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On 1 January, the Adoption Act 1952 came into operation. This was a decisive legal development. Informal arrangements for children to be raised by people other than their birth parents had long existed, often involving extended families, religious institutions or voluntary agencies, but there had previously been no general Irish legal mechanism for adoption. The Act created An Bord Uchtála, the Adoption Board, and provided for formal adoption orders and an Adopted Children Register.
There was no general election in the Republic in 1952. De Valera remained Taoiseach, with Seán Lemass as Tánaiste and Seán MacEntee as Minister for Finance, in the Fourteenth Dáil elected the previous year. The most conspicuous constitutional event came in June. Seán T. O’Kelly, the sitting President, was the only candidate nominated for the presidency and was therefore declared elected without a poll. He began his second seven-year term on 25 June. The uncontested result conveyed institutional continuity at the summit of the still young republic rather than a popular electoral verdict.
