cohesion give rise to groupthink, is it stagnant?

I was listening to David Quinn, of all people, on a podcast where he was harking on about Irish groupthink; saying it's been the same old story from the Catholic era to the so-called "woke" generation. Now, I dislike that man too, but he has a point.

Our society is so cohesive, that any disruptive ideas are immediately rubbished, or repudiated. There is a certain unwillingness to engage in debate about fundamental change, which is why we have neither socialists nor libertarians.

Sometimes we are a country of unimaginative, unintelligent centrists. Too afraid to rock the boat.

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Wanderer78

Splitting is beginning to occur, I think this will be shown even more so during the next ge, we have followed the group down the wrong road, resulting in the same divisons as other countries, the next ge will be a blood bath

[Deleted User]

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Splitting is beginning to occur, I think this will be shown even more so during the next ge, we have followed the group down the wrong road, resulting in the same divisons as other countries, the next ge will be a blood bath

I hear this a lot, and I wish I could share those people's optimism.

This country had a housing crisis in the 1960's, which was even more devastating than anything we witness today. Nothing came of it, because nobody could generate a protest.

The people are just so ingrained in their communities that they cannot, or will not, protest against their neighbour.

"Ingrained" would be a better word than cohesive, probably. People are so absorbed in the status-quo that they will never challenge it.

Wanderer78

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote:

"Ingrained" would be a better word than cohesive, probably. People are so absorbed in the status-quo that they will never challenge it.

Oh I strongly disagree, there's astonishing anger over housing, what's currently proposed won't work, so by the time the ge comes around......

We re now in a situation that many parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts realise their nearest and dearest are in serious trouble regarding this, ffg are in serious trouble. it ll be a sf lead government, and it ll be a strong win to, ffg are defaulting to what they know best, a fire sector lead approach, and it won't work, it ll just make the situation far worse, resulting in their falling, you can see it a mile off, and disturbingly, they can't.

Brussels Sprout

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I was listening to David Quinn, of all people, on a podcast where he was harking on about Irish groupthink; saying it's been the same old story from the Catholic era to the so-called "woke" generation. Now, I dislike that man too, but he has a point.

Our society is so cohesive, that any disruptive ideas are immediately rubbished, or repudiated. There is a certain unwillingness to engage in debate about fundamental change, which is why we have neither socialists nor libertarians.

Sometimes we are a country of unimaginative, unintelligent centrists. Too afraid to rock the boat.

This all seems backwards to me. The likes of David Quinn, or anyone else who uses the terms "woke" or "groupthink", are almost always former centrists themselves, who have not moved with the times and are feeling discombobulated.

They aren't disruptive. They're the opposite. They're the ones who opposed the disruptive forces and are now relics as the Overton Window has shifted leaving them outside and wondering "What happened to society?", "Why can't I get away with saying this anymore?", "Why am I no longer shown respect for doing X when I was before?"

It's practically why it's always conservatives who use those terms. They knew the world as being one way but now it's another. They're confused, angry and scared and they're blaming the rest of society for making everything worse, as they see it. They resisted those changes but they lost the battle. Rather then examine why it is that things changed they prefer to instead lash out, presumably because it is easier to do that than to engage in some self-reflection. There's an entire media universe that will help them fan those flames too and keep them from asking why things have changed.

David Quinn is on the outside looking in now and he hates it. It's easy for him to castigate those inside than it is for him to ask how he ended up outside.

If we go back 40 years in Ireland homosexual acts were illegal, divorce was illegal, abortion was illegal, marital rape was seen as an oxymoron and the Catholic Church ruled the roost. Changes to any of the above would have been seen as disruptive ideas and yet one by one they fell. Through our liberal use of referenda it's actually easier to enact change here than in a lot of western countries.

[Deleted User]

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Sometimes we are a country of unimaginative, unintelligent centrists. Too afraid to rock the boat.

It's a Catch-22: stability or susceptibility to populism.

Populism per se is not a bad thing, even though it has (in my view) attracted an undeserved negative connotation. It depends what you mean by populism and the nature of the policy being advanced. Dismissing a policy on the basis of it being by definition "populist" is nothing more than lazy thinking. For instance, those who opted to Brexit in the UK were clearly following what would be called a populist path, but that doesn't invalidate or undermine their decision. In fact, many would argue, post facto, that it was a decision taken ahead of its time (depending on your political persuasion, of course).

