Life
1882-1975 [orig. Edward George Coll]; b. 14 Oct., Manhattan, New York;
son of Catherine (‘Kate’) Coll [later Mrs Wheelwright], Knockmore, Bruree, and Vivion
Juan de Valera, the couple having supposedly been married in St Patrick’s,
Greenville, NY; registered as George, and christened
as Edward (after a maternal uncle); sent by widowed mother to be raised
in Clare; enrolled in Bruree National School as Edward Coll, after the
paternal uncle chiefly concerned in raising him; learnt patriotism from
Land League priest Fr. Eugene Sheehy; ed. CBS, Charleville (Rath Luirc),
and Holy Ghost Fathers, Blackrock, Co. Dublin; Professor of Maths, Rockwell,
1903; grad. Royal University, 1904; taught
at Belvedere; Prof. of Maths, Carysfort TTC, 1906; part-time app. at Maynooth
and various Dublin colleges; unsuccessful application for priesthood;
joins Gaelic League Ard-Craobh, 1908; m. Sinéad Flanagan [Ní
Fhlannagáin], 1910; attends Volunteer meeting, Rotunda 25 Nov.
1913; captain of Donnybrook Company; Comm. 3rd Batt., and Adj. Dublin
Brigade; joins IRB; Asgard landing, July 1914; Commandant of Boland’s
Mill garrison in the Rising; not tried till 8 May in
view of American nationality, and reprieved in view of growing international
objections to executions; Dartmoor, Maidstone, and Lewes prisons; released
June 1917; advocates re-organisation of Sinn Féin on constituency
basis; contests and won East Clare against IPP Patrick Lynch; President
of new Sinn Féin at convention, Oct. 1917; arrested May 1918 in
Sinn Féin anti-conscription campaign; 73 Sinn Féin seats
won with 45 candidates in prison at General Election, Dec. 1918; Govt.
of Republic established by Dáil Éireann, meeting in Mansion
House, 21 Jan 1919; escapes Lincoln Jail, elected President of the Irish
Republic, 1 April 1919; appointed Irish government; travels to America,
June 1919 returning 29 Dec. 1920; announces at press conference that Ulster
Protestants who did not accept the Republic should ‘go back’
to Britain (and heard by St. John Ervine); met Devoy, but selects Edward
L. Doheny, millionaire nephew of Michael Doheny, to lead American Committee
for Relief in Ireland; King George announces policy of conciliation to
end Anglo-Irish war, 22 Jan. 1921; visited by Lord Derby, April 1921;
meeting with Sir James Craig in Dublin, May 1921; Chancellor of NUI; elected
MP, Co. Down under the provisions of the Govt. of Ireland Act, being one
of 12 nationalist, of which 6 Sinn Féin, candidates to win seats,
all of which were left vacant; deemed to be elected to Co. Down seat in
Dáil Éireann in southern elections ensuing 5 days after;
Truce between IRA and British forces in Ireland, 11 July 1921; authorises
negotiations by plenipotentiaries (Griffith, Collins, MacNeill, et al.)
in London; sides with Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack against Treaty; re-elected
President of Dáil on reconvening, Aug. 1921; authors an alternative
to Treaty (Document No. 2) based on concept of ‘External Association’
with the Commonwealth, developed in an attempt to accommodate separate
Irish stateship with monarchical status but without prejudice to Republican
unity, proposed at private Dáil session, 14 Dec. 1921; Dáil
debate on Treaty, at UCD, 14-22 Dec. 1921, adjourning for Christmas recess,
and resuming 4-7th Jan.; de Valera formally gave notice that he would
move the Document as an amendment to the Treaty, 4 Jan., 1922; ‘I
stand as a symbol for the Republic [...] I didn’t go to London because
I wished to keep that symbol of the Republic pure even from insinuation,
or even a word across the table that would give away the Republic’
(Treaty Debate, 4 Jan.); made his final speech in the debate, 6 Jan. repudiating
attacks on his Irishness (‘I was reared in a labourer’s cottage
here in Ireland’) and pronouncing the Dáil effectually extinct
(‘this body has become completely, irrevocably split’); Treaty
terms approved by 7 votes in house of 122 TDs (64 for, 57 against), resulting
in majority ratification, 7 Jan. 1922 with de Valera and his followers
retiring; Provisional Govt. established with Griffith as President; occupation
of Four Courts by Rory O’Connor and others, 13 April 1922; Four Courts
bombarded by Free State forces, bombardment inaugurating Civil War, 28
June 1922; speaks out for war (‘... wade through rivers of blood’);
de Valera enters election pact with Collins, May 1922; called on by Republicans
to form emergency government; announced reorganisation of Sinn Féin,
Jan. 1922; wrote to Liam Lynch, ‘we can best serve the nation at
this moment by trying to get the constitutional way adopted’, 7 Feb.
