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Éamon de Valera

February 04, 2023

"De Valera" redirects here. For other people with the surname, see De Valera (surname).

Éamon de Valera[a][b] (/ˈeɪmən ˌdɛvəˈlɛərə, -ˈlɪər-/, Irish: [ˈeːmˠən̪ˠ dʲɛ ˈwalʲəɾʲə]; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera;[2] 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of government and head of state and had a leading role in introducing the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.[3][4]

Éamon de Valera
de Valera, photographed c. 1922–1930
3rd President of Ireland
In office
25 June 1959 – 24 June 1973
Taoiseach
Preceded bySeán T. O'Kelly
Succeeded byErskine H. Childers
2nd Taoiseach
In office
20 March 1957 – 23 June 1959
PresidentSeán T. O'Kelly
TánaisteSeán Lemass
Preceded byJohn A. Costello
Succeeded bySeán Lemass
In office
13 June 1951 – 2 June 1954
PresidentSeán T. O'Kelly
TánaisteSeán Lemass
Preceded byJohn A. Costello
Succeeded byJohn A. Costello
In office
29 December 1937 – 18 February 1948
President
Tánaiste
  • Seán T. O'Kelly
  • Seán Lemass
Preceded byHimself as president of the Executive Council
Succeeded byJohn A. Costello
President of the Executive Council
In office
9 March 1932 – 29 December 1937
Vice PresidentSeán T. O'Kelly
Preceded byW. T. Cosgrave
Succeeded byHimself as Taoiseach
Leader of the Opposition
In office
2 June 1954 – 20 March 1957
PresidentSeán T. O'Kelly
TaoiseachJohn A. Costello
Preceded byJohn A. Costello
Succeeded byJohn A. Costello
In office
18 February 1948 – 13 June 1951
PresidentSeán T. O'Kelly
TaoiseachJohn A. Costello
Preceded byRichard Mulcahy
Succeeded byJohn A. Costello
In office
11 August 1927 – 9 March 1932
PresidentW. T. Cosgrave
Preceded byThomas Johnson
Succeeded byW. T. Cosgrave
Leader of Fianna Fáil
In office
23 March 1926 – 23 June 1959
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded bySeán Lemass
President of the Irish Republic
In office
26 August 1921 – 9 January 1922
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byArthur Griffith
President of Dáil Éireann
In office
1 April 1919 – 26 August 1921
Preceded byCathal Brugha
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Parliamentary offices
Teachta Dála
In office
August 1922 – June 1959
ConstituencyClare
In office
December 1918 – June 1922
ConstituencyClare East
Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament
for South Down
In office
30 November 1933 – 9 February 1938
Preceded byJohn Henry Collins
Succeeded byJames Brown
Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament
for Down
In office
24 May 1921 – 22 May 1929
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Member of Parliament
for East Clare
In office
10 July 1917 – 15 November 1922
Preceded byWillie Redmond
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Personal details
Born
George de Valero

(1882-10-14)14 October 1882
New York City, US
Died29 August 1975(1975-08-29) (aged 92)
Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland
Resting placeGlasnevin Cemetery, Dublin
Nationality
Political partyFianna Fáil
Other political
affiliations
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1910; died 1975)​
Children7, including Vivion, Máirín, Éamon and Rúaidhrí
Parents
Relatives
Education
Alma mater
Profession
  • Teacher
  • politician
Signature

Prior to de Valera's political career, he was a commandant of Irish Volunteers at Boland's Mill during the 1916 Easter Rising. He was arrested and sentenced to death but released for a variety of reasons, including the public response to the British execution of Rising leaders. He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, de Valera served as the political leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin until 1926, when he, along with many supporters, left the party to set up Fianna Fáil, a new political party which abandoned the policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann.

From there, de Valera went on to be at the forefront of Irish politics until the turn of the 1960s. He took over as president of the Executive Council from W. T. Cosgrave and later became Taoiseach, with the adoption of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937. He served as Taoiseach on three different occasions: from 1937 to 1948, from 1951 to 1954, and finally from 1957 to 1959. He remains the longest serving Taoiseach by total days served in the post. He resigned in 1959 upon his election as president of Ireland. By then, he had been Leader of Fianna Fáil for 33 years and he, along with older founding members, began to take a less prominent role relative to newer ministers such as Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney. De Valera served as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973, two full terms in office.

De Valera's political beliefs evolved from militant Irish republicanism to strong social, cultural and fiscal conservatism.[5] He has been characterised as having a stern and unbending, and also devious demeanour. His roles in the Civil War have also been interpreted as making him a divisive figure in Irish history. Biographer Tim Pat Coogan sees his time in power as being characterised by economic and cultural stagnation, while Diarmaid Ferriter argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere, cold, and even backward figure was largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided.[5]

Early life

Éamon de Valera was born on 14 October 1882 in New York City, the son of Catherine Coll, who was originally from Bruree, County Limerick,[6] and Juan Vivion de Valera, described on the birth certificate as a Spanish artist born in 1853. Some researchers have placed his father's place of birth in Cuba,[7] while others have suggested other locations; according to Antonio Rivero Taravillo, he was born in Seville,[8] while Ronan Fanning has him born in the Basque Country.[9]

He was born at the Nursery and Child's Hospital,[10] Lexington Avenue, a home for destitute orphans and abandoned children.[11] His parents were reportedly married on 18 September 1881 at St Patrick's Church in Jersey City, New Jersey, but archivists have not located any marriage certificate or any birth, baptismal, or death certificate information for anyone called Juan Vivion de Valera (nor for "de Valeros", an alternative spelling). On de Valera's original birth certificate, his name is given as George de Valero and his father is listed as Vivion de Valero. Although he was known as Edward de Valera before 1901, a fresh birth certificate was issued in 1910, in which his first name was officially changed to Edward and his father's surname given as "de Valera".[12][13] As a child, he was known as "Eddie" or "Eddy".[14]

According to Coll, Juan Vivion died in 1885 leaving Coll and her child in poor circumstances.[15] Éamon was taken to Ireland by his uncle Ned at the age of two. When his mother remarried in the mid-1880s, he was not brought back to live with her, but was reared by his grandmother, Elizabeth Coll, her son Patrick and her daughter Hannie, in Bruree, County Limerick. He was educated locally at Bruree National School, County Limerick and C.B.S. Charleville, County Cork. Aged sixteen, he won a scholarship. He was not successful in enrolling at two colleges in Limerick, but was accepted at Blackrock College, Dublin, at the instigation of his local curate.[16]: 19–20 

He played rugby at Blackrock and Rockwell College, then for Munster around 1905. He remained a lifelong devotee of rugby, attending international matches even towards the end of his life when he was nearly blind.[17]

At the end of his first year at Blackrock College he was student of the year. He also won further scholarships and exhibitions and in 1903 was appointed teacher of mathematics at Rockwell College, County Tipperary.[18] It was here that de Valera was first given the nickname "Dev" by a teaching colleague, Tom O'Donnell.[19]: 73  In 1904, he graduated in mathematics from the Royal University of Ireland. He then studied for a year at Trinity College Dublin but, owing to the necessity of earning a living, did not proceed further and returned to teaching, this time at Belvedere College.[19]: 87–90  In 1906, he secured a post as a teacher of mathematics at Carysfort Teachers' Training College for women in Blackrock, Dublin. His applications for professorships in colleges of the National University of Ireland were unsuccessful, but he obtained a part-time appointment at St Patrick's College, Maynooth[20] and also taught mathematics at various Dublin schools, including Castleknock College (1910–1911; under the name Edward de Valera) and Belvedere College.[21]

There were occasions when de Valera seriously contemplated the religious life like his half-brother, Fr. Thomas Wheelwright, but ultimately he did not pursue this vocation. As late as 1906, when he was 24 years old, he approached the President of Clonliffe Seminary in Dublin for advice on his vocation.[22] De Valera was throughout his life portrayed as a deeply religious man, and in death asked to be buried in a religious habit. His biographer, Tim Pat Coogan, speculated that questions surrounding de Valera's legitimacy may have been a deciding factor in his not entering religious life. Being illegitimate would have been a bar to receiving priestly orders, but not to becoming a lay member of a religious order.[23]

As a young Gaeilgeoir (Irish speaker), de Valera became an activist for the Irish language. In 1908, he joined the Árdchraobh of Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League), where he met Sinéad Flanagan, a teacher by profession and four years his senior. They were married on 8 January 1910 at St Paul's Church, Arran Quay, Dublin.

The couple had five sons: Vivion (1910–1982), Éamon (1913–1986), Brian (1915–1936), Rúaidhrí (1916–1978), and Terence (Terry; 1922–2007); and two daughters: Máirín (1912–1984) and Emer (1918–2012). Brian de Valera predeceased his parents.

Early political activity

 
De Valera in March 1918

While he was already involved in the Gaelic revival, de Valera's involvement in the political revolution began on 25 November 1913, when he joined the Irish Volunteers. The organisation was formed to oppose the Ulster Volunteers and ensure the enactment of the Irish Parliamentary Party's Third Home Rule Act won by its leader John Redmond. After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, de Valera rose through the ranks and it was not long before he was elected captain of the Donnybrook branch. Preparations were pushed ahead for an armed revolt, and he was made commandant of the Third Battalion and adjutant of the Dublin Brigade. He took part in the Howth gun-running.[24] He was sworn by Thomas MacDonagh into the oath-bound Irish Republican Brotherhood, which secretly controlled the central executive of the Volunteers. He opposed secret societies, but this was the only way he could be guaranteed full information on plans for the Rising.[16]: 32 

Revolutionary years

1916 Easter Rising

 
De Valera addressing a crowd on the steps of Ennis Courthouse, County Clare, in July 1917

On 24 April 1916, the Easter Rising began. Forces commanded by de Valera occupied Boland's Mill[25] on Grand Canal Street in Dublin. His chief task was to cover the southeastern approaches to the city. After a week of fighting, the order came from Pádraig Pearse to surrender. De Valera was court-martialled, convicted, and sentenced to death, but the sentence was immediately commuted to penal servitude for life.

De Valera was among the few republican leaders the British did not execute.[25] It has been argued that his life was saved by four facts. First, he was one of the last to surrender and he was held in a different prison from other leaders, thus his execution was delayed by practicalities. Second, the US Consulate in Dublin made representations before his trial (i.e., was he actually a United States citizen and if so, how would the United States react to the execution of one of its citizens?) while the full legal situation was clarified. The UK was trying to bring the US into the war in Europe at the time, and the Irish American vote was important in US politics.[25] Third, when Lt-Gen Sir John Maxwell reviewed his case he said, "Who is he? I haven't heard of him before. I wonder would he be likely to make trouble in the future?" On being told that de Valera was unimportant, he commuted the court-martial's death sentence to life imprisonment.[26]: 93  De Valera had no Fenian family or personal background and his MI5 file in 1916 was very slim, detailing only his open membership in the Irish Volunteers.[26]: 92  Fourth, by the time de Valera was court-martialled on 8 May, political pressure was being brought to bear on Maxwell to halt the executions; Maxwell had already told British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith that only two more were to be executed, Seán Mac Diarmada and James Connolly, although they were court-martialled the day after de Valera. His late trial, representations made by the American Consulate, his lack of Fenian background and political pressure all combined to save his life, though had he been tried a week earlier he would probably have been shot.[26]: 91–94 

 
The Kilmainham Gaol cell of Éamon de Valera

De Valera's supporters and detractors argue about his bravery during the Easter Rising. His supporters claim he showed leadership skills and a capacity for meticulous planning. His detractors claim he suffered a nervous breakdown during the Rising. According to accounts from 1916, de Valera was seen running about, giving conflicting orders, refusing to sleep and on one occasion, having forgotten the password, almost getting himself shot in the dark by his own men. According to one account, de Valera, on being forced to sleep by one subordinate who promised to sit beside him and wake him if he was needed, suddenly woke up, his eyes "wild", screaming, "Set fire to the railway! Set fire to the railway!" Later in the Ballykinlar internment Camp, one de Valera loyalist approached another internee, a medical doctor, recounted the story, and asked for a medical opinion as to de Valera's condition. He also threatened to sue the doctor, future Fine Gael TD and Minister, Dr. Tom O'Higgins, if he ever repeated the story.[27] The British reportedly, however, considered de Valera's forces the best-trained and best-led among the rebels.[25] De Valera's latest biographer, Anthony J. Jordan, writes of this controversy, "Whatever happened in Boland's Mills, or any other garrison, does not negate or undermine in any way the extraordinary heroism of "Dev" and his comrades".[16]: 37 

After imprisonment in Dartmoor, Maidstone and Lewes prisons, de Valera and his comrades were released under an amnesty in June 1917. On 10 July 1917, he was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Clare (the constituency which he represented until 1959) in a by-election caused by the death of the previous incumbent Willie Redmond, brother of the Irish Party leader John Redmond, who had died fighting in World War I. In the 1918 general election he was elected both for that seat and Mayo East.[28] But because most other Irish rebellion leaders were dead, in 1917 he was elected President of Sinn Féin,[25] the party which had been blamed incorrectly for provoking the Easter Rising.[citation needed] This party became the political vehicle through which the survivors of the Easter Rising channelled their republican ethos and objectives.[29] The previous President of Sinn Féin, Arthur Griffith, had championed an Anglo-Irish dual-monarchy based on the Austro-Hungarian model, with independent legislatures for both Ireland and Britain.

President of Dáil Éireann

 
De Valera in academic dress to receive an honorary degree from College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts in 1920

Sinn Féin won a huge majority in the 1918 general election, largely thanks to the British executions of the 1916 leaders, the threat of conscription with the Conscription Crisis of 1918 and the first-past-the-post ballot. They won 73 out of 105 Irish seats, with about 47% of votes cast. 25 seats were uncontested. On 21 January 1919, 27 Sinn Féin MPs (the rest were imprisoned or impaired), calling themselves Teachtaí Dála (TDs), assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin and formed an Irish parliament, known as Dáil Éireann (translatable into English as the Assembly of Ireland). The Ministry of Dáil Éireann was formed, under the leadership of the Príomh Aire (also called President of Dáil Éireann) Cathal Brugha. De Valera had been re-arrested in May 1918 and imprisoned and so could not attend the January session of the Dáil. He escaped from Lincoln Gaol, England in February 1919. As a result, he replaced Brugha as Príomh Aire in the April session of Dáil Éireann.[citation needed]

In the hope of securing international recognition, Seán T. O'Kelly was sent as envoy to Paris to present the Irish case to the Peace Conference convened by the great powers at the end of World War I. When it became clear by May 1919 that this mission could not succeed, de Valera decided to visit the United States. The mission had three objectives: to ask for official recognition of the Irish Republic, to float a loan to finance the work of the Government (and by extension, the Irish Republican Army), and to secure the support of the American people for the republic. His visit lasted from June 1919 to December 1920 and had mixed success, including a visit to Fenway Park in Boston in front of 50,000 supporters.[30] One negative outcome was the splitting of the Irish-American organisations into pro- and anti-de Valera factions.[16]: 63–70  He met the young Harvard-educated leader from Puerto Rico, Pedro Albizu Campos, and forged a lasting and useful alliance with him.[31] It was during this American tour that he recruited his long-serving personal secretary, Kathleen O'Connell, an Irish emigrant who would return to Ireland with him.[32] In October 1919, he visited the University of Notre Dame campus in Indiana, where he planted a tree and also laid a wreath by the statue of William Corby. He toured the university archives and spoke in Washington Hall about the cause of Ireland in front of twelve hundred students.[33][34]

De Valera managed to raise $5,500,000 from American supporters, an amount that far exceeded the hopes of the Dáil.[35] Of this, $500,000 was devoted to the American presidential campaign in 1920, helping him gain wider public support there.[36] In 1921, it was said that $1,466,000 had already been spent, and it is unclear when the net balance arrived in Ireland.[37] Recognition was not forthcoming in the international sphere. He also had difficulties with various Irish-American leaders, such as John Devoy and Judge Daniel F. Cohalan, who resented the dominant position he established, preferring to retain their control over Irish affairs in the United States.

