No it does not. Ireland’s war of independence was not supposed to lead to a dependence upon a different external entity. I do not know just how Eamon de Valera’s government sold this under that referendum (sounds too much like the Lisbon Treaty and Nice Treaty revotes), but he and that government sold out the Irish people.
Empires do not have to be led by monarchies; I do not know where you got that from. The Roman Empire established the title of “Imperator” specifically to evade royal connotations, of course. The British Empire was led by a non-royal dictator (Oliver Cromwell) from about 1649 to 1658. There was nothing royal about Hitler, Stalin or Mao either.
It “wasn’t supposed to”, but this is how it usually happens: the governments sell out the people. All I am saying is that it is not a proof of the EU’s intent, whatever it was.
I look at the three recent empires: the British, the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian. They were lead by bona fide monarchs. Various dictatorships that you mention are not empires, even though they are sometime called that way, incorrectly.