Brexit could never happen in Ireland, for the reasons you have outlined. We are a tamed, pacified nation. If the EU were a classroom, Ireland would be the prefect - always nodding our heads, "doing the right thing" (which is code for following other people's orders), and generally following rather than leading. The same is true of the COVID-19 response. There is such an outlandish fear among the unimaginative, terrified bureaucracy in government, that any idea of rocking the boat, or "doing a Sweden", would be unimaginable.

Things were far more creative and imaginative from the early 1960s onward. Indeed, those days were far more challenging than any challenge we face today. Of course, the vocabulary has changed too. What would have been a mere "challenge" in the 1960s is known as a "crisis" today. But at least many of the leaders then were not as supine as the ones that gather in government buildings today.

What changed?

I'm not sure. Perhaps the trauma of The Troubles had something to do with it. Perhaps the parochial nature of our society, held together by the jaws of the Catholic Church. They had the power, we simply followed suit - again, tamed by authority.

Things do appear to be un-weaving at the seams, though. Whether that turns out to be a good thing is an altogether different question. As I alluded to earlier, populism per se is not a bad thing.

Manach

As a Conservative and knowing history, it goes beyond saying there has been significant change in Irish society that is ni'gh unprecedented in the annals of the nation. However, for Ireland to remain a national polity there has to be some form of unity and iso n one sense solidarity is a plus. However, for the progressives are now putting their faith instead of religion into the secular doctrine of the day while traditionalists (for want of a better word) care not a whit for the newly minted shiboleths is being undermined. The ancient Greeks has a word, statis, meaning that when the bonds that tie a community are loosened then civic solidarity breaks into camps with the fracturing of that polity. Now that the government has seen how easily it can revoke fundamental rights, without hardly a murmur of protest from societal partners, then it will be interesting to see if the counter-reaction when it comes rocks or sinks the boat.

[Deleted User]

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

David Quinn is on the outside looking in now and he hates it. It's easy for him to castigate those inside than it is for him to ask how he ended up outside.

Do you know that logical fallacy, the appeal to hypocrisy, aka 'tu quoques'?

I think it applies here. Yes, Quinn's words ring hollow, but his beliefs do not detract from the fundamental point. We are such an integrated society, that fledgling disruptive moveents can never succeed. Anything confrontational is rejected.

That's been the general theme of the state since independence, whether the prevailing narrative was religious, nationalist, or liberal. Maybe it will change as we become increasingly urbanised.

I've been using words like 'cohesion' and 'ingrained' to describe Irish society, and 'insular' would be another one. I think it all boils down to never wanting to piss-off the neighbours.
That makes for a peaceful society, but it also promotes groupthink. It's not a particularly constructive outlook.

Hodors Appletart

This suggestion seems so far off the wall to me as to be almost ridiculous.

Have you missed the three big societal changes that the people have voted for here in the last few years, namely the legalisation of abortion, SSM and to a lesser degree the allowing of divorce.

We have a functioning albeit very disruptive trade union system in place for the public sector where teachers, guards, nurses regularly threaten to, or actually do go out on strike.

I get that there are other scocietal ills, most especially around housing/rental but Ireland is far from unique in that regard - the Swedish government has just fallen because of it and a plethora of cities in other western democracies are facing similar or worse issues in that regard - the thing is though, Ireland hasn't yet reached a critical mass of affected people and the majority hasn't deemed it a big enough issue (yet, I might add. I think the next election will see a change there, but that's at least 3 years away).

But to take another example, look at the water charge debacle. A critical mass of people protested and got that changed.

I wholly disagree with your argument, and I think it may somewhat stem from your own, or someone close to you, personal circumstance.

[Deleted User]

Hodors Appletart wrote: »

This suggestion seems so far off the wall to me as to be almost ridiculous.

Have you missed the three big societal changes that the people have voted for here in the last few years, namely the legalisation of abortion, SSM and to a lesser degree the allowing of divorce.

I wouldn't call any of those movements disruptive. They were long overdue. Disgracefully overdue, even.

Ireland was late to modernise on all 3 examples, especially abortion and divorce.