1923; arrested and interned, 15 August, but returned for [East] Clare,
27 Aug. 1923; issues orders to ‘Rearguard of the Republic’ terminating
hostilities (‘Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment
with those who have destroyed the Republic’); sought to modify abstentionist
policy, Dec. 1925; addressed Republicans at Wolfe Tone’s grave, Bodenstown,
25 June 1925; announces preparedness to enter Dáil Eireann if there
were no oath, Jan. 1926; forms Fianna Fáil party, April 1926, presiding
over the party to 1959; compares Republicans who accept oath to French
monarchists who acquiesced in the ‘de facto controlling power’
of their parliamentary opponents through ‘prescription and the lapse
of time’; Fianna Fáil wins 44 seats in June 1927, and enters
Dáil; de Valera prevaricates over oath, which he signs ‘as
a formality’; sets free republican prisoners and removes Cosgrave’s
security legislation, 1932; maintains secret contact with IRA army council;
fnd. the Irish Press, 1931, ed. Frank Gallagher; 72 seats in Gen.
Election, defeating Cumann na nGaedhael, and forms first Fianna Fail Govt.,
Feb. 1932; serves as President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free
State and Min. for External Affairs; officiates at Eucharistic Congress,
attended by a million Catholics, effectively healing the rift between
Fianna Fáil and the Catholic Church; President of the Council of
the League of Nations, Geneva, 1932; conducts Economic War with Britain,
withholding land annuities of £5 million in respect from the British Exchequer,
1932-38, causing damaging reprisals at British customs posts; elected
RIA, 1933; James MacNeill’s post as Gov. Gen. terminated on his advice,
and Domhnall Ua Buchalla appt. ‘Senascal’; becomes MP for South
Down when Fianna Fáil wins 77 seats in general election, 24 Jan.
1933; remained in power, 1933-37; establishes voluntary militia; supports
with Cardinal McRory and others Fr. Peter Conefrey’s campaign and
meeting against Jazz at Mohill, Jan. 1934, and supports Public Dance Halls
Act, 1935; declares IRA illegal, 1936; new Constitution underwriting ‘special
position’ of Catholic Church as ‘the guardian of the faith professed
by the great majority of the citizens’ (Art. 44), authored chiefly
by de Valera himself, and narrowly ratified by the Dáil, 1937;
Taoiseach and Min. for External Affairs; Anglo-Irish agreement securing
Treaty ports, 1938; 19th President of Assembly of League, Sept. 1938;
declares for neutrality in the event of a Second World War, 19 Feb., 1939;
made celebrated St Patrick’s Day Radio Éireann broadcast in
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Gaelic league while articulating
his pastoral version of the national dream; conveys official condolences
to Germany Embassy, Dublin, on death of Adolf Hitler; ousted from Government
by John A. Costello and Coalition, 1948; returns to government, 1951;
retina trouble from 1930s ending with peripheral vision only in 1952;
defeated 1954; returns to power, Taoiseach, 1957; elected President of
Ireland, 17 June 195[9]; and re-elected 1966, defeating Tom O’Higgins
by 10,000 votes; Order of Christ awarded by Pope John XXIII; FRS, 1968; addresses
Joint Session of Congress, Washington, 1964; retires, June 1973; d. 11.55
p.m. on 29 Aug. 1975, in Linden Convalescent Home, Blackrock; bur. Glasnevin;
an obituary notice by J. L. Synge (nephew of J.M. Synge) appeared in Biographical
Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. DIB DIH FDA OCIL
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Works
Maurice Moynihan, ed., Speeches and Statements of Eamon de Valera 1917-73
(Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1980).