While American recognition for the Republic had been his priority, in February 1921, De Valera redirected Patrick McCartan from Washington to Moscow. McCartan was told by Maxim Litvinov, that the opportunity of recognition and assistance had passed. The Soviet priority was a trade agreement with Britain (signed in March). In June the British government (with a view to both domestic and American opinion) published the proposed treaty between the Dáil government and the Soviets, and related correspondence.[38]

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the conflict between the British authorities and the Dáil (which the British declared illegal in September 1919), escalated into the Irish War of Independence. De Valera left day-to-day government, during his eighteen-month absence in the United States, to Michael Collins, his 29-year-old Minister for Finance. De Valera and Collins would later become opponents during the Irish Civil War.[39]

President of the Republic

 
De Valera c. 1918–1921

In January 1921, in his first appearance in the Dáil, after his return to a country gripped by the War of Independence, de Valera introduced a motion calling on the IRA to desist from ambushes and other tactics that were allowing the British to successfully portray it as a terrorist group,[40] and to take on the British forces with conventional military methods. This they strongly opposed, and de Valera relented, issuing a statement expressing support for the IRA, and claimed it was fully under the control of the Dáil. He then, along with Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack, brought pressure to bear on Michael Collins to undertake a journey to the United States himself, on the pretext that only he could take up where de Valera had left off. Collins successfully resisted this move and stayed in Ireland. In the elections of May 1921, all candidates in Southern Ireland were returned unopposed, and Sinn Féin secured some seats in Northern Ireland. Following the Truce of July 1921 that ended the war, de Valera went to see Prime Minister David Lloyd George in London on 14 July. No agreement was reached, and by then the Parliament of Northern Ireland had already met. It became clear that neither a republic, nor independence for all 32 counties, was going to be offered; Lloyd George told de Valera he could "put a soldier in Ireland for every man, woman and child in it" if the IRA did not immediately agree to stop fighting.[41] In August 1921, de Valera secured Dáil Éireann approval to change the 1919 Dáil Constitution to upgrade his office from prime minister or chairman of the cabinet to a full President of the Republic. Declaring himself now the Irish equivalent of King George V, he argued that as Irish head of state, in the absence of the British head of state from the negotiations, he too should not attend the peace conference called the Treaty Negotiations (October–December 1921) at which British and Irish government leaders agreed to the effective independence of twenty-six of Ireland's thirty-two counties as the Irish Free State, with Northern Ireland choosing to remain under British sovereignty. It is generally agreed by historians that whatever his motives, it was a mistake for de Valera not to have travelled to London.[16]: 91 

Having effected these changes, a boundary commission came into place to redraw the Irish border. Nationalists expected its report to recommend that largely nationalist areas become part of the Free State, and many hoped this would make Northern Ireland so small it would not be economically viable. A Council of Ireland was also provided in the Treaty as a model for an eventual all-Irish parliament. Hence neither the pro- nor anti-Treaty sides made many complaints about partition in the Treaty Debates.

Anglo-Irish Treaty

The Republic's delegates to the Treaty Negotiations were accredited by de Valera and his cabinet as plenipotentiaries (that is, negotiators with the legal authority to sign a treaty without reference back to the cabinet), but were given secret cabinet instructions by de Valera that required them to return to Dublin before signing the Treaty.[42] The Treaty proved controversial in Ireland insofar as it replaced the Republic by a dominion of the British Commonwealth with the King represented by a Governor-General of the Irish Free State. The Irish delegates Arthur Griffith, Robert Barton and Michael Collins supported by Erskine Childers as Secretary-General set up their delegation headquarters at 22 Hans Place in Knightsbridge. It was there, at 11.15 am on 5 December 1921, that the decision was made to recommend the Treaty to Dáil Éireann. The Treaty was finally signed by the delegates after further negotiations which closed at 02:20 on 6 December 1921.[citation needed]

De Valera baulked at the agreement. His opponents claimed that he had refused to join the negotiations because he knew what the outcome would be and did not wish to receive the blame. De Valera claimed that he had not gone to the treaty negotiations because he would be better able to control the extremists at home, and that his absence would allow leverage for the plenipotentiaries to refer back to him and not be pressured into any agreements. Because of the secret instructions given to the plenipotentiaries, he reacted to news of the signing of the Treaty not with anger at its contents (which he refused even to read when offered a newspaper report of its contents), but with anger over the fact that they had not consulted him, their president, before signing. His ideal drafts, presented to a secret session of the Dáil during the Treaty Debates and publicised in January 1922, were ingenious compromises[original research?] but they included dominion status, the Treaty Ports, the fact of partition subject to veto by the parliament in Belfast, and some continuing status for the King as head of the Commonwealth. Ireland's share of the imperial debt was to be paid.[43][failed verification]

After the Treaty was narrowly ratified by 64 to 57, de Valera and a large minority of Sinn Féin TDs left Dáil Éireann. He then resigned and Arthur Griffith was elected President of Dáil Éireann in his place, though respectfully still calling him 'The President'. On a speaking tour of the more republican province of Munster, starting on 17 March 1922, de Valera made controversial speeches at Carrick on Suir, Lismore, Dungarvan and Waterford, saying that: "If the Treaty were accepted, [by the electorate] the fight for freedom would still go on, and the Irish people, instead of fighting foreign soldiers, will have to fight the Irish soldiers of an Irish government set up by Irishmen." At Thurles, several days later, he repeated this imagery and added that the IRA: "..would have to wade through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government, and perhaps through that of some members of the Irish Government to get their freedom." In a letter to the Irish Independent on 23 March de Valera accepted the accuracy of their report of his comment about "wading" through blood, but deplored that the newspaper had published it.[44]

De Valera objected to the oath of allegiance to the King that the treaty required Irish parliamentarians to take. He also was concerned that Ireland could not have an independent foreign policy as part of the British Commonwealth when the British retained several naval ports (see Treaty Ports) around Ireland's coast. As a compromise, de Valera proposed "external association" with the British Empire, which would leave Ireland's foreign policy in her own hands and a republican constitution with no mention of the British monarch (he proposed this as early as April, well before the negotiations began, under the title "Document No. 2"). Michael Collins was prepared to accept this formula and the two wings (pro- and anti-Treaty) of Sinn Féin formed a pact to fight the 1922 Irish general election together and form a coalition government afterwards. Collins later called off the pact on the eve of the election. De Valera's opponents won the election and civil war broke out shortly afterwards in late June 1922.[45]

Civil War

Main article: Irish Civil War

Relations between the new Irish government, which was backed by most of the Dáil and the electorate, and the anti-treatyites, under the nominal leadership of de Valera, now descended into the Irish Civil War (June 1922 to May 1923), in which the pro-treaty Free State forces defeated the anti-treaty IRA. Both sides had wanted to avoid civil war, but fighting broke out over the takeover of the Four Courts in Dublin by anti-treaty members of the IRA. These men were not loyal to de Valera and initially were not even supported by the executive of the anti-treaty IRA. However, Michael Collins was forced to act against them when Winston Churchill threatened to re-occupy the country with British troops unless action was taken. When fighting broke out in Dublin between the Four Courts garrison and the new Free State Army, republicans backed the IRA men in the Four Courts, and civil war broke out. De Valera, though he held no military position, backed the anti-treaty IRA, or irregulars, and said that he was re-enlisting in the IRA as an ordinary volunteer. On 8 September 1922, he met in secret with Richard Mulcahy in Dublin to try to halt the fighting. However, according to de Valera, they "could not find a basis" for agreement.[46]

Though nominally head of the anti-treatyites, de Valera had little influence. He does not seem to have been involved in any fighting and had little or no influence with the revolutionary military leadership, headed by IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch. De Valera and the anti-treaty TDs formed a "republican government" on 25 October 1922 from anti-treaty TDs to "be temporarily the Supreme Executive of the Republic and the State, until such time as the elected Parliament of the Republic can freely assemble, or the people being rid of external aggression are at liberty to decide freely how they are to be governed". However, it had no real authority and was a pale shadow of the Dáil government of 1919–21.[citation needed]

In March 1923, de Valera attended the meeting of the IRA Army Executive to decide on the future of the war. He was known to be in favour of a truce but he had no voting rights and it was narrowly decided to continue hostilities.[16]: 131  The leader of the Free State, W. T. Cosgrave, insisted that there could be no acceptance of a surrender without disarming.[47]

On 30 April 1923, the IRA's new Chief of Staff, Frank Aiken (Lynch had been killed), called a ceasefire. This was followed on 24 May by an order for volunteers to "dump arms". De Valera, who had wanted an end to the internecine fighting for some time, backed the ceasefire order with a message in which he called the anti-treaty fighters "the Legion of the Rearguard", saying that "The Republic can no longer be successfully defended by your arms. Further sacrifice on your part would now be in vain and the continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest and prejudicial to the future of our cause. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the republic. Other means must be sought to safeguard the nation's right."[48]

After this point many of the republicans were arrested in Free State round-ups when they had come out of hiding and returned home. De Valera remained in hiding for several months after the ceasefire was declared; however, he emerged in August to stand for election in County Clare. Making a campaign appearance in Ennis on 15 August, de Valera was arrested on the platform and interned at Kilmainham jail. He was moved to Arbour Hill barracks briefly prior to his release on 16 July 1924.[49][50]

Founding of Fianna Fáil

After the IRA dumped their arms rather than surrender them or continue a now fruitless war, de Valera returned to political methods. In 1924, he was arrested in Newry for "illegally entering Northern Ireland" and held in solitary confinement for a month in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast.[citation needed]

During this time, de Valera came to believe that abstentionism was not a workable tactic in the long term. He now believed that a better course would be to try to gain power and turn the Free State from a constitutional monarchy into a republic. He tried to convince Sinn Féin to accept this new line. However, a vote to accept the Free State Constitution (contingent on the abolition of the Oath of Allegiance) narrowly failed. Soon afterwards, de Valera resigned from Sinn Féin and seriously considered leaving politics.[citation needed]

However, one of his colleagues, Seán Lemass, convinced de Valera to found a new republican party.[51] In March 1926, with Lemass, Constance Markievicz and others, de Valera formed a new party, Fianna Fáil (The Warriors of Destiny), a party that was to dominate 20th-century Irish politics.[52] While Sinn Féin still held to an abstentionist line, Fianna Fáil was dedicated to republicanising the Free State from within if it gained power.

Having attracted most of Sinn Féin's branches due to Lemass' organisational skill,[51] the new party made swift electoral gains in the general election on 9 June 1927. In the process, it took much of Sinn Féin's previous support, winning 44 seats to Sinn Féin's five. It refused to take the Oath of Allegiance (portrayed by opponents as an 'Oath of Allegiance to the Crown' but actually an Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Free State with a secondary promise of fidelity to the King in his role in the Treaty settlement).[53]

The oath was largely the work of Collins and based on three sources: British oaths in the dominions, the oath of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a draft oath prepared by de Valera in his proposed treaty alternative, "Document No. 2"). De Valera began a legal case to challenge the requirement that members of his party take the Oath, but the assassination of the Vice-President of the Executive Council (deputy prime minister) Kevin O'Higgins on 10 July 1927 led the Executive Council under W. T. Cosgrave to introduce a Bill on 20 July[54] requiring all Dáil candidates to promise on oath that if they were elected they would take the Oath of Allegiance. Forced into a corner, and faced with the option of staying outside politics forever or taking the oath and entering, de Valera and his TDs took the Oath of Allegiance on 12 August 1927, though de Valera himself described the Oath as "an empty political formula".[55]

De Valera never organised Fianna Fáil in Northern Ireland and it was not until 7 December 2007 that Fianna Fáil was registered there by the UK Electoral Commission.[56]

President of the Executive Council

 
De Valera on the cover of Time magazine in 1932

In the 1932 general election Fianna Fáil secured 72 seats and became the largest party in the Dáil, although without a majority. Some Fianna Fáil members arrived at the first sitting of the new Dáil carrying arms, amid fears that Cumann na nGaedheal would not voluntarily surrender power. However, the transition was peaceful.[57] De Valera was elected President of the Executive Council (Prime Minister) by the Dáil by a vote of 81–68, with the support of the Labour Party and Independent politicians, and took office on 9 March.[58]

He at once initiated steps to fulfill his election promises to abolish the oath and withhold land annuities owed to the UK for loans provided under the Irish Land Acts and agreed as part of the 1921 Treaty. This launched the Anglo-Irish Trade War when the UK in retaliation imposed economic sanctions against Irish exports. De Valera responded in kind with levies on British imports. The ensuing "Economic War" lasted until 1938.[59][60]

After De Valera had urged King George V to dismiss McNeill as Governor-General, the King suggested an alternative course of action: that McNeill, instead, carry on a while longer as viceroy and only then resign, which he did on 1 November 1932. Subsequently, a 1916 veteran, Domhnall Ua Buachalla, was appointed Governor-General. To strengthen his position against the opposition in the Dáil and Seanad, de Valera directed the Governor-General to call a snap election in January 1933 and de Valera's party won 77 seats, giving Fianna Fáil an overall majority. Under de Valera's leadership, Fianna Fáil won further general elections in 1937, 1938, 1943, and 1944.[citation needed]

De Valera took charge of Ireland's foreign policy as well by also acting as Minister for External Affairs. In that capacity, he attended meetings of the League of Nations. He was president of the Council of the League on his first appearance at the league in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1932 and, in a speech that made a worldwide impression, appealed for genuine adherence by its members to the principles of the covenant of the league. In 1934, he supported the admission of the Soviet Union into the league. In September 1938, he was elected nineteenth president of the Assembly of the League,[61] a tribute to the international recognition he had won by his independent stance on world questions.[62]

De Valera's government followed the policy of unilaterally dismantling the treaty of 1921. In this way he would be pursuing republican policies and lessening the popularity of republican violence and the IRA. De Valera encouraged IRA members to join the Irish Defence Forces and the Gardaí. He also refused to dismiss from office those Cumann na nGaedheal, Cosgrave supporters, who had previously opposed him during the Civil War. He did, however, dismiss Eoin O'Duffy from his position as Garda Commissioner after a year. Eoin O'Duffy was then invited to be head of the Army Comrades Association (ACA) formed to protect and promote the welfare of its members, previously led by J.F. O'Higgins, Kevin O'Higgins's brother. This organisation was an obstacle to de Valera's power as it supported Cumann na nGaedheal and provided stewards for their meetings. Cumann na nGaedheal meetings were frequently disrupted by Fianna Fáil supporters following the publication of the article: No Free Speech for Traitors by Peadar O'Donnell, an IRA member.[citation needed]

The ACA changed its name to the National Guard under O'Duffy and adopted the uniform of black berets and blue shirts, using the straight-armed salute, and were nicknamed the Blueshirts. They were outwardly fascist and planned a march in August 1933 through Dublin to commemorate Michael Collins, Kevin O'Higgins, and Arthur Griffith. This march struck parallels with Mussolini's march on Rome (1922), in which he had created the image of having toppled the democratic government in Rome. De Valera revived a military tribunal, which had been set up by the previous administration, to deal with the matter. O'Duffy backed down when the National Guard was declared an illegal organisation and the march was banned. Within a few weeks, O'Duffy's followers merged with Cumann na nGaedhael and the Centre Party to form United Ireland, or Fine Gael, and O'Duffy became its leader. Smaller local marches were scheduled for the following weeks, under different names. Internal dissension set in when the party's TDs distanced themselves from O'Duffy's extreme views, and his movement fell asunder.[63]

Taoiseach (1937–1948)

Fianna Fáil having won the 1937 election held the same day as the plebiscite that ratified the constitution, de Valera continued as President of the Executive Council until 29 December 1937, when the new constitution was enacted. On that date, de Valera's post automatically became that of Taoiseach which was a considerably more powerful office. Notably, he could advise the President to dismiss Ministers individually – advice that the President was bound to follow by convention. The old Executive Council had to be dissolved and reformed en bloc if its President wanted to remove a Minister. Additionally, he could request a parliamentary dissolution on his own authority. Previously, the right to seek a dissolution was vested with the Council as a whole.[citation needed]

In social policy, de Valera's first period as Taoiseach saw the introduction (in 1947) of means-tested allowances for people suffering from infectious diseases.[64]

Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement

With the new constitution in place, de Valera determined that the changed circumstances made swift resolution to Ireland's ongoing trade war with the UK more desirable for both sides — as did the growing probability of the outbreak of war across Europe. In April 1938, de Valera and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, lifting all duties imposed during the previous five years and ending British use of the Treaty Ports it had retained in accordance with the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The return of the ports was of particular significance, since it ensured Irish neutrality during the coming Second World War.[citation needed]

Constitution of Ireland

During the 1930s, de Valera systematically stripped the Irish Free State constitution – a constitution originally drafted by a committee under the nominal chairmanship of his rival, Collins – of features tying Ireland to the United Kingdom, limiting its independence and the republican character of its state. De Valera was able to carry out this program of constitutional change by taking advantage of three earlier modifications of constitutional arrangements. First, though the 1922 constitution originally required a public plebiscite for any amendment enacted more than eight years after its passage, the Free State government under W. T. Cosgrave had amended that period to sixteen years. This meant that, until 1938, the Free State constitution could be amended by the simple passage of a Constitutional Amendment Act through the Oireachtas. Secondly, while the Governor-General of the Irish Free State could reserve or deny Royal Assent to any legislation, from 1927, the power to advise the Governor-General to do so no longer rested with the British government in London but with His Majesty's Government in the Irish Free State, which meant that, in practice, the Royal Assent was automatically granted to legislation; the government was hardly likely to advise the governor-general to block the enactment of one of its own bills. Thirdly, though in its original theory, the constitution had to be in keeping with the provisions of the Anglo-Irish Treaty as the fundamental law of the state, that requirement had been abrogated a short time before de Valera gained power.[citation needed]

The Oath of Allegiance was abolished, as were appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The opposition-controlled Senate, when it protested and slowed down these measures, was also abolished. In 1931, the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, which established the legislative equal status of the self-governing Dominions of the then British Commonwealth, including the Irish Free State, to one another and the United Kingdom. Though a few constitutional links between the Dominions and the United Kingdom remained, this is often seen as the moment at which the Dominions became fully sovereign states.[citation needed]

De Valera, in his capacity as Prime Minister of His Majesty's Government in the Irish Free State, wrote in July 1936 to King Edward VIII in London indicating that he planned to introduce a new constitution, the central part of which was to be the creation of an office de Valera provisionally intended to call President of Saorstát Éireann (Irish: Uachtarán Shaorstát Éireann), which would replace the Governor-General.[65] De Valera used the sudden abdication of Edward VIII as King to pass two bills: one amended the constitution to remove all mention of the monarch and Governor-General, while the second brought the monarch back, this time through statute law, for use in representing the Irish Free State at a diplomatic level. With the implementation of the Constitution of Ireland (Irish: Bunreacht na hÉireann), the title ultimately given to the president was President of Ireland (Irish: Uachtarán na hÉireann).