That's partly because of our unusual constitutional arrangement, but if the public mood was faster to change, constitutional amendment wouldn't have moved at such a snail's pace.

We probably have the weather to thank for the success of the divorce referendum.

Gbear

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I wouldn't call any of those movements disruptive. They were long overdue. Disgracefully overdue, even.

Ireland was late to modernise on all 3 examples, especially abortion and divorce.

That's partly because of our unusual constitutional arrangement, but if the public mood was faster to change, constitutional amendment wouldn't have moved at such a snail's pace.

We probably have the weather to thank for the success of the divorce referendum.

On this point, I think there's some merit. I think the momentum held by FF and FG created an unusually static political environment for an extended period of time. It seems fairly unusual that you'd have such a dominant duopoly in a multi-party proportional system. I think those entrenchments are starting to fray a bit, with SF creating another pole in politics. With this in mind, it's plausible that there was a bit of foot-dragging by a political establishment that took votes for granted and was afraid of tackling big issues.

With that said, Ireland was an extremely conservative country until quite recently, and still is in many ways.
The 8th Amendment was passed with a huge majority in 1983.
A more restrictive stance on abortion was introduced and only defeated very narrowly as recently as 2002.

There has been a huge change in Irish culture in my lifetime (I'm 31). Increases in wealth, internationalism and education have, IMO, massively accelerated the progression of Irish society. It's only natural that as you shift away from conservative, hierarchical society to a more independent progressive one, you're more likely to make significant changes.

[Deleted User]

Gbear wrote: »

With that said, Ireland was an extremely conservative country until quite recently, and still is in many ways.

Why was it (or why it might still be) conservative?

I am blaming (blaming is the wrong word) rural cohesion and an insular 'outlook' which naturally followed, but what caused it?

I'm not interested in blaming the RC Church here, as I come from a different flavour, and we were exactly the same. There is something in contemporary Irish history, say from 1870 onwards, which just detests disruptive movements until they must eventually be confronted.

If you look across Europe, minorities and minor political groups were typically able to express their opposition to the status-quo far more freely.

It must have something to do with the fact we didn't have an industrial revolution, and were slow to urbanise. In hindsight, this might be question for the historians.

sameoldname

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Why was it (or why it might still be) conservative?

I am blaming (blaming is the wrong word) rural cohesion and an insular 'outlook' which naturally followed, but what caused it?

I'm not interested in blaming the RC Church here, as I come from a different flavour, and we were exactly the same. There is something in contemporary Irish history, say from 1870 onwards, which just detests disruptive movements until they must eventually be confronted.

If you look across Europe, minorities and minor political groups were typically able to express their opposition to the status-quo far more freely.

It must have something to do with the fact we didn't have an industrial revolution, and were slow to urbanise. In hindsight, this might be question for the historians.

Ireland was a poor country but with a generally well educated population. The well educated tended to leave the country and take their progressive ideas with them. Once Ireland started to become wealthy the well educated stayed and some of those that had left returned home and thus the country became more progressive. You see similar in Poland and the like. It will be interesting to see what happens there as the economy continues to improve.

One possible explanation perhaps?

Peregrinus

Is there evidence that the better-educated were more prone to emigrate? Certainly the stereotype of the Irish emigrant for most of the period we are speaking of is a man of limited education who will work as a navvy or in some other unskilled occupation. Obviously that wasn't everybody — the Irish nurse was another stereotype — but I do question the suggestion that emigrants were, on average, better educated than those who stayed at home.

listermint

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is there evidence that the better-educated were more prone to emigrate? Certainly the stereotype of the Irish emigrant for most of the period we are speaking of is a man of limited education who will work as a navvy or in some other unskilled occupation. Obviously that wasn't everybody — the Irish nurse was another stereotype — but I do question the suggestion that emigrants were, on average, better educated than those who stayed at home.

I honestly think that's emigrant think and doesn't actually play out in reality. There's ample talent based in various multinationals here with Irish people heading up entire European divisions within huge world wide companies.

The vast majority of emigrants from the island would have lower salary range employment opportunities at destination.

So tbh it's a bit of a nonsense.

[Deleted User]

Ireland, and other Northern European countries, tend to be shame or guilt cultures. Ireland tends more towards shame and ostracisation, rather than guilt which is internal. This precedes Catholicism in my view, and I mean all the way back to Brehon law which was very much a shame culture.

