Below is the text of a letter published in THE IRISH POST ON 13th OCTOBER 2012:
“Recently I discovered on You Tube a programme put out on BBC called Ireland’s Hated
Hero.
I was somewhat surprised that the subject was Eamon de Valera, for I can remember
the BBC’s Radio Newsreel report following Dev’s return to power in March 1957 when
Gerald Priestland referred to him as ‘A Freedom Fighter.’ The term was newly coined,
I believe by TIME, a crusading anti-Communist magazine, for those Hungarians who
rose against Soviet domination the previous October, and was considered a compliment
in the West.
I’ve been searching to establish exactly how ‘hated’ de Valera was.I found out that in
the 42 yeas between 1917 and 1959 he had been a Member of Parliament for a County
Clare constituency in the Province of Munster, having been returned on 16 consecutive
occasions. He had additionally, twice during those years been elected as an MP for
Mayo, in the Province of Connaught.
Following Partition in1921 “DEV” had simultaneously been elected to the “Northern
Ireland” Parliament, in the Province of Ulster as an abstentionist. From 1922 to 1929
he was Stormont MP for County Down and from 1933 to 1937 for South Down.
De Valera led democratically elected Governments on 10 occasions. The First followed
Sinn Fein’s landslide victory in 1918. The Second after that party’s landslide victory in
1921.
As leader of Fianna Fail, “DEV” led 8 Governments. So he was in power for 24 of the 42
years following his first standing for Parliament. He never entered into Coalition with
anyone.
During his tenure there were no “heaves” to replace him, and his colleagues were no
“yes” men, nor ciphers, but independent-minded revolutionaries.
When he left Office as Taoiseach, “DEV” did two successive 7 year Laps of Honour as
President of Ireland, having defeated strong candidates in yet two more democratic
elections.
So much for De Valera’s popular record in Ireland.
In 1932 while serving as head of the Irish Free State Government “DEV” acted as
the State’s Minister for External Affairs and attended League of Nations meetings
in Geneva. He was elected by the foreign delegates there as President of its Council
of Ministers. In 1938 Dev was elected as President of its Assembly. That may be some
indication of Dev’s appeal abroad.
But Dev didn’t court popularity in Geneva. He demanded that all its members honour
its Covenant to settle international disputes without violence and to protect its weaker members from aggression by stronger ones. He was prepared to supply Irish Defence
Force personnel to a League force if one was raised to defend Abyssinia from Aggression by the Fascists. He was labelled a firebrand by Anthony Eden for his offer.
Britain had her own way of making Mussolini pay through the nose for the Rape of
Abyssinia – into the coffers of the British owned Suez Canal for the passage of the
Rapists and their equipment through that waterway. Mussolini, a British agent since
1917, dubbed a Knight of the Bath by King George V in 1923 had Blueshirt admirers
in Ireland who attacked Dev for his ethical democratic stance.
Over 20 years before the eldest of the Beatles was born, De Valera was packing crowds
into sports stadia across the United States and was being given official receptions in the
capitals of many of those states and civic reception in their cities.
In 1938 The Illustrated London News published photographs of De Valera’s reception
at Euston Station which might well have been templates for IT’S A HARD DAY’S
NIGHT.
Crowds invaded the platform,climbed on the roofs of carriages, running on them holding
Tricolours aloft. I believe it was the occasion when Dev came to London for the agreement which saw the evacuation of Cork Harbour, Berehaven and Lough Swilley
by the British Forces.
No wonder Dev was so hated!
Tell us about the tyoe of people he met in New York and Chicago during the Irish war of independence, when along with Hattu Boland and others he helped obtain the means to fight the struggle? Were they all decent god-fearing, peaceful Americans?
*Harry Boland
typo in my last.
Did he intern and execute fellow Republicans?