The constitution contained reforms and symbols intended to assert Irish sovereignty. These included:

  • a new name for the state, "Éire" (in Irish) and "Ireland" (in English);
  • a claim that the national territory was the entire island of Ireland, thereby challenging Britain's partition settlement of 1921;
  • the removal of references to the King of Ireland[66][67] and the replacement of the monarch's representative, the governor-general, with a popularly elected President of Ireland, who takes "precedence over all other persons in the State and who shall exercise and perform the powers and functions conferred on the President by this Constitution and by law";[68][69]
  • recognition of the "special position" of the Catholic Church;
  • a recognition of the Catholic concept of marriage which excluded civil divorce, even though civil marriage was retained;
  • the declaration that the Irish language was the "national language" and the first official language of the nation although English was also included as "a" second official language;
  • the use of Irish language terms to stress Irish cultural and historical identity (e.g., Uachtarán, Taoiseach, Tánaiste, etc.)

Criticisms of some of the above constitutional reforms include that:

  • the anti-partition articles needlessly antagonised Unionists in Northern Ireland, while simultaneously attracting criticism from hardline republicans by recognising the de facto situation.
  • similarly, the recognition of the "special position" of the Catholic Church was inconsistent with the identity and aspirations of northern Protestants (leading to its repeal in the 1970s), while simultaneously falling short of the demands of hardline Catholics for Catholicism to be explicitly made the state religion.
  • the affirmation of Irish as the national and primary official language neither reflected contemporary realities nor led to the language's revival
  • though the King was removed from the text of the constitution, he retained a leading role in the state's foreign affairs, and the legal position of the President of Ireland was accordingly uncertain; there was also concern that the presidency would evolve into a dictatorial position
  • elements of Catholic social teaching incorporated into the text, such as the articles on the role of women, the family and divorce, were inconsistent both with the practice of the Protestant minority and with contemporary liberal opinion

As Paul Bew concludes, in the constitution of 1937 de Valera was "trying to placate left-wing Republicans with national phrases and pious people with expressly Catholic bits [and] patriarchal Catholicism".[70]

The Constitution was approved in a plebiscite on 1 July 1937 and came into force on 29 December 1937.

The Emergency (World War II)

Main articles: The Emergency (Ireland) and Irish neutrality during World War II

By September 1939, a general European war was imminent. On 2 September, de Valera advised Dáil Éireann that neutrality was the best policy for the country. This policy had overwhelming political and popular support, though some advocated Irish participation in the war on the Allied side, while others, believing that "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity", were pro-German. Strong objections to conscription in the North were voiced by de Valera.[71] In June 1940, to encourage the neutral Irish state to join with the Allies, Winston Churchill indicated to de Valera that the United Kingdom would push for Irish unity, but believing that Churchill could not deliver, de Valera declined the offer.[72][73] The day after the attacks on Pearl Harbor Churchill wired de Valera: "Now is your chance. Now or never! A nation once again. I will meet you wherever you wish."[74] The British did not inform the Government of Northern Ireland that they had made the offer to the Irish government, and De Valera's rejection was not publicised until 1970. The government secured wide powers for the duration of the Emergency, such as internment, censorship of the press and correspondence, and the government control of the economy. The Emergency Powers Act lapsed on 2 September 1946, though the State of Emergency declared under the constitution was not lifted until the 1970s.[75][76] This status remained throughout the war, despite pressure from Chamberlain and Churchill. However, de Valera did respond to a request from Northern Ireland for fire tenders to assist in fighting fires following the 1941 Belfast Blitz.

Persistent claims that de Valera sent a personal note of congratulation to Subhas Chandra Bose upon his declaration of the Azad Hind (Free India) government in 1943,[77] have been shown to be inaccurate, and largely a misrepresentation by Japanese consular staff in Dublin of a statement by a small and unofficial Republican group unconnected to the Irish government.[78]

Controversially,[79] de Valera formally offered his condolences to the German ambassador in Dublin on the death of Adolf Hitler in 1945, in accordance with diplomatic protocol.[80] This did some damage to Ireland, particularly in the United States – and soon afterwards de Valera had a bitter exchange of words with Churchill in two famous radio addresses after the end of the war in Europe.[81] De Valera denounced reports of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as "anti-national propaganda"; according to Bew, this was not out of disbelief but rather because the Holocaust undermined the main assumption underlying Irish neutrality: moral equivalence between the Allies and the Axis.[82]

The de Valera government was reputedly harsh with Irish Army deserters who had enlisted to fight with the Allied armies against the Axis.[83] The legislation in question was the Emergency Powers (No. 362) order which was passed in August 1945. On 18 October 1945, Thomas F. O'Higgins moved to annul the order.[84] He did not condone desertion, but felt that the order was specifically harsh on those deserters who had served in the Allied forces. General Richard Mulcahy also spoke against the Order, disagreeing with the way in which it applied to enlisted men and not to officers. It was revoked with effect from 1 August 1946,[85] but was in effect continued by section 13 of the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946.[86]

Post-war period: Taoiseach/Opposition leader

Opposition leader (1948–1951)

After de Valera had spent sixteen years in power without answering the crucial questions of partition and republican status the public demanded a change from Fianna Fáil government. In the 1948 election, de Valera lost the outright majority he had enjoyed since 1933. It initially looked as if the National Labour Party would give Fianna Fáil enough support to stay in office as a minority government, but National Labour insisted on a formal coalition agreement, something de Valera was unwilling to concede. However, while Fianna Fáil was six seats short of a majority, it was still by far the largest party in the Dáil, with 37 more TDs than the next largest party and rival, Fine Gael (the successor to Cumann na nGaedheal). Conventional wisdom held that de Valera would remain Taoiseach with the support of independent deputies.

This belief came to nought when (after the final votes were counted) the other parties realised that if they banded together, they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil, and would be able to form a government with the support of at least seven independents. The result was the First Inter-Party Government, with John A. Costello of Fine Gael as its compromise candidate for Taoiseach. Costello was duly nominated, consigning de Valera to opposition for the first time in 16 years. The following year, Costello declared Ireland as a republic, leaving partition as the most pressing political issue of the day.[87]

De Valera, now Leader of the Opposition, left the actual parliamentary practice of opposing the government to his deputy, Seán Lemass, and himself embarked on a world campaign to address the issue of partition. He visited the United States, Australia, New Zealand and India, and in the latter country, was the last guest of the Governor-General, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, before he was succeeded by the first Indian-born Governor-General.[88] In Melbourne, Australia, de Valera was feted by the powerful Catholic Archbishop Daniel Mannix, at the centenary celebrations of the diocese of Melbourne. He attended mass-meetings at Xavier College, and addressed the assembled Melbourne Celtic Club.[89] In Brisbane, Australia, at the request of the influential and long serving Archbishop Duhig de Valera laid the foundation stone for the new High School building at Marist Brothers College Rosalie.[90] In October 1950, just thirty years after his dramatic escape from Lincoln Gaol, he returned to Lincoln and received the freedom of the gaol.[91] The Anti-Partition of Ireland League of Great Britain marked the occasion with a dinner in his honour and the toast was 'Anglo-Irish Friendship'.[92] A key message in de Valera's campaign was that Ireland could not join the recently established North Atlantic Treaty Organization as long as Northern Ireland was in British hands; although Costello's government favoured alliance with NATO, de Valera's approach won more widespread support and prevented the state from signing the treaty.[87]

Final years as Taoiseach

 
De Valera (right) with Mayor of Boston John F. Collins and his wife Mary

Returning to Ireland during the Mother and Child Scheme crisis that racked the First Inter-Party Government, de Valera kept silent as Leader of the Opposition, preferring to stay aloof from the controversy. That stance helped return de Valera to power in the 1951 general election, but without an overall majority. His and Fianna Fáil's popularity was short-lived, however; his government introduced severe, deflationary budgetary and economic policies in 1952, causing a political backlash that cost Fianna Fáil several seats in the Dáil in by-elections of 1953 and early 1954. Faced with a likely loss of confidence in the Dáil, de Valera instead called an election in May 1954, in which Fianna Fáil was defeated and a Second Inter-Party Government was formed with John A. Costello again as Taoiseach.[93]

On 16 September 1953, de Valera met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for the first and only time, at 10 Downing Street. (The two men had seen each other at a party in 1949, but without speaking). He surprised the UK Prime Minister by claiming that if he had been in office in 1948 Ireland would not have left the Commonwealth.[94]

It was during this period that de Valera's eyesight began to deteriorate and he was forced to spend several months in the Netherlands, where he had six operations. In 1955, while in opposition, de Valera spoke against the formation of a European Parliament and European federalism, noting that Ireland "did not strive to get out of that British domination [...] to get into a worse [position]".[95]

Like the first coalition government, the second lasted only three years. At the general election of 1957, de Valera, then in his seventy-fifth year, won an absolute majority of nine seats, the greatest number he had ever secured. This was the beginning of another sixteen-year period in office for Fianna Fáil. A new economic policy emerged with the First Programme for Economic Expansion. In July 1957, in response to the Border Campaign (IRA), Part II of the Offences Against the State Act was re-activated and he ordered the internment without trial of Republican suspects, an action which did much to end the IRA's campaign.[96]

De Valera's final term as Taoiseach also saw the passage of numerous reforms in health and welfare. In 1952, unemployment insurance was extended to male agricultural employees, child allowances were extended to the second child, and a maternity allowance for insured women was introduced. A year later, eligibility for maternity and child services and public hospital services was extended to approximately 85% of the population.[64]

Presidency

 
De Valera in the 1960s while President of Ireland

While Fianna Fáil remained popular among the electorate, 75-year-old de Valera had begun to be seen by the electorate as too old and out of touch to remain as head of government.[97] At the urging of party officials, de Valera decided to retire from government and the Dáil and instead seek the presidency of Ireland. He won the 1959 presidential election on 17 June 1959 and resigned as Taoiseach, Leader of Fianna Fáil and a TD for Clare, six days later, handing over power to Seán Lemass.

De Valera was inaugurated President of Ireland on 25 June 1959.[52] He was re-elected President in 1966, aged 84. That would remain a world record for oldest elected head of state until 2013,[98] At his retirement in 1973 at the age of 90, he was the oldest head of state in the world.[97]

As President of Ireland, de Valera received many state visits, including the 1963 visit of US president John F. Kennedy. Five months later de Valera attended the state funeral for Kennedy in Washington, D.C. and accompanied a group of 24 Defence Forces cadets who performed a silent drill at his grave site.[97] In June 1964, he returned to Washington, D.C. as the second President of Ireland to address the United States Congress.[99]

In 1966, the Dublin Jewish community arranged the planting and dedication of the Éamon de Valera Forest in Israel, near Nazareth, in recognition of his support for Ireland's Jews.[100]

In January 1969, de Valera became the first President to address both houses of the Oireachtas, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Dáil Éireann.

In 1969, seventy-three countries sent goodwill messages to NASA for the historic first lunar landing. These messages still rest on the lunar surface. De Valera's message on behalf of Ireland stated, "May God grant that the skill and courage which have enabled man to alight upon the Moon will enable him, also, to secure peace and happiness upon the Earth and avoid the danger of self-destruction."[101]

Death

 
Éamon de Valera's grave in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. His wife, Sinéad, and son, Brian (who was killed in a horse-riding accident in 1936) are buried there also.

Éamon de Valera died from pneumonia and heart failure in Linden Convalescent Home, Blackrock, Dublin, on 29 August 1975, aged 92.[102] His wife, Sinéad de Valera, four years his senior, had died the previous January, on the eve of their 65th wedding anniversary. His body lay in state at Dublin Castle and was given a full state funeral on 3 September at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, which was broadcast on national television. Over 200,000 people reportedly lined the three-mile funeral route from Dublin city centre to Glasnevin Cemetery.[103] He is buried in Glasnevin alongside his wife and son Brian.

Legacy

De Valera's political creed evolved from militant republicanism to social and cultural conservatism.[5]

Ireland's dominant political personality for many decades, de Valera received numerous honours. He was elected Chancellor of the National University of Ireland in 1921, holding the post until his death. Pope John XXIII bestowed on him the Order of Christ (KSC).[104] He received honorary degrees from universities in Ireland and abroad. In 1968, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS),[4] a recognition of his lifelong interest in mathematics. He also served as a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (for Down from 1921 to 1929 and for South Down from 1933 to 1937), although he held to the republican policy of abstentionism and did not take his seat in Stormont.

De Valera was criticised for ending up as co-owner of one of Ireland's most influential group of newspapers, Irish Press Newspapers, funded by numerous small investors who received no dividend for decades.[105] De Valera is alleged by critics to have helped keep Ireland under the influence of Catholic conservatism.[106] De Valera rejected, however, demands by organisations like Maria Duce that Roman Catholicism be made the state religion of Ireland, just as he rejected demands by the Irish Christian Front for the Irish Free State to support Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.[107]

De Valera's preoccupation with his part in history, and his need to explain and justify it, are reflected in innumerable ways. His faith in historians as trustworthy guardians of his reputation was not absolute. He made many attempts to influence their views and to adjust and refine the historical record whenever he felt this portrayed him, his allies or his cause inaccurately or unfavourably to his mind, these could often mean the same thing. He extended these endeavours to encompass the larger Irish public. An important function of his newspaper group, the Irish Press group, was to rectify what he saw as the errors and omissions of a decade in which he had been the subject of largely hostile commentary.[108]

In recent decades, his role in Irish history has no longer been unequivocally seen by historians as a positive one, and a biography by Tim Pat Coogan alleges[109][page needed] that his failures outweigh his achievements, with de Valera's reputation declining while that of his great rival in the 1920s, Michael Collins, was rising. A more recent 2007 work on de Valera by historian Diarmaid Ferriter presents a more positive picture of de Valera's legacy.[110]Bertie Ahern, at a book launch for Diarmaid Ferriter's biography of de Valera,[5][111] described de Valera's achievements in political leadership during the formative years of the state:

One of de Valera's finest hours was his regrouping of the Republican side after defeat in the civil war, and setting his followers on an exclusively peaceful and democratic path, along which he later had to confront both domestic Fascism and the IRA. He became a democratic statesman, not a dictator. He did not purge the civil service of those who had served his predecessors, but made best use of the talent available.

A notable failure was his attempt to reverse the provision of the 1937 Constitution in relation to the electoral system. On retiring as Taoiseach in 1959, he proposed that the Proportional Representation system enshrined in that constitution should be replaced. De Valera argued that Proportional Representation had been responsible for the instability that had characterised much of the post war period. A constitutional referendum to ratify this was defeated by the people. One aspect of de Valera's legacy is that since the foundation of the state, a de Valera has nearly always served in Dáil Éireann. Éamon de Valera served until 1959, his son, Vivion de Valera, was also a Teachta Dála (TD). Éamon Ó Cuív, his grandson, is currently a member of the Dáil while his granddaughter, Síle de Valera is a former TD. Both have served in ministries in the Irish Government.

Catholic social policy

 
Éamon de Valera's heraldry as knight of the Supreme Order of Christ

In 1931, de Valera said in the Dáil: "I believe that every citizen in this country is entitled to his share of public appointments, and that there should not be discrimination on the ground of religion, discrimination, mind you, in the sense that because a person was of a particular religion, religion should not be made an excuse for denying a person an appointment for which he or she was fully qualified. Then there comes the question, what are qualifications? If I thought that the principle that the librarian in a Catholic community should be Catholic was a new principle, introduced merely to deny a Protestant an appointment, I would vote against it, but I know from my youth that it is not so. ... if I had a vote on a local body, and if there were two qualified people who had to deal with a Catholic community, and if one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant, I would unhesitatingly vote for the Catholic. Let us be clear and let us know where we are."[112][113][114] Ryle Dwyer, writing in 2008, said "If those were his honest views, one could also say without hesitation that the Long Fellow was a bigot. But, in fact, he was just playing the role of a political hypocrite. It was cynical, but it should be stressed that he behaved responsibly in this regard when he came to power."[115]

De Valera led Fianna Fáil to adopt conservative social policies, since he believed devoutly that the Catholic church and the family were central to Irish identity. He added clauses to the new Constitution of Ireland (1937) to "guard with special care the institution of marriage" and prohibit divorce. His constitution also recognised "the special position" of the Catholic Church and recognised other denominations including the Church of Ireland and Jewish congregations, while guaranteeing the religious freedom of all citizens; however, he resisted an attempt to make Roman Catholicism the state religion and his constitution forbids the establishment of a state religion. His policies were welcomed by a largely devout, conservative and rural electorate.[116] The unenforceable articles in the constitution which reinforced the traditional view that a woman's place was in the home further illustrate the direction in which Ireland was moving. An act of 1935 prohibited the importation or sale of contraceptives. The most rigorous censorship laws in western Europe complete the picture.[117]

The specific recognition of Roman Catholicism was deleted by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland (1973) and the prohibition of divorce was removed by the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland (1996). Nevertheless, the Irish Supreme Court declared in 1973 that the 1935 contraception legislation was not repugnant to the Constitution and therefore remained valid.[118]

In popular culture

  • De Valera's portrait illustrated the front cover of 25 March 1940 issue of TIME magazine[119] accompanying the article EIRE: Prime Minister of Freedom.[120]

De Valera has been portrayed by:

Governments

The following governments were led by de Valera:

See also

Notes

  1. ^ His name is frequently misspelled Eamonn De Valera, but he never used the second "n" in his first name (the standard Irish spelling), and he always used a small "d" in "de Valera", which is proper for Spanish names (de meaning "of").
  2. ^ Éamon(n) translates into English as "Edmond" or "Edmund". The correct Irish translation of "Edward" (his name as given in his amended birth certificate) is Éadhbhard.

