Cosgrave, William Thomas

Cosgrave, William Thomas (b. 6 June 1880, d. 16 Nov. 1965). President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State 1922–32 Born in Dublin, he attended the first Sinn Féin convention in 1905. He fought in Dublin in the Easter Rising of 1916, was captured, and sentenced to death (commuted to life imprisonment), but was released in the general amnesty in December. He was elected a Sinn Féin member for Carlow-Kilkenny to the first Dáil Éireann (the Irish Parliament, not yet recognized as sovereign) in 1919. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 which led to the autonomy of southern Ireland, as well as the creation of a separate Northern Ireland. He became President of the second Dáil in 1922, and succeeded Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government. In December 1922, he became effectively Prime Minister, as the first President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. He founded Cummann na nGaedheal (a pro-treaty political party), which he lead until 1933. In that year, he merged his party with two others to form Fine Gael, and Cosgrave became its president in 1935. He remained its leader (and therefore leader of the opposition to Fianna Fáil governments) until 1944.