It was shameful to criticise the Catholic Church in Public a few years ago, and probably shameful to be less than full woke today.

We need to qualify "in public" here. It doesn't mean at the pub, or online, but someone on a plinth, or a newspaper article. Im sure that priests and bishops got a hammering in private conversations, or even in pubs which are fairly public, back in the day. Just not anywhere where it might make a difference.

listermint

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ireland, and other Northern European countries, tend to be shame of guilt cultures. Ireland tends more towards shame and ostracisation, rather than guilt which is internal. This precedes Catholicism in my view, and I mean all the way back to Brehon law which is very much a shame culture.

It was shameful to criticise the Catholic Church in Public a few years ago, and probably shameful to be less than full woke today.

We need to qualify "in public" here. It doesn't mean at the pub, or online, but someone on a plinth, or a newspaper article. Im sure that priests and bishops got a hammering in private conversations, or even in pubs which are fairly public, back in the day. Just not anywhere where it might make a difference.

Genuinely read this twice and I'm still unsure of the point you are trying to portray ?

[Deleted User]

listermint wrote: »

Genuinely read this twice and I'm still unsure of the point you are trying to portray ?

And I’ve read your rebuttal once and am unsure what problems you have with my post. Since you haven’t really specified any.

sameoldname

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is there evidence that the better-educated were more prone to emigrate? Certainly the stereotype of the Irish emigrant for most of the period we are speaking of is a man of limited education who will work as a navvy or in some other unskilled occupation. Obviously that wasn't everybody — the Irish nurse was another stereotype — but I do question the suggestion that emigrants were, on average, better educated than those who stayed at home.

To be fair, it is pure supposition on my part. Whilst I was born in the 80's I don't remember any of it but I can remember the early 90's and the optimism that was everywhere at that time even though the wealth hadn't filtered down completely.

The 09 recession it was certainly true in my experience that the highly educated tended to stay but the people I know tend to be concentrated in the IT field so I'm not sure if that was true for all other sectors.

sameoldname

listermint wrote: »

I honestly think that's emigrant think and doesn't actually play out in reality. There's ample talent based in various multinationals here with Irish people heading up entire European divisions within huge world wide companies.

The vast majority of emigrants from the island would have lower salary range employment opportunities at destination.

So tbh it's a bit of a nonsense.

I'm not sure if you're talking about my post here and apologies if you aren't but I'm only talking about Ireland up until the 1980's and certainly don't take it that I'm presenting my post as fact, it's only a hypothesis and a very broad and partial one at that.

listermint

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And I’ve read your rebuttal once and am unsure what problems you have with my post. Since you haven’t really specified any.

I don't have problems with it other than I haven't a clue what it's trying to convey ?

[Deleted User]

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is there evidence that the better-educated were more prone to emigrate?

I'm not aware of any proof, and there probably isn't any since records of educational attainment weren't collated until well into the 20th century. Whatever records do exist are disparate, and impossible to rely upon.

Having said that, it stands to reason. If this person is talking about emigration to America, it's generally accepted that the poorest people in Irish society were typically unable to emigrate to the United States, or at least until the late 19th century. It follows that the families who could afford to emigrate a child were also able to maintain children in schools, instead of using them as agricultural labourers or having them go out and work as such.

Emigration to England probably wasn't even affordable to the poorest people, who lived hand-to-mouth during the height of Irish emigration. I think it's reasonably fair to deduce that the lower-middle class (by the standards of the time) were most likely to emigrate and also most likely to have better education than their peers.

As for hard evidence, there is probably none.

Peregrinus

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I'm not aware of any proof, and there probably isn't any since records of educational attainment weren't collated until well into the 20th century. Whatever records do exist are disparate, and impossible to rely upon.

Having said that, it stands to reason. If this person is talking about emigration to America, it's generally accepted that the poorest people in Irish society were typically unable to emigrate to the United States, or at least until the late 19th century. It follows that the families who could afford to emigrate a child were also able to maintain children in schools, instead of using them as agricultural labourers or having them go out and work as such.