Criticism
M. J. MacManus, Eamon de Valera, A Biography (Dublin Talbot [1944];
reps. to 1947, &c.), 378pp, ded. for Seán O’Sullivan;
index [with add. epilogue relating de Valera’s riposte to Churchill’s
‘hour of need’ speech]; Frank Pakenham [Lord Longford], Peace
by Ordeal: The Negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, 1921 (1935;
rep. 1972, 1993); M[ary] C Bromage, de Valera and the March of a Nation
(NY: Noonday Press 1956;1967); Lord Longford [Frank Pakenham] & Thomas
P. O’Neill, Eamon de Valera (London: Hutchinson 1970; rep.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1971) [infra]; reviewed
by Padraig Ó Snodaigh, Éire-Ireland, 6, 1 (Spring
1971), pp.136-38];
Patrick Keatinge, ‘The Formative Years of the Irish Diplomatic Service’,
Éire-Ireland, 6, 3 (Autumn 1971), pp.57-71; Denis Johnston,
‘Did you know Yeats? And did you lunch with Shaw?’, in Des Hickey
and Gus Smith, eds., A Paler Shade of Green (London: Leslie Frewin
1972), pp.60-72 [infra]; David Thompson, England
in the Twentieth Century [2nd ed., rev. by Geoffrey Warner], Pelican
History of England 1914-1979 (Harmondsworth Penguin 1981) [infra];
T. Ryle Dwyer, Eamon de Valera (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan 1980);
Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, and J. J. Lee, The Age of de Valera
(Dublin 1982); John Bowman, de Valera and the Ulster Question (OUP
1982) [infra]; D. George Boyce, Nationalism in
Ireland (London: Routledge 1982; new edn. 1991) [infra];
J. P. O’Carroll and J. A. Murphy, eds., de Valera and His Times
(Cork UP 1986), [incl. Gearoid Ó Crualaoich, ‘The Primacy
of Form: A Folk Ideology in de Valera’s Politics’, pp.47-61];
Colm Toibín, Walking along the Border (London: Macdonald
1987), p.67 [infra]; Brian Farrell, ed., de Valera’s
Constitution and Ours (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989); Basil Chubb,
The Politics of the Irish Constitution (Dublin: Institute
of Public Administration 1991) [nfra]; Joseph Lee,
‘The Irish Constitution of 1937’, in Seán Hutton &
Paul Stewart, eds., Ireland’s Histories, Aspects of State, Society,
and Ideology (Routledge 1991), p.80ff. [infra];
T. Ryle Dwyer, de Valera: The Man and The Myths (Swords: Poolbeg
1991); Brian Kennedy, ‘Interview with Sean O’Faolain’,
Cork Review (1991), p.4-6 [infra]; Tim
Pat Coogan, de Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow (London: Hutchinson
1993; rep. Arrow 1995) [infra]; Roy Foster, Paddy
and Mr Punch (London: Penguin/Allen Lane 1993) [infra];
Pauric Travers, Eamon de Valera (Dundalk: Dundalgan 1994), 64pp.;
Fintan O’Toole, ‘Broken Dreams’, Irish Times (26
Aug. 1995), [infra]; T. Ryle Dwyer, Big Fellow,
Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins and de Valera (Dublin: Gill
& Macmillan 1998); T. P. Coogan, review of T. Ryle Dwyer, Big Fellow,
Long Fellow, in Irish Times (19 Dec. 1998), [infra];
Robert Brennan, Ireland Standing Firm [and] Eamon de Valera:
A Memoir (Dublin: UCD Press 2002), pp.182 [Brennan was Irish Minister
in Washington]; Mark O’Brien, De Valera, Fianna Fáil and
the Irish Press (Dublin: IAP 2001), 304pp.; Gabriel Doherty &
Dermot Keogh, eds., De Valera’s Irelands (Cork: Mercier Press
2003), 192pp.
See also F. X. Martin [foreword,] The Howth Gun-Running and the Kilcoole Gun-Running 1914 (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1964); J. J. Lee, Ireland 1912-1985 (1989); Norman McQueen, ‘Eamon de Valera and the League of Nations, 1919-1946, Éire-Ireland, 17, 4 (1982), pp.110-27; also Francis M. Carroll, Money for Ireland: Finance, Diplomacy, Politics and the first Dáil Éireann Loans 1919-1936 (NY: Praeger/Eurospan 2003) 200pp. Family autobiographies incl. Terry de Valera, A Memoir (Currach Press 2004), 368pp.
[ top ]
Commentary
Lord Longford & Sir John Wheeler-Bennett,
eds., The History Makers, Leaders and Statesmen of the 20th
Century; chronologies [by] Christine Nicholls (Sidgwick & Jackson
1973), 448pp, ills. [Contents incl. Clemenceau to Nasser, the essay on
Lloyd George being by APJ Taylor]. DE
Longford and Thomas O’Neill, Eamon de Valera (London 1970).
Mary C. Bromage, de Valera and the March of a Nation (London 1956).
Denis Gwynn, de Valera (NY 1933).
David T. Dwane, The Early Life of Eamon de Valera (Dublin 1922).
M. J. MacManus, Eamon de Valera (Dublin 1947).
Patrick McCortan [sic], With de Valera in America (NY 1957).
