NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... leaders of the Easter Rebellion, only he had survived. He was elected president of Sinn Fein. He was elected president of the Irish Volunteers. Everywhere he went people cheered him. Now de Valera threw himself completely in the struggle for Irish independence.
He set forth a strategy that, he was certain, would lead to victory. Meanwhile, British losses on the European battlefields of World War I had been climbing rapidly. In 1918, hoping to fill their badly depleted ranks with Irish soldiers, the British put into affect a program of conscription- a draft. The Irish refused to serve. Furious, Great Britain declared a state of martial law in Ireland. Soldiers known as "Black and Tans" because of the uniforms they wore were sent there to force the Irish to do their patriotic duty by serving in the British army.
One of the first acts of the Black and Tans was to arrest the leaders of the Irish resistance. Without even a trial, Eamon was thrown into Lincoln Prison in England. For nearly a year, he stayed in jail. Then, one day, during a Catholic religious ceremony, he saved the wax from a candle used in the service.
With that wax he made an impression of the prison passkey and managed to smuggle it to Michael Collins, another Irish leader. From that impression Collins had a key made, cleverly returning it to de Valera in a fruitcake disguised as a gift. On February 3, 1919, de Valera saw his chance. Using the key, he made a daring escape from prison.
In Manchester, England, he hid in the house of a priest. Then, pretending to be seamen, he managed to board a ship bound for Ireland. To avoid discovery, he hid below the decks between sacks of potatoes. While the police hunted desperately for him in England and Ireland, he made his way back to America. He got a job working as a coal stoker on a merchant ship. In a free election held in Ireland, the Sinn Fein party had won a tremendous victory.
It was decided to set up a dail (parliament) and to run Ireland as if British rule did not exist. Even though Eamon was not even in the country at the time, he was elected president of the assembly. Formal peace talks then followed, supposedly to bring a final settlement between Ireland and England. De Valera himself, decided not to go to these talks in London. He sent delegates. After nearly two months of talks the Irish delegates finally agreed to a treaty and signed it.
When de Valera saw the document he was furious. Under its provisions, the twenty-six largely Catholic counties of southern Ireland gained certain limited freedoms from British rule, while the six largely Protestant counties at the north were to have their own separate government. In effect, Ireland was partitioned- divided into two countries: the Protestant north, now know as Ulster, and the Catholic south, now called the Irish Free State. To de Valera and his followers, there could only be one solution- one Irish nation, completely united and completely independent of British rule. The result was civil war. In 1922 brutal fighting began.
For nearly a year the fighting continued. Thousands of lives were lost. By the spring of 1923, British troops had won the war, crushed the rebellion. During the following summer the British arrested de Valera, claiming that he was an agitator, stirring up the people. Without even trial, they threw him into prison again.
Still, de Valera refused to give up. On his release from prison in 1924, he started at once to organize those people who still dreamed of an independent Irish nation. He was again thrown in jail. This is when he realized that military force would not win Irish freedom, but clever politics might.
De Valera formed a new political party called the Fianna Fail (Soldiers of Destiny). As leader of the Fianna Fail he joined with the labor party to form a new government for the Irish Free State. For five years, from 1932 to 1937, he personally held the office of both president of the Cabinet and the minister for external affairs. Then in 1937, he took the new title of prime minister. By 1944, de Valera was so popular that Fianna Fail held twice as many seats in the Irish parliament as any other party. He also became the minister of education at this time.
The political situation then changed. By 1948, de Valera's party had lost its majority. It was defeated by a group of smaller, moderate parties headed by John A. Costello, who now became prime minister. The newly elected parliament soon voted to separate completely from the British Commonwealth, officially becoming "The Republic of Ireland" in April 1949. De Valera, growing old, refused to retire.
While out of office he traveled to America, to Australia, to India, always speaking eloquently on behalf of Irish unification. In 1951, he became prime minister once again, only to lose to Costello in 1954. In 1957, at age seventy-four, he once again won election as the leader of his nation. His victory came in spite of serious problems in the Irish economy, and as a result, the loss of many people through emigration to the United States and other countries. But age had begun to take its toll on Eamon. Despite a successful operation, his eyesight, which was never very strong to begin with, was all but gone.
He spent many hours alone with his wife, listening to the radio or having her read to him. In 1959 he resigned from the office of prime minister, serving in the largely ceremonial post of president. While holding that position, he visited the United States at the age of eighty-one, speaking to a joint session of Congress. Americans, he said, deserved thanks from the Irish people for having helped so much in winning freedom for that nation from British rule. But the task would remain unfinished, declared de Valera, until northern and southern Ireland at last were united. Whether the union would ever occur still remains unclear.
And de Valera must have known that it would not happen in his lifetime. In 1973 he and his wife retired to a nursing home near Dublin. And it was there, one year later, that she died. Then, on August 29, 1975, Eamon de Valera himself followed her to the grave. For nearly a century he was the dominant figure in Irish political life. Despite economic hard times, the continuing failure to unite the partitioned Irish nation, and the bloody violence of civil strife, de Valera remained a symbol of hope to the Irish nation.
To the editor of The Irish Echo, a newspaper published in the United States, Eamon de Valera ranked considerably higher then most people saw him. "He was probably the single Irishman who influenced history most in this century. " And that is no small tribute for a child born on the streets on New York into a life that appeared to offer little, if any, hope of success. WORKS CITED O'Brien Maire and Conor Cruise. A Concise History of Ireland. Thames and Hudson. London. 1972. Mac Manus Seems.
The Story of the Irish Race. Random House. New York. 1990. web web web web
Free research essays on topics related to: de valera, prime minister, elected president, british rule, sinn fein
Research essay sample on Sinn Fein De Valera