Emigration to England probably wasn't even affordable to the poorest people, who lived hand-to-mouth during the height of Irish emigration. I think it's reasonably fair to deduce that the lower-middle class (by the standards of the time) were most likely to emigrate and also most likely to have better education than their peers.

As for hard evidence, there is probably none.

If we're talking about emigration as a "brain-drain" that alters the intellectual climate of the country, making in less progressive, we are necessarily talking about emigration on a large scale which, in the Irish context, means from the famine onwards. And this is definitely a time when emigration was available to the very poorest - it was the resort of the dispossessed, of landless labourers, and of people who saw no promising future in the place they lived because of its grinding poverty. And I'm not just talking about Ireland here - the US had waves of migrants from Germany, from Scandinavia, from what is now Poland/Ukraine, all fitting this description. The coming of the railways and of steamships saw transport costs drop hugely in the second half of the nineteenth century, leading to the first wave of globalisation. Among other things, this meant very affordable emigration.

The people who were less likely to emigrate were those who had some stake at at home - a trade or qualification that they could exploit, a tenancy on a farm that they held or, at least, hoped to inherit, some social capital that could be leveraged. Or, if you were a younger son and wouldn't inherit the farm/shop/whatever, you would move to Dublin or Cork and maybe take a clerical job or train as a teacher - that at least preserved your social capital and give you some chance of exploiting it, in a way that you probably couldn't in New York or London.

The Irish emigrant as a navvy is a stereotype. But the main reason stereotypes get to be stereotypes is because there is a large measure of truth behind them.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

I think many of these observations ignore a huge factor in Irish politics - the PR-STV electoral system and the multi seat constituency.

We’ve one of the longest established, continuous PR democracies in the world and for just over a century at this stage we have been using one of the most unusual forms of proportional representation.

The Irish system isn’t about polarised politics, rather it’s usually about finding consensus and people are expressing their political opinions in ranked choice ballots.

My view of Ireland is that there’s a requirement to find a consensus position and that point moves around with social change. Rather than seeing power pendulums swinging left and right, as you typically see in countries with simple majority systems, Irish politics is more about this centre that drifts.

Ideas from the outlying voices also tend to get absorbed into the centre. They have power to nudge it and that’s probably why you don’t see aggressive opposition.

Even at constituency level you’ve multiple TDs representing the same area. The result of that is there’s never a winner takes all and there’s a requirement to work across parties on local issues, as the constituency interests may end up aligning in ways that aren’t about political parties.

I think the result of it we have an increasingly weak party system and a style of politics that has to be quite pragmatic, not very ideological and that is willing to compromise.

If you go out on a moral high horse or some ideological crusade, you can’t really play ball and your power diminishes. The most powerful minority voices tend to be the ones who are able to play the game and nudge the centre more towards their objectives.

It’s an unusual system and I think sometimes we underestimate just how different it is to many other anglophone countries and the level of impact that has on political culture, public discourse, governance and how we make policy.

vladmydad

It’s tiring to have to say this over and over again but there are no differences between the major parties in the Daíl. EU, lgbt, abortion, Brexit, Trump, Immigration, Climate change, HSE, Education, Transport, Agriculture, Fisheries, even taxes. Hell even housing policy is similar “build more”. The Daíl is the definition of groupthink. Just look at our main opposition party SF, they agree with everything the government has done on Covid except they want it done harder. There is one dominant Internationalist leftist ideology that all parties are fully signed up to.

Peregrinus

vladmydad wrote: »

It’s tiring to have to say this over and over again but there are no differences between the major parties in the Daíl. EU, lgbt, abortion, Brexit, Trump, Immigration, Climate change, HSE, Education, Transport, Agriculture, Fisheries, even taxes. Hell even housing policy is similar “build more”. The Daíl is the definition of groupthink. Just look at our main opposition party SF, they agree with everything the government has done on Covid except they want it done harder. There is one dominant Internationalist leftist right of centre ideology that all parties are fully signed up to.

Fixed that for you. From an international perspective, Ireland is striking in being characterised by an unbroken succession of right-of-centre governments.

Jim2007

It’s an unusual system and I think sometimes we underestimate just how different it is to many other anglophone countries and the level of impact that has on political culture, public discourse, governance and how we make policy.