(Lord Longford & Thomas O’Neill, de Valera, 1970), p.297.
Des Hickey & Gus Smith, eds., A Paler Shade of Green (London: Leslie Frewin 1972, pp.60-72; p.68.)
David Thompson, England in the Twentieth Century [2nd ed., rev. by Geoffrey Warner], Pelican History of England 1914-1979 (Penguin 1981), pp 71, 178.
John Bowman, de Valera and the Ulster Question, 1917-1973 (Oxford: Clarendon 1982).
T. Ryle Dwyer, Eamon de Valera (1980).
D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (London: Routledge 1982; new edn. 1991).
Basil Chubb, The Politics of the Irish Constitution (1991).
Joseph Lee, ‘The Irish Constitution of 1937’, in Seán Hutton & Paul Stewart, eds., Ireland’s Histories, Aspects of State, Society, and Ideology (Routledge 1991), p.80ff.
T. Ryle Dwyer, de Valera: The Man and The Myths (Swords: Poolbeg 1991).
Sean O’Faolain, Interview with Brian Kennedy, Cork Review, 1991, p.4-6).
Tim Pat Coogan, de Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow (London: Hutchinson 1993).
Roy Foster, Paddy and Mr Punch (1993).
Fintan O’Toole, ‘Broken Dreams’, Irish Times (26 Aug. 1995).
J. F. Kennedy, Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy (Washington 1995), reviewed in Irish Times, 20 July 2002, p.8.
John McDonagh, ‘“Blitzophrenia”: Brendan Kennelly’s Post-Colonial Vision’, in Irish University Review, (Autumn/Winter 2003).
Theodore Hoppen, Ireland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity, 1989, p.186).
C. Smyth, Ireland’s Physical Force Tradition Today Lurgan, 1989, p.8.
Anthony Alcock, Understanding Ulster, Lurgan 1994, p.29.
D. Macardle, The Irish Republic, p.371.
Peter Costello, The Heart Grown Brutal, 1977, p.238).
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 1991, Vol. 3, p.743ff.)
Conor Cruise O’Brien, Ancestral Voices, Religion and Nationalism in Ireland, Poolbeg 1994, pp.129, 130.
Donal O’Sullivan, The Irish Free State and the Senate (London: Faber & Faber 1940, p.258.)
Anthony Cronin, Heritage Now: Irish Literature in English, 1982, p.[7].
Terence Brown, Ireland, A Social and Cultural History, 1981, p.146
Hickey and Doherty, eds., Dictionary of Irish History, 1979, p.125.
C. L. Dallat, ‘The rise of the novel as a critique of de Valera’s Ireland’, Times Literary Supplement, 27 Sept. 1996, p.21.
David Cairns & Shaun Richards, Writing Ireland, colonialism, nationalism and culture, Manchester 1988, p.133).
Basil Chubb, The Politics of the Irish Constitution, 1991, p.27
Joseph Lee, Ireland 1912-1985, Politics and Society, Cambridge UP, 1989, p.48.
D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland, 1982, p.343.)
Conor O’Clery ‘America’ [column], The Irish Times, Sept. 21 2002, p.13.
Keogh and Litton, ed., The Constitution of Ireland, 1988, p.59. [Chubb, op. cit., p.28].
D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland, London: Routledge 1982, p.22.
Fintan O’Toole, ‘Blessed Among Brothers’, The Irish Times, Weekend feature, 5 Oct. 1996.)
Robert Key, The Green Flag, 1972, p.611.
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Notes
Cathach Bks (Catalogue No. 12) lists Peace and War: Speeches on International Affairs [n.d]; Mary C. Dromage, de Valera and the March of a Nation, (Lon. 1956); Ireland’s Stand: Being a selection of the speeches of Eamon de Valera during the war 1939-45 (Dublin 1946); David T. Dwane, Early Life of Eamon de Valera (Dublin 1927) [port.]; M. J. MacManus, A Biography [1st ed.] (Dublin 1944). [
Hyland Catalogue, No 220 (Jan. 1996) lists Peace and War: Speeches on International Affairs (1944) [rep.]. Hyland No. 224 notes that there is a portrait of de Valera by Elizabeth Rivers, in London Mercury No. 222.
W. B. Yeats wrote, ‘Am I a great Lord Chancellor [...] Or am I
de Valera, / Or the King of Greece, / Or the man that made the motors?
/ Ach, call me what you please! / Here’s a Monenegrin lute [...] [‘The
Statesman’s Holiday’, Collected Poems, Macmillan, 1933
/ , p.389].