References

  1. ^ Schmuhl, Robert (February 2016). "Éamon de Valera: Man of Mystery". irishamerica.com. Irish America Magazine. Retrieved 14 June 2022.
  2. ^ UK Census 1901 held in the National Archives in the Republic of Ireland 29 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine de Valera listed as Edward in a Roman Catholic boarding school, Blackrock College, in Dublin. This was the same boarding school which T.F. O'Rahilly attended, listed as Rahilly.
  3. ^ "Éamon de Valera". Oireachtas Members Database. from the original on 23 September 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2009.
  4. ^ a b Synge, J. L. (1976). "Eamon de Valera 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 22: 634–653. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1976.0022.
  5. ^ a b c d Ferriter, Judging Dev: A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon De Valera (2007), ISBN 1-904890-28-8.
  6. ^ "Mystery of 1916 leader and New Yorker Eamon de Valera's birth". IrishCentral.com. 14 October 2016. from the original on 5 January 2018. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  7. ^ Castro, Aurora (29 December 2021). "Exploring the Spanish Roots of Éamon de Valera". Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.5809396.
  8. ^ José Francisco Fernández (March 2018 – February 2019). "En busca de la Isla Esmeralda. Diccionario sentimental de la cultura Irlandesa (Antonio Rivero Taravillo)". Estudios Irlandeses - Journal of Irish Studies (13): 197. from the original on 12 September 2021. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  9. ^ Ronan Fanning (2016). A Will To Power: Eamon De Valera. Harvard University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780674970557. from the original on 12 September 2021. Retrieved 21 September 2020. De Valera was born on 14 October 1882 in the Nursery and Child's Hospital, Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, New York; the only child of Juan Vivion de Valera and Catherine ('Kate') Coll
  10. ^ "Nursery and Child's Hospital Records - 1854-1934 - MS 443.20".|publisher=New-York Historical Society |access-date=21 August 2022 |
  11. ^ Tim Pat Coogan (31 January 2005). "De Valera's begrudging attitude to 'The Big Fellow'". The Irish Times. from the original on 30 November 2017. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  12. ^ ""Eamon de Valera's father" 2006". Homepage.eircom.net. from the original on 4 April 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  13. ^ . nyc.gov. NYC Department of Records. Archived from the original on 8 February 2004.
  14. ^ "Myers on De Valera". The Irish Times. 9 December 1998. from the original on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  15. ^ Mac Aonghusa, Proinsias (1983). Quotations from Éamon de Valera. p. 89. ISBN 0-85342-684-8.
  16. ^ a b c d e f Jordan, Anthony J. Eamon de Valera 1882–1975. Irish; Catholic; Visionary (Westport Books, 2010)
  17. ^ Jordan 2010, p. 279.
  18. ^ "Éamon de Valera (1882–1975)". BBC News. from the original on 21 January 2009. Retrieved 6 December 2008.
  19. ^ a b Farragher CSSp, Sean P. (1984). Dev and his Alma Mater. Dublin & London: Paraclete Press. ISBN 0-946639-01-9.
  20. ^ Fanning, Ronan (October 2009). "De Valera, Éamon ('Dev')". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Royal Irish Academy. from the original on 21 October 2021. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  21. ^ . UCC – Multitext Project in Irish History. Archived from the original on 25 December 2008. Retrieved 6 December 2008.
  22. ^ Jordan 2010, p. 23.
  23. ^ James H. Driscoll (1907). "The Defect of Birth". The Catholic Encyclopedia. from the original on 12 October 2008. Retrieved 2 November 2008.
  24. ^ Dwane, David T. (1922). Early Life of Eamonn De Valera. Dublin: The Talbott Press Limited. p. 43.
  25. ^ a b c d e Gunther, John (1940). Inside Europe. Harper & Brothers. p. 371.
  26. ^ a b c Barton, Brian. From Behind a Closed Door, Secret Court Martial Records of 1916, The History Press
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Sources

  • Bew, Paul (2007). Ireland: the politics of enmity, 1789–2006. Oxford.

Further reading

  • Bowman, John (1982). De Valera and the Ulster Question 1917–73. Oxford.
  • Carroll, J. T. (1975). Ireland in the War Years 1939–1945. ISBN 9780844805658.
  • Coogan, Tim Pat (1993). De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 9780091750305. published as Eamon de Valera: The Man Who Was Ireland (New York, 1993)
  • Dunphy, Richard (1995). The Making of Fianna Fáil Power in Ireland, 1923–1948. Irish Historical Studies. p. 346. doi:10.1017/S0021121400013092. S2CID 164091939.
  • Dwyer, T. Ryle (2006). Big Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins and De Valera. ISBN 0717140849. excerpt and text search
  • Dwyer, T. Ryle (1982). De Valera's Finest Hour 1932–59.
  • Fanning, Ronan. Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power (2016)
  • Longford, The Earl of; O'Neill, Thomas P. (1970). Eamon de Valera. Gill and MacMillan, Dublin. ISBN 0-7171-0485-0.
  • Jordan, Anthony J. (2010). Eamon de Valera 1882–1975. Irish: Catholic; Visionary. ISBN 978-0-9524447-9-4.
  • Kissane, Bill (2007). "Eamon De Valera and the Survival of Democracy in Inter-War Ireland". Journal of Contemporary History. 42 (2): 213–226. doi:10.1177/0022009407075554. S2CID 159760801.
  • Lee, Joseph; O'Tuathaigh, Gearoid (1982). The Age of de Valera.
  • Lee, J. J. (1989). Ireland, 1912–1985: Politics and Society. Cambridge.
  • McCartan, Patrick (1932). With de Valera in America. New York.
  • McCullagh, David (2017). De Valera Volume 1: Rise (1882–1932).
  • McCullagh, David (2018). De Valera Volume 2: Rule (1932–1975).
  • McGarry, Fearghal, ed. (2003). Republicanism in Modern Ireland. Dublin.
  • Murphy, J. A., ed. (1983). De Valera and His Times.
  • O'Carroll, J. P.; Murphy, John A (eds.) (1993). De Valera and His Times. ISBN 0902561448. – excerpt and text search

Historiography

  • Chapple, Phil (2005). "'Dev': The Career of Eamon De Valera Phil Chapple Examines a Titanic and Controversial Figure in Modern Irish History". History Review (53): 28.
  • Ferriter, Diarmaid (2007). Judging Dev: A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon De Valera. Dublin. ISBN 978-1-904890-28-7.
  • Girvin, Brian. "Beyond Revisionism? Some Recent Contributions to the Study of Modern Ireland." English Historical Review (2009) 124#506 :94–107· DOI: 10.1093/ehr/cen341
  • Hogan, Gerard. "De Valera, the Constitution and the Historians." Irish Jurist 40 (2005).
  • McCarthy, Mark. Ireland's 1916 Rising: Explorations of History-making, Commemoration & Heritage in Modern Times (Routledge, 2016).
  • Murray, Patrick. "Obsessive historian: Eamon de Valera and the policing of his reputation." Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C (2001): 37–65.
  • Regan, John M (2010). "Irish public histories as an historiographical problem". Irish Historical Studies. 37 (146): 265–292. doi:10.1017/s002112140000225x. S2CID 159868830.
  • Regan, John M (2007). "Michael Collins, General Commanding-in-Chief, as a Historiographical Problem". History. 92 (307): 318–346. doi:10.1111/j.1468-229x.2007.00398.x.

External links

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Éamon de Valera.
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Éamon de Valera.
 
Wikisource has the text of a 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article about "Éamon de Valera".
  • 1911 Census return of Edward (sic) de Valera and household from the National Archives of Ireland
  • Eamon de Valera's "India and Ireland" in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
  • Biography at Áras an Uachtaráin website
  • Press Photographs of Eamon de Valera, taken from the Papers of Eamon de Valera held in UCD Archives. A UCD Digital Library Collection.
  • De Valera Funeral – 1975, Movietone, 2 September 1975
  • Newspaper clippings about Éamon de Valera in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Sinn Féin MP for Clare East
1917–1922 		Constituency abolished
Preceded by Sinn Féin MP for Mayo East
1918–1922 		Constituency abolished
Parliament of Northern Ireland
New constituency MP for Down
1921–1929
With: J. M. Andrews
James Craig
Thomas Lavery
Robert McBride
Thomas McMullan
Harry Mulholland
Patrick O'Neill 		Constituency abolished
Preceded by Fianna Fáil MP for South Down
1933–1938 		Succeeded by
Oireachtas
New constituency Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Clare East
1918–1921 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Mayo East
1918–1921 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Clare
1921–1926 		Succeeded by
De Valera left Sinn Féin and founded Fianna Fáil
Preceded by
De Valera was previously a member of Sinn Féin
 Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Clare
1926–1959 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by President of Dáil Éireann
1919–1921 		Succeeded by
Himself
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Preceded by
Himself
as President of Dáil Éireann 		President of the Irish Republic
1921–1922 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Leader of the Opposition
1927–1932 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
José Matos Pacheco
 President of the League of Nations Council
1932 		Succeeded by
Pompeo Aloisi
Preceded by President of the Executive Council
1932–1937 		Succeeded by
Himself
as Taoiseach
New office Taoiseach
1937–1948 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister for External Affairs
1932–1948 		Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the League of Nations Assembly
1938 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Leader of the Opposition
1948–1951 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Taoiseach
1951–1954 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Leader of the Opposition
1954–1957 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Taoiseach
1957–1959 		Succeeded by
Preceded by President of Ireland
1959–1973 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by President of Sinn Féin
1917–1926 		Succeeded by
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Academic offices
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Titles in pretence
Loss of title
His own resignation on 7 January 1922
 — TITULAR —
President of the Irish Republic
1922–1926 		Succeeded by

