Valera, Eamon de (1882–1975), pre‐eminent leader in post‐independence Ireland. Born in New York but brought up in Limerick, de Valera studied mathematics at the Royal University. In 1908 he joined the Gaelic League and remained dedicated to the Irish language. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and during the rebellion of 1916 commanded the 3rd Battalion at Boland's Mill. Sentenced to death, de Valera was reprieved partly because of his American birth.

On his release from prison in 1917, de Valera was elected MP for East Clare and became president of both Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers. In 1918 he and other Sinn Féin leaders were arrested for complicity in an alleged German plot. He escaped from Lincoln jail in February 1919 and was elected president of the first Dáil. In June 1919 he went to America and raised over $5 million for the republican cause but failed to obtain American recognition for the republic. His visit also led to a bitter power struggle with the leaders of the Irish‐American movement, John Devoy and Judge Cohalan.

After his return from America in December 1920, de Valera's relationship with Michael Collins, who had effectively masterminded the IRA campaign in his absence, came under strain as differences emerged over the conduct of the Anglo‐Irish War. These were accentuated when de Valera decided not to lead the Irish delegation that negotiated the Anglo‐Irish treaty. There have been two opposing interpretations of this decision. The more hostile view is that he allowed Collins to take the responsibility for what he knew would be a partial surrender. His own explanation was that by staying in Dublin he could better preserve national unity and ensure general acceptance of any agreement reached.

De Valera rejected the Anglo‐Irish treaty and resigned as president following its acceptance by the Dáil. In the run‐up to the Civil War, he found himself sidelined by more hardline opponents of the treaty, who distrusted his alternative of external association, while attracting fierce criticism from pro‐treaty supporters for his inflammatory speeches. After civil war broke out in June 1922, his attempts to maintain a republican political organization were rebuffed by the republican military leaders, particularly Liam Lynch. Lynch's death enabled de Valera to reassert some control and in May 1923 the war ended. In August 1923 he was arrested and spent a year in jail.

After his release, de Valera became increasingly dissatisfied with Sinn Féin's political abstention and in 1926 he formed a new party, Fianna Fáil. In 1927 he reluctantly took the oath of allegiance and entered the Free State Dáil. He spent much of the next five years building up the party organization to a formidable machine and establishing a newspaper, the Irish Press.

Fianna Fáil's election victory in 1932 marked the beginning of sixteen years in power during which de Valera was both prime minister and minister for external affairs. Policies of promoting smallscale tilage farming and industrial development behind high tariff walls, reinforced by the Economic War, reflected the traditional nationalist goal of economic self‐sufficiency. On the political front, de Valera saw off the threat from both the Blueshirts and the IRA and in 1937 his new constitution was enacted. In foreign affairs de Valera achieved some notable successes. The Economic War was concluded in 1938 on very favourable terms and at the League of Nations de Valera was president of both the council and the assembly.

During the Second World War Irish neutrality caused friction with the allies but had overwhelming popular support. After the war, the economy and emigration were serious problems. During 1948–51 and 1954–7 Fianna Fáil lost power to interparty governments. Fianna Fáil won the 1957 election with a big majority, and in the last two years of de Valera's political career the First Programme for Economic Expansion was implemented. In 1959 he resigned as taoiseach and ensured the succession for Lemass. He served two terms as president 1959–73.

With the opening of private and public archives since the 1970s, many aspects of de Valera's complex political legacy are being reassessed. There is his role in the Civil War and his relations with the other republican leaders; the development of Fianna Fáil and his own record as a master of political tactics and strategy; his relations with his cabinets; the drafting of the 1937 constitution; church–state relations, which were often less harmonious than has been assumed; the economic and social policies pursued by his ministers, and in particular a reassessment of the 1950s as a watershed decade in post‐independence Ireland; the failure to make progress towards either of his cherished aims of ending partition and restoring the Irish language.

No satisfactory biography of de Valera has yet appeared. Lord Longford and T. P. O'Neill, Eamon de Valera (1970) is an official biography, to be used with care.

Deirdre McMahon

Eamon De Valera

The Irish revolutionary leader and statesman Eamon De Valera (1882-1975) served as prime minister and later president of Ireland (1959-1973).

Eamon De Valera was born in New York City on October 14, 1882. In 1885, after the death of his Spanish father, he was sent to live with his Irish mother's family in Country Limerick. He graduated from the Royal University of Ireland in 1904 and became a mathematics teacher.

De Valera was an ardent supporter of the Irish language revival movement and also became a member of Sinn Fein and the Irish Volunteers. After the failure of the 1916 insurrection, he became the senior surviving rebel leader when his death sentence was commuted because of his American birth. Released by the British government in 1917, he was acclaimed in Ireland as the leader of the revolutionary independence movement. He became president of the Irish Republic established by the separatists after their victory in the election of December, 1918. In June, 1919, De Valera traveled to the United States, where he won much sympathy and financial support for the Irish cause. He returned to Ireland in December, 1920, as the guerrilla war with Britain was moving into its final phase.

De Valera accepted British proposals for a truce in July, 1921, and sent a delegation to London to negotiate a peace settlement. The British refused to accept his compromise plan for an Irish republic in external association with the British Empire and offered instead dominion status for Ireland, with the right of exclusion for loyalist Northern Ireland. In December, 1921, the Irish delegates accepted these terms, believing them to be the best obtainable without further war. De Valera, however, denounced the treaty as a betrayal of the republic which would mean continued subjection to Britain. Despite his protests the Republican Parliament, Dail Eireann, approved the treaty by a small majority in January, 1922. Continued dispute over the settlement led to civil war in June, 1922, and supporters of the new Irish Free State defeated the Republicans in May, 1923.