W. B. Yeats voted for de Valera in 1932, and met him to ensure that the Abbey subsidy continued; struck by de Valera’s honesty and simplicity; wrote to Olivia Shakespear that ‘It was a curious experience; each recognised the other’s point of view so completely.’ (27 Feb. [1934]; Wade, ed., Letters, p.820, cited in A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats: A New Biography, 1988, p.314).
Fr. O’Flanagan, brother-in-law of Eamon de Valera, Vice-President of Sinn Féin, attempted negotiation with Lloyd George without consent of the Republican cabinet, and fell out of favour. (See Hilary Pyle, Estella Solomons, Patriot Portraits, 1966; incls. a portrait of O’Flanagan.]
Ireland’s reputation: de Valera, as incoming Prime Minister [recte Taoiseach], informed the Dáil in April 1933 that he had told the Abbey directors that certain plays (meaning Synge and O’Casey’s) would damage the good name of Ireland. (See Frank Tuohy, Yeats, 1976, p.194.)
Anthony Cronin begins Heritage Now: Irish Literature in the English Language (Dingle: Brandon 1982) with an essay to which is prefixed a paragraph-length epigraph from a speech of Eamon de Valera according a grudging place to ‘Anglo-Irish Literature’ in 1933.
In ordering the IRA to lay down arms in 1923, de Valera addressed his command to the ‘Rearguard of the Republic’; see also Francis Carty, Legion of the Rearguard (London 1934) [accounts of Collins, Brugha, de Valera, &c.].
Jonathan Bardon, History of Ulster (1992), ‘recounts Sir James Craig’s journey to Dublin to meet de Valera, together with his recollection: ’after half an hour, de Valera ‘had reached the era of Brian Boru. After another half hour he had advanced to the period of some king a century or two later. By this time I was getting tired. … fortunately, a fine Kerry Blue entered the room ..’ [Bardon, 480]. Further, de Valera reported on his side, ‘I must say I liked him’ (Bowman, de Valera and the Ulster Question 1917-1973, Oxford, 1982, p.47; cited in Bardon, op. cit., [q.p.].)
Michael D. Higgins, The Betrayal, poems (1990), title poem, ded. ‘for my father’, contains disparaging lines on de Valera.
Nelson Pillar, O’Connell St., Dublin, blown up by the IRA, reputedly elicited from de Valera the remark that ‘Nelson left Dublin by air.’ (Cited in Thomas Flanagan, ‘Dublin, Ghost and Voices’, in The Sophisticated Traveler (n.d.’; ?Autumn 1995), pp.16-34.
Abbey launch: The Abbey Theatre, designed by Michael Scott, was officially opened in Dublin by Eamon de Valera on 18 July 1966. (See “Highlights of Recent Years”, in The Irish Times, 13 Jan. 2004.)
Special Position: Article 44 of the Irish Constitution [Bunreacht na hEireann], authored by de Valera himself, ‘recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the Citizens’.
Letters sold: A collection of 17 letters from de Valera to his wife between 1911 and 1920, sold by auction at Sale at Tara Towers Hotel; Report in The Irish Times, 25 Nov. 2000.
Stolen Letters: Irish Emigrant (Galway) reports that 18 letters written by Eamon de Valera to his young wife Sinead between 1911 and 1920 and held by a family in England were due to be auctioned in Dublin early in December 2000 when the gardai seized them as having been stolen from the de Valera’s at Cross Ave. (Blackrock) in a burglary about 25 years ago. The unnamed vendors appear to be an innocent party in the matter. (http://www.emigrant.ie; 18th Dec. 2000.)
Portraits: Among many others, chiefly photo-ports., there is a portrait by Seán O’Sullivan, 1931 [NGI]; the standard biography, arl of Longford and Thomas P. O’Neill, Eamon de Valera (1970), has been superseded by the more critical account in T. P. Coogan, The Long Fellow (1993).
Gerry Gallivan’s play Dev (Dublin: Co-Op Books 1978, 76pp.) was first performed at Project Arts Centre in 1977.
Tom McIntyre’s burlesque novel The Charollais (1969) figures de Valera as ‘Dee La Veera’.
Lloyd George complained that talking with de Valera was like ‘trying to pick up mercury with a fork’, to which de Valera responded, ‘why didn’t he use a spoon?’ (Cited in Tony Canavan, review of Conor O’Clery, Ireland in Quotations: A History of the Twentieth Century, 1999; in Books Ireland, Dec. 1999, p.358.)
Terence de Valera (usu. “Terry”), a younger son and the father of Síle de Valera, published a memoir in 2004.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)