February 04, 2023
Éamon, valera, valera, redirects, here, other, people, with, surname, valera, surname, ɛər, ɪər, irish, ˈeːmˠən, dʲɛ, ˈwalʲəɾʲə, first, registered, george, valero, changed, some, time, before, 1901, edward, valera, october, 1882, august, 1975, prominent, irish. De Valera redirects here For other people with the surname see De Valera surname Eamon de Valera a b ˈ eɪ m en ˌ d ɛ v e ˈ l ɛer e ˈ l ɪer Irish ˈeːmˠen ˠ dʲɛ ˈwalʲeɾʲe first registered as George de Valero changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera 2 14 October 1882 29 August 1975 was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader He served several terms as head of government and head of state and had a leading role in introducing the 1937 Constitution of Ireland 3 4 Eamon de Valerade Valera photographed c 1922 19303rd President of IrelandIn office 25 June 1959 24 June 1973TaoiseachSean Lemass Jack Lynch Liam CosgravePreceded bySean T O KellySucceeded byErskine H Childers2nd TaoiseachIn office 20 March 1957 23 June 1959PresidentSean T O KellyTanaisteSean LemassPreceded byJohn A CostelloSucceeded bySean LemassIn office 13 June 1951 2 June 1954PresidentSean T O KellyTanaisteSean LemassPreceded byJohn A CostelloSucceeded byJohn A CostelloIn office 29 December 1937 18 February 1948PresidentDouglas Hyde Sean T O KellyTanaisteSean T O Kelly Sean LemassPreceded byHimself as president of the Executive CouncilSucceeded byJohn A CostelloPresident of the Executive CouncilIn office 9 March 1932 29 December 1937Vice PresidentSean T O KellyPreceded byW T CosgraveSucceeded byHimself as TaoiseachLeader of the OppositionIn office 2 June 1954 20 March 1957PresidentSean T O KellyTaoiseachJohn A CostelloPreceded byJohn A CostelloSucceeded byJohn A CostelloIn office 18 February 1948 13 June 1951PresidentSean T O KellyTaoiseachJohn A CostelloPreceded byRichard MulcahySucceeded byJohn A CostelloIn office 11 August 1927 9 March 1932PresidentW T CosgravePreceded byThomas JohnsonSucceeded byW T CosgraveLeader of Fianna FailIn office 23 March 1926 23 June 1959Preceded byOffice establishedSucceeded bySean LemassPresident of the Irish RepublicIn office 26 August 1921 9 January 1922Preceded byOffice establishedSucceeded byArthur GriffithPresident of Dail EireannIn office 1 April 1919 26 August 1921Preceded byCathal BrughaSucceeded byOffice abolishedParliamentary officesTeachta DalaIn office August 1922 June 1959ConstituencyClareIn office December 1918 June 1922ConstituencyClare EastMember of the Northern Ireland Parliament for South DownIn office 30 November 1933 9 February 1938Preceded byJohn Henry CollinsSucceeded byJames BrownMember of the Northern Ireland Parliamentfor DownIn office 24 May 1921 22 May 1929Preceded byConstituency establishedSucceeded byConstituency abolishedMember of Parliamentfor East ClareIn office 10 July 1917 15 November 1922Preceded byWillie RedmondSucceeded byConstituency abolishedPersonal detailsBornGeorge de Valero 1882 10 14 14 October 1882New York City USDied29 August 1975 1975 08 29 aged 92 Blackrock Dublin IrelandResting placeGlasnevin Cemetery DublinNationalityIrish American 1 Political partyFianna FailOther politicalaffiliationsCumann na Poblachta 1922 1923 Sinn Fein 1916 1922 Anti Treaty Sinn Fein 1923 1926 SpouseSinead de Valera m 1910 died 1975 wbr Children7 including Vivion Mairin Eamon and RuaidhriParentsJuan Vivion de Valera father Catherine Coll mother RelativesEamon o Cuiv grandson Sile de Valera granddaughter EducationC B S Charleville Blackrock CollegeAlma materRoyal University of Ireland Trinity College DublinProfessionTeacher politicianSignaturePrior to de Valera s political career he was a commandant of Irish Volunteers at Boland s Mill during the 1916 Easter Rising He was arrested and sentenced to death but released for a variety of reasons including the public response to the British execution of Rising leaders He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence After the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty de Valera served as the political leader of Anti Treaty Sinn Fein until 1926 when he along with many supporters left the party to set up Fianna Fail a new political party which abandoned the policy of abstentionism from Dail Eireann From there de Valera went on to be at the forefront of Irish politics until the turn of the 1960s He took over as president of the Executive Council from W T Cosgrave and later became Taoiseach with the adoption of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937 He served as Taoiseach on three different occasions from 1937 to 1948 from 1951 to 1954 and finally from 1957 to 1959 He remains the longest serving Taoiseach by total days served in the post He resigned in 1959 upon his election as president of Ireland By then he had been Leader of Fianna Fail for 33 years and he along with older founding members began to take a less prominent role relative to newer ministers such as Jack Lynch Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney De Valera served as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973 two full terms in office De Valera s political beliefs evolved from militant Irish republicanism to strong social cultural and fiscal conservatism 5 He has been characterised as having a stern and unbending and also devious demeanour His roles in the Civil War have also been interpreted as making him a divisive figure in Irish history Biographer Tim Pat Coogan sees his time in power as being characterised by economic and cultural stagnation while Diarmaid Ferriter argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere cold and even backward figure was largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided 5 Contents 1 Early life 1 1 Early political activity 2 Revolutionary years 2 1 1916 Easter Rising 2 2 President of Dail Eireann 2 3 President of the Republic 2 4 Anglo Irish Treaty 2 5 Civil War 3 Founding of Fianna Fail 4 President of the Executive Council 5 Taoiseach 1937 1948 5 1 Anglo Irish Trade Agreement 5 2 Constitution of Ireland 5 3 The Emergency World War II 6 Post war period Taoiseach Opposition leader 6 1 Opposition leader 1948 1951 6 2 Final years as Taoiseach 7 Presidency 8 Death 9 Legacy 9 1 Catholic social policy 10 In popular culture 11 Governments 12 See also 13 Notes 14 References 15 Sources 16 Further reading 16 1 Historiography 17 External linksEarly life EditEamon de Valera was born on 14 October 1882 in New York City the son of Catherine Coll who was originally from Bruree County Limerick 6 and Juan Vivion de Valera described on the birth certificate as a Spanish artist born in 1853 Some researchers have placed his father s place of birth in Cuba 7 while others have suggested other locations according to Antonio Rivero Taravillo he was born in Seville 8 while Ronan Fanning has him born in the Basque Country 9 He was born at the Nursery and Child s Hospital 10 Lexington Avenue a home for destitute orphans and abandoned children 11 His parents were reportedly married on 18 September 1881 at St Patrick s Church in Jersey City New Jersey but archivists have not located any marriage certificate or any birth baptismal or death certificate information for anyone called Juan Vivion de Valera nor for de Valeros an alternative spelling On de Valera s original birth certificate his name is given as George de Valero and his father is listed as Vivion de Valero Although he was known as Edward de Valera before 1901 a fresh birth certificate was issued in 1910 in which his first name was officially changed to Edward and his father s surname given as de Valera 12 13 As a child he was known as Eddie or Eddy 14 According to Coll Juan Vivion died in 1885 leaving Coll and her child in poor circumstances 15 Eamon was taken to Ireland by his uncle Ned at the age of two When his mother remarried in the mid 1880s he was not brought back to live with her but was reared by his grandmother Elizabeth Coll her son Patrick and her daughter Hannie in Bruree County Limerick He was educated locally at Bruree National School County Limerick and C B S Charleville County Cork Aged sixteen he won a scholarship He was not successful in enrolling at two colleges in Limerick but was accepted at Blackrock College Dublin at the instigation of his local curate 16 19 20 He played rugby at Blackrock and Rockwell College then for Munster around 1905 He remained a lifelong devotee of rugby attending international matches even towards the end of his life when he was nearly blind 17 At the end of his first year at Blackrock College he was student of the year He also won further scholarships and exhibitions and in 1903 was appointed teacher of mathematics at Rockwell College County Tipperary 18 It was here that de Valera was first given the nickname Dev by a teaching colleague Tom O Donnell 19 73 In 1904 he graduated in mathematics from the Royal University of Ireland He then studied for a year at Trinity College Dublin but owing to the necessity of earning a living did not proceed further and returned to teaching this time at Belvedere College 19 87 90 In 1906 he secured a post as a teacher of mathematics at Carysfort Teachers Training College for women in Blackrock Dublin His applications for professorships in colleges of the National University of Ireland were unsuccessful but he obtained a part time appointment at St Patrick s College Maynooth 20 and also taught mathematics at various Dublin schools including Castleknock College 1910 1911 under the name Edward de Valera and Belvedere College 21 There were occasions when de Valera seriously contemplated the religious life like his half brother Fr Thomas Wheelwright but ultimately he did not pursue this vocation As late as 1906 when he was 24 years old he approached the President of Clonliffe Seminary in Dublin for advice on his vocation 22 De Valera was throughout his life portrayed as a deeply religious man and in death asked to be buried in a religious habit His biographer Tim Pat Coogan speculated that questions surrounding de Valera s legitimacy may have been a deciding factor in his not entering religious life Being illegitimate would have been a bar to receiving priestly orders but not to becoming a lay member of a religious order 23 As a young Gaeilgeoir Irish speaker de Valera became an activist for the Irish language In 1908 he joined the Ardchraobh of Conradh na Gaeilge the Gaelic League where he met Sinead Flanagan a teacher by profession and four years his senior They were married on 8 January 1910 at St Paul s Church Arran Quay Dublin The couple had five sons Vivion 1910 1982 Eamon 1913 1986 Brian 1915 1936 Ruaidhri 1916 1978 and Terence Terry 1922 2007 and two daughters Mairin 1912 1984 and Emer 1918 2012 Brian de Valera predeceased his parents Early political activity Edit De Valera in March 1918 While he was already involved in the Gaelic revival de Valera s involvement in the political revolution began on 25 November 1913 when he joined the Irish Volunteers The organisation was formed to oppose the Ulster Volunteers and ensure the enactment of the Irish Parliamentary Party s Third Home Rule Act won by its leader John Redmond After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 de Valera rose through the ranks and it was not long before he was elected captain of the Donnybrook branch Preparations were pushed ahead for an armed revolt and he was made commandant of the Third Battalion and adjutant of the Dublin Brigade He took part in the Howth gun running 24 He was sworn by Thomas MacDonagh into the oath bound Irish Republican Brotherhood which secretly controlled the central executive of the Volunteers He opposed secret societies but this was the only way he could be guaranteed full information on plans for the Rising 16 32 Revolutionary years Edit1916 Easter Rising Edit De Valera addressing a crowd on the steps of Ennis Courthouse County Clare in July 1917 On 24 April 1916 the Easter Rising began Forces commanded by de Valera occupied Boland s Mill 25 on Grand Canal Street in Dublin His chief task was to cover the southeastern approaches to the city After a week of fighting the order came from Padraig Pearse to surrender De Valera was court martialled convicted and sentenced to death but the sentence was immediately commuted to penal servitude for life De Valera was among the few republican leaders the British did not execute 25 It has been argued that his life was saved by four facts First he was one of the last to surrender and he was held in a different prison from other leaders thus his execution was delayed by practicalities Second the US Consulate in Dublin made representations before his trial i e was he actually a United States citizen and if so how would the United States react to the execution of one of its citizens while the full legal situation was clarified The UK was trying to bring the US into the war in Europe at the time and the Irish American vote was important in US politics 25 Third when Lt Gen Sir John Maxwell reviewed his case he said Who is he I haven t heard of him before I wonder would he be likely to make trouble in the future On being told that de Valera was unimportant he commuted the court martial s death sentence to life imprisonment 26 93 De Valera had no Fenian family or personal background and his MI5 file in 1916 was very slim detailing only his open membership in the Irish Volunteers 26 92 Fourth by the time de Valera was court martialled on 8 May political pressure was being brought to bear on Maxwell to halt the executions Maxwell had already told British Prime Minister H H Asquith that only two more were to be executed Sean Mac Diarmada and James Connolly although they were court martialled the day after de Valera His late trial representations made by the American Consulate his lack of Fenian background and political pressure all combined to save his life though had he been tried a week earlier he would probably have been shot 26 91 94 The Kilmainham Gaol cell of Eamon de Valera De Valera s supporters and detractors argue about his bravery during the Easter Rising His supporters claim he showed leadership skills and a capacity for meticulous planning His detractors claim he suffered a nervous breakdown during the Rising According to accounts from 1916 de Valera was seen running about giving conflicting orders refusing to sleep and on one occasion having forgotten the password almost getting himself shot in the dark by his own men According to one account de Valera on being forced to sleep by one subordinate who promised to sit beside him and wake him if he was needed suddenly woke up his eyes wild screaming Set fire to the railway Set fire to the railway Later in the Ballykinlar internment Camp one de Valera loyalist approached another internee a medical doctor recounted the story and asked for a medical opinion as to de Valera s condition He also threatened to sue the doctor future Fine Gael TD and Minister Dr Tom O Higgins if he ever repeated the story 27 The British reportedly however considered de Valera s forces the best trained and best led among the rebels 25 De Valera s latest biographer Anthony J Jordan writes of this controversy Whatever happened in Boland s Mills or any other garrison does not negate or undermine in any way the extraordinary heroism of Dev and his comrades 16 37 After imprisonment in Dartmoor Maidstone and Lewes prisons de Valera and his comrades were released under an amnesty in June 1917 On 10 July 1917 he was elected as the Member of Parliament MP for East Clare the constituency which he represented until 1959 in a by election caused by the death of the previous incumbent Willie Redmond brother of the Irish Party leader John Redmond who had died fighting in World War I In the 1918 general election he was elected both for that seat and Mayo East 28 But because most other Irish rebellion leaders were dead in 1917 he was elected President of Sinn Fein 25 the party which had been blamed incorrectly for provoking the Easter Rising citation needed This party became the political vehicle through which the survivors of the Easter Rising channelled their republican ethos and objectives 29 The previous President of Sinn Fein Arthur Griffith had championed an Anglo Irish dual monarchy based on the Austro Hungarian model with independent legislatures for both Ireland and Britain President of Dail Eireann Edit De Valera in academic dress to receive an honorary degree from College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts in 1920 Sinn Fein won a huge majority in the 1918 general election largely thanks to the British executions of the 1916 leaders the threat of conscription with the Conscription Crisis of 1918 and the first past the post ballot They won 73 out of 105 Irish seats with about 47 of votes cast 25 seats were uncontested On 21 January 1919 27 Sinn Fein MPs the rest were imprisoned or impaired calling themselves Teachtai Dala TDs assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin and formed an Irish parliament known as Dail Eireann translatable into English as the Assembly of Ireland The Ministry of Dail Eireann was formed under the leadership of the Priomh Aire also called President of Dail Eireann Cathal Brugha De Valera had been re arrested in May 1918 and imprisoned and so could not attend the January session of the Dail He escaped from Lincoln Gaol England in February 1919 As a result he replaced Brugha as Priomh Aire in the April session of Dail Eireann citation needed In the hope of securing international recognition Sean T O Kelly was sent as envoy to Paris to present the Irish case to the Peace Conference convened by the great powers at the end of World War I When it became clear by May 1919 that this mission could not succeed de Valera decided to visit the United States The mission had three objectives to ask for official recognition of the Irish Republic to float a loan to finance the work of the Government and by extension the Irish Republican Army and to secure the support of the American people for the republic His visit lasted from June 1919 to December 1920 and had mixed success including a visit to Fenway Park in Boston in front of 50 000 supporters 30 One negative outcome was the splitting of the Irish American organisations into pro and anti de Valera factions 16 63 70 He met the young Harvard educated leader from Puerto Rico Pedro Albizu Campos and forged a lasting and useful alliance with him 31 It was during this American tour that he recruited his long serving personal secretary Kathleen O Connell an Irish emigrant who would return to Ireland with him 32 In October 1919 he visited the University of Notre Dame campus in Indiana where he planted a tree and also laid a wreath by the statue of William Corby He toured the university archives and spoke in Washington Hall about the cause of Ireland in front of twelve hundred students 33 34 De Valera managed to raise 5 500 000 from American supporters an amount that far exceeded the hopes of the Dail 35 Of this 500 000 was devoted to the American presidential campaign in 1920 helping him gain wider public support there 36 In 1921 it was said that 1 466 000 had already been spent and it is unclear when the net balance arrived in Ireland 37 Recognition was not forthcoming in the international sphere He also had difficulties with various Irish American leaders such as John Devoy and Judge Daniel F Cohalan who resented the dominant position he established preferring to retain their control over Irish affairs in the United States While American recognition for the Republic had been his priority in February 1921 De Valera redirected Patrick McCartan from Washington to Moscow McCartan was told by Maxim Litvinov that the opportunity of recognition and assistance had passed The Soviet priority was a trade agreement with Britain signed in March In June the British government with a view to both domestic and American opinion published the proposed treaty between the Dail government and the Soviets and related correspondence 38 Meanwhile in Ireland the conflict between the British authorities and the Dail which the British declared illegal in September 1919 escalated into the Irish War of Independence De Valera left day to day government during his eighteen month absence in the United States to Michael Collins his 29 year old Minister for Finance De Valera and Collins would later become opponents during the Irish Civil War 39 President of the Republic Edit De Valera c 1918 1921 In January 1921 in his first appearance in the Dail after his return to a country gripped by the War of Independence de Valera introduced a motion calling on the IRA to desist from ambushes and other tactics that were allowing the British to successfully portray it as a terrorist group 40 and to take on the British forces with conventional military methods This they strongly opposed and de Valera relented issuing a statement expressing support for the IRA and claimed it was fully under the control of the Dail He then along with Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack brought pressure to bear on Michael Collins to undertake a journey to the United States himself on the pretext that only he could take up where de Valera had left off Collins successfully resisted this move and stayed in Ireland In the elections of May 1921 all candidates in Southern Ireland were returned unopposed and Sinn Fein secured some seats in Northern Ireland Following the Truce of July 1921 that ended the war de Valera went to see Prime Minister David Lloyd George in London on 14 July No agreement was reached and by then the Parliament of Northern Ireland had already met It became clear that neither a republic nor independence for all 32 counties was going to be offered Lloyd George told de Valera he could put a soldier in Ireland for every man woman and child in it if the IRA did not immediately agree to stop fighting 41 In August 1921 de Valera secured Dail Eireann approval to change the 1919 Dail Constitution to upgrade his office from prime minister or chairman of the cabinet to a full President of the Republic Declaring himself now the Irish equivalent of King George V he