Prime Minister

After the civil war De Valera led the Republican opposition to the pro-treaty government of William T. Cosgrave. In 1926 he broke with the extreme Republicans and founded a constitutional opposition party, Fianna Fail, which entered the Dail in 1927. Fianna Fail won the 1932 election, and De Valera formed a government which lasted for 16 years.

As prime minister, he removed the last remaining restrictions on Irish sovereignty imposed by the treaty. His refusal to continue payment of land-purchase annuities to Britain led to an economic war between the two countries, which enabled him to pursue plans to make Ireland more self-sufficient economically. His government also extended social services, suppressed extremist threats to the state, and introduced a constitution in 1937 which made the Free State a republic in all but name. In 1938 agreements made with Britain ended the economic war and British occupation of Irish naval bases retained under the treaty. De Valera was unable, however, to end the partition of Ireland.

De Valera had been a strong supporter of collective security through the League of Nations, but he maintained a policy of neutrality, with overwhelming popular support, throughout World War II. In the postwar period Fianna Fail alternated in power with two interparty governments, the first of which formally established the Irish Republic in 1949. Returned to office with a decisive majority in 1957, De Valera retired from active politics in 1959, when he was elected president of the republic. He was reelected in 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of his entry into Irish political life. Failing eyesight troubled him from the 1930s onward and left him almost blind before his retirement from active politics in 1973. Concurrently, he held the post of Chancellor of the National University of Ireland from 1921 until 1975. He died on August 30, 1975.

The wisdom of De Valera's policies has been widely disputed but not his unequaled impact on Irish life in the twentieth century. The charismatic appeal of "Dev" was firmly based on his understanding of the outlook and way of life of a large section of the Irish people and on his fellow citizens' great respect for his ability, austere dignity, and idealism.

Further Reading

The most complete biography is Eamon de Valera (1970) by the Earl of Longford and Thomas P. O'Neill, written with the full cooperation of the subject. Background histories of Ireland include Timothy Patrick Coogan, Ireland since the Rising (1966); Desmond Williams, ed., The Irish Struggle, 1916-1926 (1966); and T. W. Moody and F. K. Martin, eds., The Course of Irish History (1967). A feature film released by Warner Bros. in 1996, Michael Collins, covers early twentieth century Irish political history and includes a character representing De Valera. □

Eamon De Valera , 1882-1975, Irish statesman, b. New York City. He was taken as a child to Ireland. As a young man he joined the movement advocating physical force to achieve Irish independence and took part in the Easter Rebellion of 1916. He was sentenced to life imprisonment (escaping execution because he was a U.S. citizen) but was released under a general amnesty in 1917. Elected that same year a member of Parliament and president of Sinn Féin , De Valera was arrested again in May, 1918. However, he escaped from prison (Feb., 1919) and went to the United States, where he raised funds for Irish independence. In the meantime he had been elected president of Ireland by the Dáil Éireann , the revolutionary parliament that had declared the country independent. In 1920, when he returned to Ireland, the country was in a state of virtual war against British rule. In 1921 the British government opened the negotiations that led to the establishment of the Irish Free State. De Valera, however, repudiated the final treaty because it excluded Northern Ireland and required Irish officeholders to swear allegiance to the British crown. He resigned from the Dáil in Jan., 1922. Nominal leader of the republican intransigents, De Valera greatly deplored the period of civil war that followed. He maintained his opposition to the government, however, and did not enter the Dáil with his party, Fianna Fáil , until 1927. In the general election of 1932 his party gained control of the Dáil, and De Valera became head of the government. He immediately abolished the oath of allegiance and refused to pay land annuities to Britain. A tariff war followed that was not ended until 1938. In 1937, De Valera introduced a new constitution declaring Ireland a fully sovereign state. He kept Ireland neutral throughout World War II, refusing to let the British use southern Irish ports and vigorously protesting Allied military activity in Northern Ireland. Fianna Fáil was defeated in the election of 1948, but De Valera returned as prime minister with independent support (1951-54) and with an absolute party majority (1957-59). Hampered by failing vision, in 1959 he moved to the less demanding office of president of the republic, to which he was reelected in 1966. He retired in 1973.

Bibliography: See his speeches edited by M. Moynihan (1980); biographies by F. P. Longford and T. P. O'Neill (1971), O. Edwards (1988); C. Younger, A State of Disunion (1972); J. O'Carroll and J. Murphy ed., De Valera and His Times (1986).

De Valera, Eamon (1882–1975), Eire's Taoiseach (prime minister) and minister for external affairs from 1932 to 1948, and president of the League of Nations from 1932.

The Irish Free State was officially proclaimed in 1922, and when De Valera came to power ten years later he distanced his country from the UK though, wanting reunification with Northern Ireland (see UK, 4), he remained within the British Empire. However, when war came he declared Eire's neutrality; refused the British use of the treaty ports whose return to Irish control he had negotiated in 1938; introduced severe measures against the Irish Republican Army; and persuaded the British government to withdraw conscription in Northern Ireland. Throughout the war he resisted British, and later US, pressure to join the Allies. But despite sending congratulations to Subhas Chandra Bose on the formation of his Japanese-sponsored Provisional government of Free India, and expressing his condolences in person to the German ambassador in Dublin when Hitler committed suicide, he was essentially pro-Allied and allowed the British many concessions.

Bibliography

Longford, Earl of, and and O'Neill, T. , Eamon de Valera (London, 1970).

Eamon de Valera see De Valera, Eamon .