Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power

Description

Éamon de Valera is the most remarkable man in the history of modern Ireland. Much as Churchill personified British resistance to Hitler and de Gaulle personified the freedom of France, de Valera personified Irish independence. From his emergence in the aftermath of the 1916 rebellion as the republican leader, he bestrode Irish politics like a colossus for more than fifty years. On the eve of the centenary of the Irish Revolution, one of Ireland's most eminent historians explains why Éamon de Valera was such a divisive figure that he has never - until now - received the recognition he deserves. This biography reconciles an acknowledgement of de Valera's catastrophic failure in 1921-22, when his petulant rejection of the Anglo-Irish Treaty shaped the dimensions of a bloody civil war, with an appreciation of his subsequent greatness as the statesman who single-handedly severed the ties with Britain and defined nationalist Ireland's sense of itself. Earn on de Valera Contents List of Illustrations Éamon de Valera’s Homes in Blackrock Introduction From Bruree to Blackrock The Greening of Edward de Valera Éamon de Valera and the 1916 Rising The Assumption of Power, 1916-19 Mission to America, 1919-20 1921 : War and Peace Catastrophe A Glass Wall The Path Back to Power The Attainment of Independence, 1932-8 Independence Affirmed: Neutrality in World War II De Valera’s Ireland Marking Time, 1948-59 Last Laps, 1959-75 Conclusion References Select Bibliography Acknowledgements Index