argued that as Irish head of state in the absence of the British head of state from the negotiations he too should not attend the peace conference called the Treaty Negotiations October December 1921 at which British and Irish government leaders agreed to the effective independence of twenty six of Ireland s thirty two counties as the Irish Free State with Northern Ireland choosing to remain under British sovereignty It is generally agreed by historians that whatever his motives it was a mistake for de Valera not to have travelled to London 16 91 Having effected these changes a boundary commission came into place to redraw the Irish border Nationalists expected its report to recommend that largely nationalist areas become part of the Free State and many hoped this would make Northern Ireland so small it would not be economically viable A Council of Ireland was also provided in the Treaty as a model for an eventual all Irish parliament Hence neither the pro nor anti Treaty sides made many complaints about partition in the Treaty Debates Anglo Irish Treaty Edit The Republic s delegates to the Treaty Negotiations were accredited by de Valera and his cabinet as plenipotentiaries that is negotiators with the legal authority to sign a treaty without reference back to the cabinet but were given secret cabinet instructions by de Valera that required them to return to Dublin before signing the Treaty 42 The Treaty proved controversial in Ireland insofar as it replaced the Republic by a dominion of the British Commonwealth with the King represented by a Governor General of the Irish Free State The Irish delegates Arthur Griffith Robert Barton and Michael Collins supported by Erskine Childers as Secretary General set up their delegation headquarters at 22 Hans Place in Knightsbridge It was there at 11 15 am on 5 December 1921 that the decision was made to recommend the Treaty to Dail Eireann The Treaty was finally signed by the delegates after further negotiations which closed at 02 20 on 6 December 1921 citation needed De Valera baulked at the agreement His opponents claimed that he had refused to join the negotiations because he knew what the outcome would be and did not wish to receive the blame De Valera claimed that he had not gone to the treaty negotiations because he would be better able to control the extremists at home and that his absence would allow leverage for the plenipotentiaries to refer back to him and not be pressured into any agreements Because of the secret instructions given to the plenipotentiaries he reacted to news of the signing of the Treaty not with anger at its contents which he refused even to read when offered a newspaper report of its contents but with anger over the fact that they had not consulted him their president before signing His ideal drafts presented to a secret session of the Dail during the Treaty Debates and publicised in January 1922 were ingenious compromises original research but they included dominion status the Treaty Ports the fact of partition subject to veto by the parliament in Belfast and some continuing status for the King as head of the Commonwealth Ireland s share of the imperial debt was to be paid 43 failed verification After the Treaty was narrowly ratified by 64 to 57 de Valera and a large minority of Sinn Fein TDs left Dail Eireann He then resigned and Arthur Griffith was elected President of Dail Eireann in his place though respectfully still calling him The President On a speaking tour of the more republican province of Munster starting on 17 March 1922 de Valera made controversial speeches at Carrick on Suir Lismore Dungarvan and Waterford saying that If the Treaty were accepted by the electorate the fight for freedom would still go on and the Irish people instead of fighting foreign soldiers will have to fight the Irish soldiers of an Irish government set up by Irishmen At Thurles several days later he repeated this imagery and added that the IRA would have to wade through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government and perhaps through that of some members of the Irish Government to get their freedom In a letter to the Irish Independent on 23 March de Valera accepted the accuracy of their report of his comment about wading through blood but deplored that the newspaper had published it 44 De Valera objected to the oath of allegiance to the King that the treaty required Irish parliamentarians to take He also was concerned that Ireland could not have an independent foreign policy as part of the British Commonwealth when the British retained several naval ports see Treaty Ports around Ireland s coast As a compromise de Valera proposed external association with the British Empire which would leave Ireland s foreign policy in her own hands and a republican constitution with no mention of the British monarch he proposed this as early as April well before the negotiations began under the title Document No 2 Michael Collins was prepared to accept this formula and the two wings pro and anti Treaty of Sinn Fein formed a pact to fight the 1922 Irish general election together and form a coalition government afterwards Collins later called off the pact on the eve of the election De Valera s opponents won the election and civil war broke out shortly afterwards in late June 1922 45 Civil War Edit Main article Irish Civil War Relations between the new Irish government which was backed by most of the Dail and the electorate and the anti treatyites under the nominal leadership of de Valera now descended into the Irish Civil War June 1922 to May 1923 in which the pro treaty Free State forces defeated the anti treaty IRA Both sides had wanted to avoid civil war but fighting broke out over the takeover of the Four Courts in Dublin by anti treaty members of the IRA These men were not loyal to de Valera and initially were not even supported by the executive of the anti treaty IRA However Michael Collins was forced to act against them when Winston Churchill threatened to re occupy the country with British troops unless action was taken When fighting broke out in Dublin between the Four Courts garrison and the new Free State Army republicans backed the IRA men in the Four Courts and civil war broke out De Valera though he held no military position backed the anti treaty IRA or irregulars and said that he was re enlisting in the IRA as an ordinary volunteer On 8 September 1922 he met in secret with Richard Mulcahy in Dublin to try to halt the fighting However according to de Valera they could not find a basis for agreement 46 Though nominally head of the anti treatyites de Valera had little influence He does not seem to have been involved in any fighting and had little or no influence with the revolutionary military leadership headed by IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch De Valera and the anti treaty TDs formed a republican government on 25 October 1922 from anti treaty TDs to be temporarily the Supreme Executive of the Republic and the State until such time as the elected Parliament of the Republic can freely assemble or the people being rid of external aggression are at liberty to decide freely how they are to be governed However it had no real authority and was a pale shadow of the Dail government of 1919 21 citation needed In March 1923 de Valera attended the meeting of the IRA Army Executive to decide on the future of the war He was known to be in favour of a truce but he had no voting rights and it was narrowly decided to continue hostilities 16 131 The leader of the Free State W T Cosgrave insisted that there could be no acceptance of a surrender without disarming 47 On 30 April 1923 the IRA s new Chief of Staff Frank Aiken Lynch had been killed called a ceasefire This was followed on 24 May by an order for volunteers to dump arms De Valera who had wanted an end to the internecine fighting for some time backed the ceasefire order with a message in which he called the anti treaty fighters the Legion of the Rearguard saying that The Republic can no longer be successfully defended by your arms Further sacrifice on your part would now be in vain and the continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest and prejudicial to the future of our cause Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the republic Other means must be sought to safeguard the nation s right 48 After this point many of the republicans were arrested in Free State round ups when they had come out of hiding and returned home De Valera remained in hiding for several months after the ceasefire was declared however he emerged in August to stand for election in County Clare Making a campaign appearance in Ennis on 15 August de Valera was arrested on the platform and interned at Kilmainham jail He was moved to Arbour Hill barracks briefly prior to his release on 16 July 1924 49 50 Founding of Fianna Fail EditAfter the IRA dumped their arms rather than surrender them or continue a now fruitless war de Valera returned to political methods In 1924 he was arrested in Newry for illegally entering Northern Ireland and held in solitary confinement for a month in Crumlin Road Gaol Belfast citation needed During this time de Valera came to believe that abstentionism was not a workable tactic in the long term He now believed that a better course would be to try to gain power and turn the Free State from a constitutional monarchy into a republic He tried to convince Sinn Fein to accept this new line However a vote to accept the Free State Constitution contingent on the abolition of the Oath of Allegiance narrowly failed Soon afterwards de Valera resigned from Sinn Fein and seriously considered leaving politics citation needed However one of his colleagues Sean Lemass convinced de Valera to found a new republican party 51 In March 1926 with Lemass Constance Markievicz and others de Valera formed a new party Fianna Fail The Warriors of Destiny a party that was to dominate 20th century Irish politics 52 While Sinn Fein still held to an abstentionist line Fianna Fail was dedicated to republicanising the Free State from within if it gained power Having attracted most of Sinn Fein s branches due to Lemass organisational skill 51 the new party made swift electoral gains in the general election on 9 June 1927 In the process it took much of Sinn Fein s previous support winning 44 seats to Sinn Fein s five It refused to take the Oath of Allegiance portrayed by opponents as an Oath of Allegiance to the Crown but actually an Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Free State with a secondary promise of fidelity to the King in his role in the Treaty settlement 53 The oath was largely the work of Collins and based on three sources British oaths in the dominions the oath of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a draft oath prepared by de Valera in his proposed treaty alternative Document No 2 De Valera began a legal case to challenge the requirement that members of his party take the Oath but the assassination of the Vice President of the Executive Council deputy prime minister Kevin O Higgins on 10 July 1927 led the Executive Council under W T Cosgrave to introduce a Bill on 20 July 54 requiring all Dail candidates to promise on oath that if they were elected they would take the Oath of Allegiance Forced into a corner and faced with the option of staying outside politics forever or taking the oath and entering de Valera and his TDs took the Oath of Allegiance on 12 August 1927 though de Valera himself described the Oath as an empty political formula 55 De Valera never organised Fianna Fail in Northern Ireland and it was not until 7 December 2007 that Fianna Fail was registered there by the UK Electoral Commission 56 President of the Executive Council Edit De Valera on the cover of Time magazine in 1932 In the 1932 general election Fianna Fail secured 72 seats and became the largest party in the Dail although without a majority Some Fianna Fail members arrived at the first sitting of the new Dail carrying arms amid fears that Cumann na nGaedheal would not voluntarily surrender power However the transition was peaceful 57 De Valera was elected President of the Executive Council Prime Minister by the Dail by a vote of 81 68 with the support of the Labour Party and Independent politicians and took office on 9 March 58 He at once initiated steps to fulfill his election promises to abolish the oath and withhold land annuities owed to the UK for loans provided under the Irish Land Acts and agreed as part of the 1921 Treaty This launched the Anglo Irish Trade War when the UK in retaliation imposed economic sanctions against Irish exports De Valera responded in kind with levies on British imports The ensuing Economic War lasted until 1938 59 60 After De Valera had urged King George V to dismiss McNeill as Governor General the King suggested an alternative course of action that McNeill instead carry on a while longer as viceroy and only then resign which he did on 1 November 1932 Subsequently a 1916 veteran Domhnall Ua Buachalla was appointed Governor General To strengthen his position against the opposition in the Dail and Seanad de Valera directed the Governor General to call a snap election in January 1933 and de Valera s party won 77 seats giving Fianna Fail an overall majority Under de Valera s leadership Fianna Fail won further general elections in 1937 1938 1943 and 1944 citation needed De Valera took charge of Ireland s foreign policy as well by also acting as Minister for External Affairs In that capacity he attended meetings of the League of Nations He was president of the Council of the League on his first appearance at the league in Geneva Switzerland in 1932 and in a speech that made a worldwide impression appealed for genuine adherence by its members to the principles of the covenant of the league In 1934 he supported the admission of the Soviet Union into the league In September 1938 he was elected nineteenth president of the Assembly of the League 61 a tribute to the international recognition he had won by his independent stance on world questions 62 De Valera s government followed the policy of unilaterally dismantling the treaty of 1921 In this way he would be pursuing republican policies and lessening the popularity of republican violence and the IRA De Valera encouraged IRA members to join the Irish Defence Forces and the Gardai He also refused to dismiss from office those Cumann na nGaedheal Cosgrave supporters who had previously opposed him during the Civil War He did however dismiss Eoin O Duffy from his position as Garda Commissioner after a year Eoin O Duffy was then invited to be head of the Army Comrades Association ACA formed to protect and promote the welfare of its members previously led by J F O Higgins Kevin O Higgins s brother This organisation was an obstacle to de Valera s power as it supported Cumann na nGaedheal and provided stewards for their meetings Cumann na nGaedheal meetings were frequently disrupted by Fianna Fail supporters following the publication of the article No Free Speech for Traitors by Peadar O Donnell an IRA member citation needed The ACA changed its name to the National Guard under O Duffy and adopted the uniform of black berets and blue shirts using the straight armed salute and were nicknamed the Blueshirts They were outwardly fascist and planned a march in August 1933 through Dublin to commemorate Michael Collins Kevin O Higgins and Arthur Griffith This march struck parallels with Mussolini s march on Rome 1922 in which he had created the image of having toppled the democratic government in Rome De Valera revived a military tribunal which had been set up by the previous administration to deal with the matter O Duffy backed down when the National Guard was declared an illegal organisation and the march was banned Within a few weeks O Duffy s followers merged with Cumann na nGaedhael and the Centre Party to form United Ireland or Fine Gael and O Duffy became its leader Smaller local marches were scheduled for the following weeks under different names Internal dissension set in when the party s TDs distanced themselves from O Duffy s extreme views and his movement fell asunder 63 Taoiseach 1937 1948 EditFianna Fail having won the 1937 election held the same day as the plebiscite that ratified the constitution de Valera continued as President of the Executive Council until 29 December 1937 when the new constitution was enacted On that date de Valera s post automatically became that of Taoiseach which was a considerably more powerful office Notably he could advise the President to dismiss Ministers individually advice that the President was bound to follow by convention The old Executive Council had to be dissolved and reformed en bloc if its President wanted to remove a Minister Additionally he could request a parliamentary dissolution on his own authority Previously the right to seek a dissolution was vested with the Council as a whole citation needed In social policy de Valera s first period as Taoiseach saw the introduction in 1947 of means tested allowances for people suffering from infectious diseases 64 Anglo Irish Trade Agreement Edit With the new constitution in place de Valera determined that the changed circumstances made swift resolution to Ireland s ongoing trade war with the UK more desirable for both sides as did the growing probability of the outbreak of war across Europe In April 1938 de Valera and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Anglo Irish Trade Agreement lifting all duties imposed during the previous five years and ending British use of the Treaty Ports it had retained in accordance with the Anglo Irish Treaty The return of the ports was of particular significance since it ensured Irish neutrality during the coming Second World War citation needed Constitution of Ireland Edit During the 1930s de Valera systematically stripped the Irish Free State constitution a constitution originally drafted by a committee under the nominal chairmanship of his rival Collins of features tying Ireland to the United Kingdom limiting its independence and the republican character of its state De Valera was able to carry out this program of constitutional change by taking advantage of three earlier modifications of constitutional arrangements First though the 1922 constitution originally required a public plebiscite for any amendment enacted more than eight years after its passage the Free State government under W T Cosgrave had amended that period to sixteen years This meant that until 1938 the Free State constitution could be amended by the simple passage of a Constitutional Amendment Act through the Oireachtas Secondly while the Governor General of the Irish Free State could reserve or deny Royal Assent to any legislation from 1927 the power to advise the Governor General to do so no longer rested with the British government in London but with His Majesty s Government in the Irish Free State which meant that in practice the Royal Assent was automatically granted to legislation the government was hardly likely to advise the governor general to block the enactment of one of its own bills Thirdly though in its original theory the constitution had to be in keeping with the provisions of the Anglo Irish Treaty as the fundamental law of the state that requirement had been abrogated a short time before de Valera gained power citation needed The Oath of Allegiance was abolished as were appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council The opposition controlled Senate when it protested and slowed down these measures was also abolished In 1931 the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster which established the legislative equal status of the self governing Dominions of the then British Commonwealth including the Irish Free State to one another and the United Kingdom Though a few constitutional links between the Dominions and the United Kingdom remained this is often seen as the moment at which the Dominions became fully sovereign states citation needed De Valera in his capacity as Prime Minister of His Majesty s Government in the Irish Free State wrote in July 1936 to King Edward VIII in London indicating that he planned to introduce a new constitution the central part of which was to be the creation of an office de Valera provisionally intended to call President of Saorstat Eireann Irish Uachtaran Shaorstat Eireann which would replace the Governor General 65 De Valera used the sudden abdication of Edward VIII as King to pass two bills one amended the constitution to remove all mention of the monarch and Governor General while the second brought the monarch back this time through statute law for use in representing the Irish Free State at a diplomatic level With the implementation of the Constitution of Ireland Irish Bunreacht na hEireann the title ultimately given to the president was President of Ireland Irish Uachtaran na hEireann The constitution contained reforms and symbols intended to assert Irish sovereignty These included a new name for the state Eire in Irish and Ireland in English a claim that the national territory was the entire island of Ireland thereby challenging Britain s partition settlement of 1921 the removal of references to the King of Ireland 66 67 and the replacement of the monarch s representative the governor general with a popularly elected President of Ireland who takes precedence over all other persons in the State and who shall exercise and perform the powers and functions conferred on the President by this Constitution and by law 68 69 recognition of the special position of the Catholic Church a recognition of the Catholic concept of marriage which excluded civil divorce even though civil marriage was retained the declaration that the Irish language was the national language and the first official language of the nation although English was also included as a second official language the use of Irish language terms to stress Irish cultural and historical identity e g Uachtaran Taoiseach Tanaiste etc Criticisms of some of the above constitutional reforms include that the anti