De Valera- An Enigma of History

The jury is still out on Eamonn De Valera.
That is certain.

As De Valera himself said, when history made it's judgement, it would favour Michael Collins at his expense.
And that certainly seems so.
The Ireland that might have been, had Collins not perished in County Cork in the dieing days of the Irish Civil War.

An Ireland where the strong leadership of Collins kept the victors of the Civil War in power, where Fianna Fail never emerged, where the Free State triumphed permanently over Republican idealism, which may have fought side by side with Britain in World War II.

We can never know. And it suits many to imagine that history would have been happier in the Emerald Isle, had it been Dev, not the Big Fella who copped it in 1922.

For De Valera is the face of twentieth Century Ireland.
Sole surviving Republican Commander from the Easter Rising.
President of the Provisional Government.
Figurehead of the Anti-Treaty forces in the Civil War.
The author of the Constutition of the Irish Republic.

Taosaich for twenty six years.
President for fourteen.

For half a century, Ireland was mesmerised by De Valera.

This little anecdote always sums it up for me.
During the thirties, De Valera was driving through County Clare, when his tyre blew. He went to the boot to get the spare and a local farmer who was passing stopped to help.

Cars and suits being an oddity in the area, the farmer asked if Dev was 'One of those Dublin fellas up for the election.'
Of course, there was no TV in those days, cinemas were a rarity, even radios not over common in the West of Ireland.

Dev replied that the farmer could say that, he supposed.
The farmer spat into the road 'Well, you needn't have bothered. We're all for De Valera round here.'

He had that effect. He was a name, a legend, the torchbearer of Ireland's soul. He was Cuchulainn, he was Wolfe Tone, he was Moses all rolled into one, with the souls of the dead signatories of the Easter proclamation somehow imbued within him.



It's not fashionable to admit to admiring him, but if asked who I think was the greatest politician I can think of, it's De Valera I name. The man was canny.

The man LOST a civil war, then won power democratically and proceeded to overturn that loss. Fifteen years after the end of the Civil War, Ireland was indeed a republic. And to be fair, there was a lot could have gone wrong when Fianna Fail won the 1932 election. The IRA were ready to evict the Free State Garda from their police stations. But Dev refused to allow it. Dev preserved the rule of law.

And, bearing in mind that the troubles and the civil war were so recent, Ireland could have gone the way much of Europe did. Both the IRA and the Blueshirts marched the streets. Whatever is said about Dev, he did resist the urge to make himself a dictator.

Not that he needed to. Ireland was quite happy to obey.
And I guess this is what is held against him. For under him, Ireland was a very draconian place, not much better than South Africa in some ways; harshest censorship laws in the world, the Magdalen homes, protectionism, etc.
And people forget that whilst Catholics had a hard time in the six counties, Dev's Ireland was definitely a land where Irish Protestants felt the cold.

One can feel a certain sectarian pride in Dev's proclaiming 'We have a Catholic Government for a Catholic people', but it certainly didn't help cross border relations.

Of course, history will judge him hardest for his actions in the war. People forget that in reality, Dev gave a fair bit of assistance to the Allies, though arguably, he had little choice. The Germans weren't a threat to Irish neutrality, whereas Churchill always made clear if Dev became a real thorn in his side, he could expect troops to appear.

But where Dev really made a faux pas, was in visiting the German embassy in 1945, to offer condolences for the death of the German Head of State.
Diplomatically correct, I suppose, for a declared neutral country.

Except this wasn't just another Head of State...

And yet.
Would Ireland be the strong, proud, wealthy Ireland of today if Dev hadn't proved to the world, that Ireland, even with her richest counties severed from her, could go it alone?
Did not Dev make Ireland a nation once again?
Did he not get Irish men and women to define their Irishness, before deciding when he'd gone which bits they wanted to keep, and which bits not?

Ireland has finally removed itself from his shadow and tipped him off his pedestal.
But maybe, just maybe, it may erect one for him again, one day.