In other words, we’re Switzerland. And being a citizen of both and having worked on political campaigns in both I’d say the thinking is very much the same. To the best of my knowledge they are the only countries in Europe at least with a Sovereign People, although Ireland is stricter in that the constitution provides no circumstances in which parliament can ignore the outcome of a referendum.

The environment produces a different type of voter, one who thinks on two levels - strategic: how I want the country run in the long term and tactical: who do I want to run the country in the short term. That means the questions are different, the sources of information relied on are different and voters are comfortable with voting the party line on one matter and against the party on another, even on the same day.

It also produces a different kind of politician, one who knows there are limits to their powers, where by you can’t make the big strategic decisions without bringing not only the party, but a large section of the population in general with you. And that requires a certain level of cooperation no matter what.

Also having the big decisions owned by the people ensures that you don’t see the big divisions we’ve seen open up along party lines else where. And it makes the decisions easier to change. It’s much easier for the people to change their minds, revisit issues etc when the decision is not owned by the politicians.

Ireland and Switzerland are about consensus politics and so decisions on the strategic issues happen slowly but are widely supported.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

PR-STV also lets voters cast votes for multiple parties and independents, weighting them in how they’re ranked.
That contrasts to most European PR systems that use party lists primarily and means that Irish voters cast quite nuanced and complex ballots.

There’s an understanding of the concept of power sharing and an expectation that you need to reflect multiple opinions.

If you contrast it with the U.K. Westminster elections, French elections or with the US, it’s an extremely different political culture.

It may also be part of the reason why we are very used to EU style compromise and deal making politics, while the U.K. is furious that it had to listen to other points of view, do deals and find consensus. They’re not at all used to that kind of politics.

Interestingly, Scotland and NI have systems that look more like ours than Westminster too.

Jim2007

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

Interestingly, Scotland and NI have systems that look more like ours than Westminster too.

Is it perhaps an advancement in thinking on the parliament of Westminster style democracies though? Ireland was the first dominion to have a constitution enacted by the people. And I understand at the time of the negotiations it was not entirely an Irish idea with Birkenhead being a strong supporter of the idea.

What I more interesting is the comparison between Switzerland and Ireland. You have two very different countries in term of history, legal frameworks, local government national government and so on. And yet when it comes to managing constitutional issues they have evolved to a similar point:
- the very idea that parliament and government must operate within the bounds set by the people
- the need for an independent source of information
- hearing experts in the area
- a process of legal redress for those concerned about the outcome
- the need for the people to be able to revisit issues and change their minds
- the ownership of the decision by the people
- the emphasis on consensus beyond the party
- participation of voters who are uninterested in party politics
- and so on
It makes me feel that we’ve probably got a lot of it right.

[Deleted User]

Highly conformist, but we like to dress it up as conscientiousness. That said, every country has its own totems and taboos. Ireland's size makes it more difficult for counter cultures to thrive.

Peregrinus

Jim2007 wrote: »

Is it perhaps an advancement in thinking on the parliament of Westminster style democracies though? Ireland was the first dominion to have a constitution enacted by the people. And I understand at the time of the negotiations it was not entirely an Irish idea with Birkenhead being a strong supporter of the idea.

Nitpick: the Free State Constitution was not "enacted by the people"; it was enacted by Dail Eireann "sitting as a constituent assembly". It was also enacted, in parallel, by the Westminster Parliament in the Constitution of the Irish Free State Act 1922. This twin enactment enabled the UK to proceed on the basis that the IFS had been given a Constitution by the UK, and the IFS to proceed on the basis that it had adopted its own constitution.

It was a novelty in the sense that, up to that point, the constitutions of dominions had been granted by statutes of the UK Parliament alone (the British North America Act 1867, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, etc) with no parallel enactment or adoption by the dominion concerned.

The 1937 Constitution was enacted by the people. This was not the result of any negotiations with the UK and Birkenhead, who died in 1930, was not involved. There was no parallel enactment by Westminster.

(Which means that, technically, the 1937 Constitution was a revolutionary document. Under the 1922 Constitution, and under Westminster constitutional theory, the people had no legislative authority, and did not have the capacity to amend, repeal or abolish the 1922 Constitution or enact a new one. But they did it anyway, and that represents the sovereignty of the people being asserted successfully against the sovereignty of the Crown. Like the French Revolution, but without the Terror.

)