partition articles needlessly antagonised Unionists in Northern Ireland while simultaneously attracting criticism from hardline republicans by recognising the de facto situation similarly the recognition of the special position of the Catholic Church was inconsistent with the identity and aspirations of northern Protestants leading to its repeal in the 1970s while simultaneously falling short of the demands of hardline Catholics for Catholicism to be explicitly made the state religion the affirmation of Irish as the national and primary official language neither reflected contemporary realities nor led to the language s revival though the King was removed from the text of the constitution he retained a leading role in the state s foreign affairs and the legal position of the President of Ireland was accordingly uncertain there was also concern that the presidency would evolve into a dictatorial position elements of Catholic social teaching incorporated into the text such as the articles on the role of women the family and divorce were inconsistent both with the practice of the Protestant minority and with contemporary liberal opinionAs Paul Bew concludes in the constitution of 1937 de Valera was trying to placate left wing Republicans with national phrases and pious people with expressly Catholic bits and patriarchal Catholicism 70 The Constitution was approved in a plebiscite on 1 July 1937 and came into force on 29 December 1937 The Emergency World War II Edit Main articles The Emergency Ireland and Irish neutrality during World War II By September 1939 a general European war was imminent On 2 September de Valera advised Dail Eireann that neutrality was the best policy for the country This policy had overwhelming political and popular support though some advocated Irish participation in the war on the Allied side while others believing that England s difficulty is Ireland s opportunity were pro German Strong objections to conscription in the North were voiced by de Valera 71 In June 1940 to encourage the neutral Irish state to join with the Allies Winston Churchill indicated to de Valera that the United Kingdom would push for Irish unity but believing that Churchill could not deliver de Valera declined the offer 72 73 The day after the attacks on Pearl Harbor Churchill wired de Valera Now is your chance Now or never A nation once again I will meet you wherever you wish 74 The British did not inform the Government of Northern Ireland that they had made the offer to the Irish government and De Valera s rejection was not publicised until 1970 The government secured wide powers for the duration of the Emergency such as internment censorship of the press and correspondence and the government control of the economy The Emergency Powers Act lapsed on 2 September 1946 though the State of Emergency declared under the constitution was not lifted until the 1970s 75 76 This status remained throughout the war despite pressure from Chamberlain and Churchill However de Valera did respond to a request from Northern Ireland for fire tenders to assist in fighting fires following the 1941 Belfast Blitz Persistent claims that de Valera sent a personal note of congratulation to Subhas Chandra Bose upon his declaration of the Azad Hind Free India government in 1943 77 have been shown to be inaccurate and largely a misrepresentation by Japanese consular staff in Dublin of a statement by a small and unofficial Republican group unconnected to the Irish government 78 Controversially 79 de Valera formally offered his condolences to the German ambassador in Dublin on the death of Adolf Hitler in 1945 in accordance with diplomatic protocol 80 This did some damage to Ireland particularly in the United States and soon afterwards de Valera had a bitter exchange of words with Churchill in two famous radio addresses after the end of the war in Europe 81 De Valera denounced reports of Bergen Belsen concentration camp as anti national propaganda according to Bew this was not out of disbelief but rather because the Holocaust undermined the main assumption underlying Irish neutrality moral equivalence between the Allies and the Axis 82 The de Valera government was reputedly harsh with Irish Army deserters who had enlisted to fight with the Allied armies against the Axis 83 The legislation in question was the Emergency Powers No 362 order which was passed in August 1945 On 18 October 1945 Thomas F O Higgins moved to annul the order 84 He did not condone desertion but felt that the order was specifically harsh on those deserters who had served in the Allied forces General Richard Mulcahy also spoke against the Order disagreeing with the way in which it applied to enlisted men and not to officers It was revoked with effect from 1 August 1946 85 but was in effect continued by section 13 of the Defence Forces Temporary Provisions Act 1946 86 Post war period Taoiseach Opposition leader EditOpposition leader 1948 1951 Edit After de Valera had spent sixteen years in power without answering the crucial questions of partition and republican status the public demanded a change from Fianna Fail government In the 1948 election de Valera lost the outright majority he had enjoyed since 1933 It initially looked as if the National Labour Party would give Fianna Fail enough support to stay in office as a minority government but National Labour insisted on a formal coalition agreement something de Valera was unwilling to concede However while Fianna Fail was six seats short of a majority it was still by far the largest party in the Dail with 37 more TDs than the next largest party and rival Fine Gael the successor to Cumann na nGaedheal Conventional wisdom held that de Valera would remain Taoiseach with the support of independent deputies This belief came to nought when after the final votes were counted the other parties realised that if they banded together they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fail and would be able to form a government with the support of at least seven independents The result was the First Inter Party Government with John A Costello of Fine Gael as its compromise candidate for Taoiseach Costello was duly nominated consigning de Valera to opposition for the first time in 16 years The following year Costello declared Ireland as a republic leaving partition as the most pressing political issue of the day 87 De Valera now Leader of the Opposition left the actual parliamentary practice of opposing the government to his deputy Sean Lemass and himself embarked on a world campaign to address the issue of partition He visited the United States Australia New Zealand and India and in the latter country was the last guest of the Governor General Lord Mountbatten of Burma before he was succeeded by the first Indian born Governor General 88 In Melbourne Australia de Valera was feted by the powerful Catholic Archbishop Daniel Mannix at the centenary celebrations of the diocese of Melbourne He attended mass meetings at Xavier College and addressed the assembled Melbourne Celtic Club 89 In Brisbane Australia at the request of the influential and long serving Archbishop Duhig de Valera laid the foundation stone for the new High School building at Marist Brothers College Rosalie 90 In October 1950 just thirty years after his dramatic escape from Lincoln Gaol he returned to Lincoln and received the freedom of the gaol 91 The Anti Partition of Ireland League of Great Britain marked the occasion with a dinner in his honour and the toast was Anglo Irish Friendship 92 A key message in de Valera s campaign was that Ireland could not join the recently established North Atlantic Treaty Organization as long as Northern Ireland was in British hands although Costello s government favoured alliance with NATO de Valera s approach won more widespread support and prevented the state from signing the treaty 87 Final years as Taoiseach Edit De Valera right with Mayor of Boston John F Collins and his wife Mary Returning to Ireland during the Mother and Child Scheme crisis that racked the First Inter Party Government de Valera kept silent as Leader of the Opposition preferring to stay aloof from the controversy That stance helped return de Valera to power in the 1951 general election but without an overall majority His and Fianna Fail s popularity was short lived however his government introduced severe deflationary budgetary and economic policies in 1952 causing a political backlash that cost Fianna Fail several seats in the Dail in by elections of 1953 and early 1954 Faced with a likely loss of confidence in the Dail de Valera instead called an election in May 1954 in which Fianna Fail was defeated and a Second Inter Party Government was formed with John A Costello again as Taoiseach 93 On 16 September 1953 de Valera met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for the first and only time at 10 Downing Street The two men had seen each other at a party in 1949 but without speaking He surprised the UK Prime Minister by claiming that if he had been in office in 1948 Ireland would not have left the Commonwealth 94 It was during this period that de Valera s eyesight began to deteriorate and he was forced to spend several months in the Netherlands where he had six operations In 1955 while in opposition de Valera spoke against the formation of a European Parliament and European federalism noting that Ireland did not strive to get out of that British domination to get into a worse position 95 Like the first coalition government the second lasted only three years At the general election of 1957 de Valera then in his seventy fifth year won an absolute majority of nine seats the greatest number he had ever secured This was the beginning of another sixteen year period in office for Fianna Fail A new economic policy emerged with the First Programme for Economic Expansion In July 1957 in response to the Border Campaign IRA Part II of the Offences Against the State Act was re activated and he ordered the internment without trial of Republican suspects an action which did much to end the IRA s campaign 96 De Valera s final term as Taoiseach also saw the passage of numerous reforms in health and welfare In 1952 unemployment insurance was extended to male agricultural employees child allowances were extended to the second child and a maternity allowance for insured women was introduced A year later eligibility for maternity and child services and public hospital services was extended to approximately 85 of the population 64 Presidency Edit De Valera in the 1960s while President of Ireland While Fianna Fail remained popular among the electorate 75 year old de Valera had begun to be seen by the electorate as too old and out of touch to remain as head of government 97 At the urging of party officials de Valera decided to retire from government and the Dail and instead seek the presidency of Ireland He won the 1959 presidential election on 17 June 1959 and resigned as Taoiseach Leader of Fianna Fail and a TD for Clare six days later handing over power to Sean Lemass De Valera was inaugurated President of Ireland on 25 June 1959 52 He was re elected President in 1966 aged 84 That would remain a world record for oldest elected head of state until 2013 98 At his retirement in 1973 at the age of 90 he was the oldest head of state in the world 97 As President of Ireland de Valera received many state visits including the 1963 visit of US president John F Kennedy Five months later de Valera attended the state funeral for Kennedy in Washington D C and accompanied a group of 24 Defence Forces cadets who performed a silent drill at his grave site 97 In June 1964 he returned to Washington D C as the second President of Ireland to address the United States Congress 99 In 1966 the Dublin Jewish community arranged the planting and dedication of the Eamon de Valera Forest in Israel near Nazareth in recognition of his support for Ireland s Jews 100 In January 1969 de Valera became the first President to address both houses of the Oireachtas to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Dail Eireann In 1969 seventy three countries sent goodwill messages to NASA for the historic first lunar landing These messages still rest on the lunar surface De Valera s message on behalf of Ireland stated May God grant that the skill and courage which have enabled man to alight upon the Moon will enable him also to secure peace and happiness upon the Earth and avoid the danger of self destruction 101 Death Edit Eamon de Valera s grave in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin His wife Sinead and son Brian who was killed in a horse riding accident in 1936 are buried there also Eamon de Valera died from pneumonia and heart failure in Linden Convalescent Home Blackrock Dublin on 29 August 1975 aged 92 102 His wife Sinead de Valera four years his senior had died the previous January on the eve of their 65th wedding anniversary His body lay in state at Dublin Castle and was given a full state funeral on 3 September at St Mary s Pro Cathedral which was broadcast on national television Over 200 000 people reportedly lined the three mile funeral route from Dublin city centre to Glasnevin Cemetery 103 He is buried in Glasnevin alongside his wife and son Brian Legacy EditDe Valera s political creed evolved from militant republicanism to social and cultural conservatism 5 Ireland s dominant political personality for many decades de Valera received numerous honours He was elected Chancellor of the National University of Ireland in 1921 holding the post until his death Pope John XXIII bestowed on him the Order of Christ KSC 104 He received honorary degrees from universities in Ireland and abroad In 1968 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society FRS 4 a recognition of his lifelong interest in mathematics He also served as a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Down from 1921 to 1929 and for South Down from 1933 to 1937 although he held to the republican policy of abstentionism and did not take his seat in Stormont De Valera was criticised for ending up as co owner of one of Ireland s most influential group of newspapers Irish Press Newspapers funded by numerous small investors who received no dividend for decades 105 De Valera is alleged by critics to have helped keep Ireland under the influence of Catholic conservatism 106 De Valera rejected however demands by organisations like Maria Duce that Roman Catholicism be made the state religion of Ireland just as he rejected demands by the Irish Christian Front for the Irish Free State to support Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War 107 De Valera s preoccupation with his part in history and his need to explain and justify it are reflected in innumerable ways His faith in historians as trustworthy guardians of his reputation was not absolute He made many attempts to influence their views and to adjust and refine the historical record whenever he felt this portrayed him his allies or his cause inaccurately or unfavourably to his mind these could often mean the same thing He extended these endeavours to encompass the larger Irish public An important function of his newspaper group the Irish Press group was to rectify what he saw as the errors and omissions of a decade in which he had been the subject of largely hostile commentary 108 In recent decades his role in Irish history has no longer been unequivocally seen by historians as a positive one and a biography by Tim Pat Coogan alleges 109 page needed that his failures outweigh his achievements with de Valera s reputation declining while that of his great rival in the 1920s Michael Collins was rising A more recent 2007 work on de Valera by historian Diarmaid Ferriter presents a more positive picture of de Valera s legacy 110 Bertie Ahern at a book launch for Diarmaid Ferriter s biography of de Valera 5 111 described de Valera s achievements in political leadership during the formative years of the state One of de Valera s finest hours was his regrouping of the Republican side after defeat in the civil war and setting his followers on an exclusively peaceful and democratic path along which he later had to confront both domestic Fascism and the IRA He became a democratic statesman not a dictator He did not purge the civil service of those who had served his predecessors but made best use of the talent available A notable failure was his attempt to reverse the provision of the 1937 Constitution in relation to the electoral system On retiring as Taoiseach in 1959 he proposed that the Proportional Representation system enshrined in that constitution should be replaced De Valera argued that Proportional Representation had been responsible for the instability that had characterised much of the post war period A constitutional referendum to ratify this was defeated by the people One aspect of de Valera s legacy is that since the foundation of the state a de Valera has nearly always served in Dail Eireann Eamon de Valera served until 1959 his son Vivion de Valera was also a Teachta Dala TD Eamon o Cuiv his grandson is currently a member of the Dail while his granddaughter Sile de Valera is a former TD Both have served in ministries in the Irish Government Catholic social policy Edit Eamon de Valera s heraldry as knight of the Supreme Order of Christ In 1931 de Valera said in the Dail I believe that every citizen in this country is entitled to his share of public appointments and that there should not be discrimination on the ground of religion discrimination mind you in the sense that because a person was of a particular religion religion should not be made an excuse for denying a person an appointment for which he or she was fully qualified Then there comes the question what are qualifications If I thought that the principle that the librarian in a Catholic community should be Catholic was a new principle introduced merely to deny a Protestant an appointment I would vote against it but I know from my youth that it is not so if I had a vote on a local body and if there were two qualified people who had to deal with a Catholic community and if one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant I would unhesitatingly vote for the Catholic Let us be clear and let us know where we are 112 113 114 Ryle Dwyer writing in 2008 said If those were his honest views one could also say without hesitation that the Long Fellow was a bigot But in fact he was just playing the role of a political hypocrite It was cynical but it should be stressed that he behaved responsibly in this regard when he came to power 115 De Valera led Fianna Fail to adopt conservative social policies since he believed devoutly that the Catholic church and the family were central to Irish identity He added clauses to the new Constitution of Ireland 1937 to guard with special care the institution of marriage and prohibit divorce His constitution also recognised the special position of the Catholic Church and recognised other denominations including the Church of Ireland and Jewish congregations while guaranteeing the religious freedom of all citizens however he resisted an attempt to make Roman Catholicism the state religion and his constitution forbids the establishment of a state religion His policies were welcomed by a largely devout conservative and rural electorate 116 The unenforceable articles in the constitution which reinforced the traditional view that a woman s place was in the home further illustrate the direction in which Ireland was moving An act of 1935 prohibited the importation or sale of contraceptives The most rigorous censorship laws in western Europe complete the picture 117 The specific recognition of Roman Catholicism was deleted by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland 1973 and the prohibition of divorce was removed by the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland 1996 Nevertheless the Irish Supreme Court declared in 1973 that the 1935 contraception legislation was not repugnant to the Constitution and therefore remained valid 118 In popular culture EditDe Valera s portrait illustrated the front cover of 25 March 1940 issue of TIME magazine 119 accompanying the article EIRE Prime Minister of Freedom 120 De Valera has been portrayed by Andre Van Gyseghem in a 1970 episode of ITV Playhouse entitled Would You Look at Them Smashing all Those Lovely Windows Sonn Connaughton in a 1981 episode of The Life and Times of David Lloyd George entitled Win or Lose Barry McGovern in the 1991 TV movie The Treaty which concerned the Anglo Irish Treaty Arthur Riordan in the 1990s RTE television show Nighthawks 121 Alan Rickman in the 1996 film Michael Collins which depicted the events surrounding Ireland s struggle for independence from Britain Andrew Connolly in the 2001 TV mini series Rebel Heart concerning the 1916 Rising Stephen Mullan in the 2016 TV mini series RebellionGovernments EditThe following governments were led by de Valera 2nd Ministry of the Irish Republic 3rd Ministry of the Irish Republic 6th Executive Council of the Irish Free State 7th Executive Council of the Irish Free State 8th Executive Council of the Irish Free State 1st Government of Ireland 2nd Government of Ireland 3rd Government of Ireland 4th Government of Ireland 6th Government of Ireland 8th Government of IrelandSee also EditList of members of the Oireachtas imprisoned during the Irish revolutionary period List of people on the postage stamps of Ireland Eamon de Valera ForestNotes Edit His name is frequently misspelled Eamonn De Valera but he never used the second n in his first name the standard Irish spelling and he always used a small d in de Valera which is proper for Spanish names de meaning of Eamon n translates into English as Edmond or Edmund The correct Irish translation of Edward his name as given in his amended birth certificate is Eadhbhard References Edit Schmuhl Robert February 2016 Eamon de Valera Man of Mystery irishamerica com Irish America Magazine Retrieved 14 June 2022 UK Census 1901 held in the National Archives in the Republic of Ireland Archived 29 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine de Valera listed as Edward in a Roman Catholic boarding school Blackrock College in Dublin This was the same boarding school which T F O Rahilly attended listed as Rahilly Eamon de Valera Oireachtas Members Database Archived from the original on 23 September 2018 Retrieved 1 June 2009 a b Synge J L 1976 Eamon de Valera 14 October 1882 29 August 1975 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 22 634 653 doi 10 1098 rsbm 1976 0022 a b c d Ferriter Judging Dev A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon De Valera 2007 ISBN 1 904890 28 8 Mystery of 1916 leader and New Yorker Eamon de Valera s birth IrishCentral com 14 October 2016 Archived from the original on 5 January 2018 Retrieved 5 January 2018 Castro Aurora 29 December 2021 Exploring the Spanish Roots of Eamon de Valera Zenodo doi 10 5281 zenodo 5809396 Jose Francisco Fernandez March 2018 February 2019 En busca de la Isla Esmeralda Diccionario sentimental de la cultura Irlandesa Antonio Rivero Taravillo Estudios Irlandeses Journal of Irish Studies 13 197 Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Retrieved 15 July 2021 Ronan Fanning 2016 A Will To Power Eamon De Valera Harvard University Press p 3 ISBN 9780674970557 Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Retrieved 21 September 2020 De Valera was born on 14 October 1882 in the Nursery and Child s Hospital Lexington Avenue Manhattan New York the only child of Juan Vivion de Valera and Catherine Kate Coll Nursery and Child s Hospital Records 1854 1934 MS 443 20 publisher New York Historical Society access date 21 August 2022 Tim Pat Coogan 31 January 2005 De Valera s begrudging attitude to The Big Fellow The Irish Times Archived from the original on 30 November 2017 Retrieved 19 January 2019 Eamon de Valera s father 2006 Homepage eircom net Archived from the original on 4 April 2013 Retrieved 21 August 2013 Notable New Yorkers Eamon de Valera nyc gov NYC Department of Records Archived from the original on 8 February 2004 Myers on De Valera The Irish Times 9 December 1998 Archived from the original on 23 August 2017 Retrieved 11 May 2017 Mac Aonghusa Proinsias 1983 Quotations from Eamon de Valera p 89 ISBN 0 85342 684 8 a b c d e f Jordan Anthony J Eamon de Valera 1882 1975 Irish Catholic Visionary Westport Books 2010 Jordan 2010 p 279 Eamon de Valera 1882 1975 BBC News Archived from the original on 21 January 2009 Retrieved 6 December 2008 a b Farragher CSSp Sean P 1984 Dev and his Alma Mater Dublin amp London Paraclete Press ISBN 0 946639 01 9 Fanning Ronan October 2009 De 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4 September 2017 Eamon De Valera pleads Irish cause at Fenway Park The Boston Globe Archived from the original on 11 February 2020 Retrieved 23 February 2019 Pedro Albizu Campos El Ultimo Libertador de America Alianza Bolivariana Para Los Pueblos de Nuestra America 19 January 2006 Archived from the original on 17 June 2013 Retrieved 12 March 2012 Dolan Anne 2009 O Connell Kathleen In McGuire James Quinn James eds Dictionary of Irish Biography Cambridge Cambridge University Press Notre Dame Washington Hall archives nd edu Archived from the original on 17 May 2008 Retrieved 4 March 2021 Hope Arthur J 1948 Notre Dame one hundred years University Press OCLC 251881423 Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Retrieved 4 March 2021 Dail Eireann Volume 2 Vote of thanks to the people of America Houses of the Oireachtas 17 August 1921 Archived from the original on 8 September 2012 Retrieved 6 December 2008 Dail Eireann Volume 1 Ministerial Motions Presidential election campaign in USA Houses of the Oireachtas 29 June 1920 Archived from the original on 7 June 2011 Retrieved 6 December 2008 Dail Eireann Volume 1 Debates on Reports Finance Houses of the Oireachtas 10 May 1921 Archived from the original on 19 November 2007 Retrieved 6 December 2008 Arthur Michell 1995 Revolutionary Government in Ireland Dail Eireann 1919 1922 Dublin Gill amp Macmillan pp 191 192 ISBN 9780717120154 Coogan Tim Pat de Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow pp 120 122 ISBN 0 09 995860 0 ISBN 978 0 09 995860 4 D G Boyce Englishmen and Irish Troubles British Public Opinion and the Making of Irish Policy 1918 1922 Cambridge MA The MIT Press 1972 pp 92 93 Coogan Tim Pat De Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow p 234 P S O Hegarty A History of Ireland Under the Union 1801 to 1922 New York Kraus Reprint Co 1969 751 De Valera s Treaty proposals Houses of the Oireachtas Archived from the original on 18 February 2012 Retrieved 6 December 2008 J J O Kelly Sceilg A Trinity of Martyrs Irish Book Bureau Dublin pp 66 68 Sceilg was a supporter of de Valera in 1922 Coogan Tim Pat de Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow p 299 ISBN 0 09 995860 0 ISBN 978 0 09 995860 4 Coogan Tim Pat de Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow p 338 ISBN 0 09 995860 0 ISBN 978 0 09 995860 4 Jordan Anthony J W T Cosgrave Founder Of Modern Ireland Westport Books 2006 p 89 Bowyer Bell J 1997 The Secret Army The IRA Transaction Publishers p 38 ISBN 1 56000 901 2 Building a state in the shadow of civil war Part 1 Irish Times De Valera and Stack Are Set at Liberty More Releases Expected Within 24 Hours The New York Times 17 July 1924 The New York Times 17 July 1924 Archived from the original on 19 November 2021 Retrieved 19 November 2021 a b Exam notes Archived 3 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine about Sean Lemass a b BBC History Eamon de Valera Archived from the original on 23 August 2017 Retrieved 4 September 2017 Dail Eireann Volume 3 19 December 1921 Debate on Treaty Archived from the original on 21 July 2011 Retrieved 4 March 2011 Electoral Amendment No 2 Bill 1927 First Stage Archived from the original on 9 December 2018 Retrieved 9 December 2018 BBC s Short History of Ireland BBC 1 January 1970 Archived from the original on 20 August 2010 Retrieved 21 August 2013 FF officially recognised in Northern Ireland RTE News 7 December 2007 Archived from the original on 8 December 2007 Retrieved 8 December 2007 O Halpin Eunan 2000 Defending Ireland the Irish state and its enemies since 1922 Oxford University Press p 80 ISBN 978 0 19 924269 6 Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Retrieved 3 August 2011 Fanning Ronan 25 April 2016 Eamon de Valera Harvard University Press p 219 ISBN 9780674970557 Archived from the original on 27 July 2020 Retrieved 8 March 2019 Barry Frank and Mary E Daly Irish Perceptions of the Great Depression No iiisdp349 IIIS 2011 Online Archived 11 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine Time Magazine IRISH FREE STATE Economic Civil War Monday 25 Jul 1932 Time 25 July 1932 Archived from the original on 11 November 2007 Retrieved 21 August 2013 Eamon de Valera the eternal revolutionary Archived 23 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine Fabien Aufrechter Le Journal International 22 October 2013 Eamon de Valera The Earl of Longford amp Thomas P O Neill 1970 pp 335 339 Eamon de Valera The Earl of Longford amp Thomas P O Neill 1970 p 301 a b Flora Peter ed 1986 Growth to Limits Germany United Kingdom Ireland Italy Berlin Walter de Gruyter p 248 ISBN 9783110111316 Archived from the original on 4 September 2015 Retrieved 6 June 2015 Letter from Joseph P Walshe to Michael McDunphy Dublin enclosing a memorandum on the draft Irish constitution Secret Archived from the original on 4 October 2011 Retrieved 18 April 2011 The Irish Free State 1922 1937 Saorstat Eireann Collins 22 Society Archived from the original on 23 December 2017 Retrieved 24 May 2017 Cottrell Peter 2008 The Irish Civil War 1922 23 Oxford Osprey Publishing p 85 ISBN 978 1 84603 270 7 Lloyd Lorna 2007 Diplomacy With a Difference The Commonwealth Office of High Commissioner 1880 2006 Lieden Martinus Nijhoff Publishers p 72 ISBN 978 90 04 15497 1 Archived from the original on 26 February 2021 Retrieved 21 September 2020 Constitution of Ireland 1937 12 1 via Wikisource Bew 2007 p 455 IRELAND Too Much Trouble Time 9 June 1941 Archived from the original on 24 June 2010 Retrieved 6 September 2010 Anglo Irish Relations 1939 41 A Study in Multilateral Diplomacy and Military Restraint in Twentieth Century British History Oxford Journals 2005 ISSN 1477 4674 did Dev Valera refuse an offer of Unity Archived from the original on 9 December 2018 Retrieved 9 December 2018 Bromage Mary 1964 Churchill and Ireland Notre Dame IN University of Notre Dame Press p 162 Emergency Powers Continuance and Amendment Act 1945 Government of Ireland 29 July 1945 pp 4 1 Archived from the original on 16 December 2013 Retrieved 2 November 2007 The Principal Act shall unless previously terminated under subsection 2 of this section continue in force until the 2nd day of September 1946 and shall then expire unless the Oireachtas otherwise determines National Emergency Motion Resumed Dail Debates Government of Ireland 292 119 256 1 September 1976 Archived from the original on 7 June 2011 Retrieved 2 November 2007 John M Kelly All the 1939 emergency legislation lapsed not later than 1946 Chakravart S R Madan Chandra Paul 2000 Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose relevance to contemporary world Har Anand Publications p 179 ISBN 81 241 0601 0 Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Retrieved 23 March 2010 O Malley Kate 2008 Ireland India and empire Indo Irish radical connections 1919 64 Manchester Manchester University Press pp 111 113 ISBN 978 0 7190 8171 2 Girvin Brian 2006 The Emergency London MacMillan p 5 ISBN 978 1 4050 0010 9 Officials of the Department of External Affairs tried to persuade him not to visit Hempel although the secretary of the department Joseph Walsh who accompanied him did support the action An Irish Statesman and Revolutionary by Elizabeth Keane ISBN 978 1845111250 p 106 Irish Public Service Broadcasting 1940s De Valera and Broadcasting History of RTE Raidio Teilifis Eireann Archived from the original on 27 September 2008 Retrieved 30 October 2008 Bew 2007 p 474 Dev s treatment of Irish army deserters vindictive or pragmatic historyireland com History Ireland Magazine 19 9 2011 Archived from the original on 24 September 2018 Retrieved 11 July 2018 Emergency Powers 362 Order 1945 Motion to Annual Dail Eireann Debate 98 4 27 18 October 1945 Archived from the original on 28 October 2014 Retrieved 10 July 2018 Department of the Taoiseach 29 March 1946 Emergency powers no 362 order 1945 revocation order 1946 PDF Dublin Stationery Office Archived PDF from the original on 17 September 2017 Retrieved 16 May 2017 Defence Forces Temporary Provisions Act 1946 Section 13 Irish Statute Book Archived from the original on 28 October 2014 Retrieved 28 October 2014 a b Wilsford David 1995 Political Leaders of Contemporary Western Europe A Biographical Dictionary Greenwood p 96 ISBN 978 0 313 28623 0 Tim Pat Coogan De Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow London Arrow 1993 p 639 D F Bourke A History of the Catholic Church in Victoria Melbourne Catholic Bishops of Victoria 1988 p 299 D J O Hearn Erin go bragh Advance Australia Fair a hundred years of growing Melbourne Celtic Club 1990 p 54 Sacred Heart Rosalie website Jubilee Parish Archived from the original on 19 April 2020 Retrieved 30 November 2020 Diarmuid Ferriter Judging Dev pp 190 191 Stanford Jane 17 August 2013 That Irishman p 279 footnote 530 PDF Look Back Archived PDF from the original on 25 July 2015 Retrieved 4 September 2014 Savage Robert J 1996 Irish television the political and social origins Cork University Press p 224 ISBN 978 1 85918 102 7 Winston Churchill amp Eamon De Valera A Thirty Year Relationship Winstonchurchill org Archived from the original on 3 July 2010 Retrieved 21 August 2013 Bruce Arnold 11 July 2009 Opinion History warns us about the risks of ceding power to EU Irish Independent Archived from the original on 1 August 2018 Retrieved 1 August 2018 Eamon de Valera on return from Strasbourg in 1955 where he had been attending a meeting that was part of the construction of the future Europe said We did not strive to get out of that British domination of our affairs by outside force or we did not get out of that position to get into a worse one Coogan Tim Pat de Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow p 669 ISBN 0 09 995860 0 ISBN 978 0 09 995860 4 a b c Diarmaid Ferriter 2007 Uachtarain Eamon de Valera Television production in Ga Dublin Ireland TG4 Archived from the original on 10 June 2011 Retrieved 7 February 2011 when Giorgio Napolitano was re elected President of Italy in 2013 aged 87 The six Irish leaders who have addressed joint sessions of the US Congress are Sean T O Kelly 18 March 1959 Eamon de Valera 28 May 1964 Liam Cosgrave 17 March 1976 Garret FitzGerald 15 March 1984 John Bruton 11 September 1996 and Bertie Ahern 30 April 2008 Tracy Robert 1999 The Jews of Ireland bNet com p 7 Archived from the original on 7 July 2012 Retrieved 19 October 2009 Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages PDF Press release NASA 13 July 1969 Archived PDF from the original on 3 September 2019 Retrieved 28 December 2007 RTE 1975 Eamon De Valera is dead on YouTube RTE News video Retrieved 11 November 2011 State Funeral of Eamon de Valera at Glasnevin Cemetery Raidio Teilifis Eireann Archived from the original on 16 May 2021 Retrieved 16 May 2021 President Eamon de Valera papalorders ie Retrieved 30 December 2021 Sunday Times 31 October 2004 p3 RTE broadcast on 2 November 2004 Tom Garvin Preventing the future why Ireland was so poor for so long Dublin 2004 passim ISBN 0 7171 3771 6 Eamon de Valera The Earl of Longford amp Thomas P O Neill 1970 p 338 Murray Patrick 21 December 2001 Obsessive Historian Eamon de Valera and the Policing of his Reputation PDF Royal Irish Academy Archived from the original PDF on 30 April 2003 Coogan Tim Pat de Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow ISBN 0 09 995860 0 ISBN 978 0 09 995860 4 New book tries to reclaim Dev s legacy Irish Independent 15 October 2007 Archived from the original on 23 November 2007 Retrieved 26 December 2007 Speech by the Taoiseach Mr Bertie Ahern TD at the Launch of Judging Dev A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon De Valera by Diarmaid Ferriter Department of the Taoiseach 14 October 2007 Archived from the original on 2 December 2007 Retrieved 26 December 2007 Dail Eireann debate Wednesday 17 Jun 1931 Vol 39 No 4 Dwyer Ryle 2 February 2008 Political hypocrisy has long history but Bertie is guilty of much worse Irish Examiner Retrieved 26 December 2021 Mohr Thomas 8 November 2021 Religious Minorities under the Constitution of the Irish Free State 1922 1937 American Journal of Legal History 61 2 235 272 doi 10 1093 ajlh njab002 Retrieved 26 December 2021 Dwyer Ryle 2 February 2008 Political hypocrisy has long history but Bertie is guilty of much worse Irish Examiner Retrieved 26 December 2021 Kissane Bill 2007 Eamon De Valera and the Survival of Democracy in Inter war Ireland Journal of Contemporary History 42 2 213 226 doi 10 1177 0022009407075554 S2CID 159760801 Ryan Louise 1998 Constructing Irishwoman Modern Girls and Comely Maidens Irish Studies Review 6 3 263 272 doi 10 1080 09670889808455611 BAILII McGee v A G amp Anor 1973 IESC 2 1974 IR 284 Archived 18 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine McGee v the Attorney General TIME Magazine Cover Eamon de Valera Mar 25 1940 Time 25 March 1940 Archived from the original on 7 August 2009 Retrieved 20 September 2011 EIRE Prime Minister of Freedom Time 25 March 1940 Archived from the original on 14 October 2010 Retrieved 20 September 2011 Flann and me and his greatest story never told The Irish Times 12 July 2010 subscription required Archived 12 November 2011 at the Wayback MachineSources EditBew Paul 2007 Ireland the politics of enmity 1789 2006 Oxford Further reading EditBowman John 1982 De Valera and the Ulster Question 1917 73 Oxford Carroll J T 1975 Ireland in the War Years 1939 1945 ISBN 9780844805658 Coogan Tim Pat 1993 De Valera Long Fellow Long Shadow London Hutchinson ISBN 9780091750305 published as Eamon de Valera The Man Who Was Ireland New York 1993 Dunphy Richard 1995 The Making of Fianna Fail Power in Ireland 1923 1948 Irish Historical Studies p 346 doi 10 1017 S0021121400013092 S2CID 164091939 Dwyer T Ryle 2006 Big Fellow Long Fellow A Joint Biography of Collins and De Valera ISBN 0717140849 excerpt and text search Dwyer T Ryle 1982 De Valera s Finest Hour 1932 59 Fanning Ronan Eamon de Valera A Will to Power 2016 Longford The Earl of O Neill Thomas P 1970 Eamon de Valera Gill and MacMillan Dublin ISBN 0 7171 0485 0 Jordan Anthony J 2010 Eamon de Valera 1882 1975 Irish Catholic Visionary ISBN 978 0 9524447 9 4 Kissane Bill 2007 Eamon De Valera and the Survival of Democracy in Inter War Ireland Journal of Contemporary History 42 2 213 226 doi 10 1177 0022009407075554 S2CID 159760801 Lee Joseph O Tuathaigh Gearoid 1982 The Age of de Valera Lee J J 1989 Ireland 1912 1985 Politics and Society Cambridge McCartan Patrick 1932 With de Valera in America New York McCullagh David 2017 De Valera Volume 1 Rise 1882 1932 McCullagh David 2018 De Valera Volume 2 Rule 1932 1975 McGarry Fearghal ed 2003 Republicanism in Modern Ireland Dublin Murphy J A ed 1983 De Valera and His Times O Carroll J P Murphy John A eds 1993 De Valera and His Times ISBN 0902561448 excerpt and text searchHistoriography Edit Chapple Phil 2005 Dev The Career of Eamon De Valera Phil Chapple Examines a Titanic and Controversial Figure in Modern Irish History History Review 53 28 Ferriter Diarmaid 2007 Judging Dev A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon De Valera Dublin ISBN 978 1 904890 28 7 Girvin Brian Beyond Revisionism Some Recent Contributions to the Study of Modern Ireland English Historical Review 2009 124 506 94 107 DOI 10 1093 ehr cen341 Hogan Gerard De Valera the Constitution and the Historians Irish Jurist 40 2005 McCarthy Mark Ireland s 1916 Rising Explorations of History making Commemoration amp Heritage in Modern Times Routledge 2016 Murray Patrick Obsessive historian Eamon de Valera and the policing of his reputation Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 2001 37 65 Regan John M 2010 Irish public histories as an historiographical problem Irish Historical Studies 37 146 265 292 doi 10 1017 s002112140000225x S2CID 159868830 Regan John M 2007 Michael Collins General Commanding in Chief as a Historiographical Problem History 92 307 318 346 doi 10 1111 j 1468 229x 2007 00398 x External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to Eamon de Valera Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eamon de Valera Wikisource has the text of a 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica article about Eamon de Valera 1911 Census return of Edward sic de Valera and household from the National Archives of Ireland Eamon de Valera s India and Ireland in the South Asian American Digital Archive SAADA Biography at Aras an Uachtarain website Press Photographs of Eamon de Valera taken from the Papers of Eamon de Valera held in UCD Archives A UCD Digital Library Collection De Valera Funeral 1975 Movietone 2 September 1975 Newspaper clippings about Eamon de Valera in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBWParliament of the United KingdomPreceded byWillie Redmond Irish Parliamentary Party Sinn Fein MP for Clare East1917 1922 Constituency abolishedPreceded byJohn Dillon Irish Parliamentary Party Sinn Fein MP for Mayo East1918 1922 Constituency abolishedParliament of Northern IrelandNew constituency MP for Down1921 1929 With J M AndrewsJames CraigThomas LaveryRobert McBrideThomas McMullanHarry MulhollandPatrick O Neill Constituency abolishedPreceded byJohn Henry Collins Nationalist Party Fianna Fail MP for South Down1933 1938 Succeeded byJames Brown Ulster Unionist Party OireachtasNew constituency Sinn Fein Teachta Dala for Clare East1918 1921 Constituency abolishedNew constituency Sinn Fein Teachta Dala for Mayo East1918 1921 Constituency abolishedNew constituency Sinn Fein Teachta Dala for Clare1921 1926 Succeeded byDe Valera left Sinn Fein and founded Fianna FailPreceded byDe Valera was previously a member of Sinn Fein Fianna Fail Teachta Dala for Clare1926 1959 Succeeded bySean o Ceallaigh Fianna Fail Political officesPreceded byCathal Brugha President of Dail Eireann1919 1921 Succeeded byHimselfas President of the RepublicPreceded byHimselfas President of Dail Eireann President of the Irish Republic1921 1922 Succeeded byArthur GriffithPreceded byThomas Johnson Leader of the Opposition1927 1932 Succeeded byW T CosgravePreceded byJose Matos Pacheco President of the League of Nations Council1932 Succeeded byPompeo AloisiPreceded byW T Cosgrave President of the Executive Council1932 1937 Succeeded byHimselfas TaoiseachNew office Taoiseach1937 1948 Succeeded byJohn A CostelloPreceded byPatrick McGilligan Minister for External Affairs1932 1948 Succeeded bySean MacBridePreceded byAga Khan III President of the League of Nations Assembly1938 Succeeded byCarl Joachim HambroPreceded byRichard Mulcahy Leader of the Opposition1948 1951 Succeeded byJohn A CostelloPreceded byJohn A Costello Taoiseach1951 1954 Succeeded byJohn A CostelloPreceded byJohn A Costello Leader of the Opposition1954 1957 Succeeded byJohn A CostelloPreceded byJohn A Costello Taoiseach1957 1959 Succeeded bySean LemassPreceded bySean T O Kelly President of Ireland1959 1973 Succeeded byErskine H ChildersParty political officesPreceded byArthur Griffith President of Sinn Fein1917 1926 Succeeded byJohn J O KellyNew political party Leader of Fianna Fail1926 1959 Succeeded bySean LemassAcademic officesPreceded byWilliam Walsh Chancellor of the National University of Ireland1921 1975 Succeeded byT K WhitakerTitles in pretenceLoss of titleHis own resignation on 7 January 1922 TITULAR President of the Irish Republic1922 1926 Succeeded byArt O Connor Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Eamon de Valera amp oldid 1136818339, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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