Quotes About De Valera

When Fitzgerald saw it he pointed out that it might be construed as meaning that de Valera was opposed to the settlement. He was surprised and puzzled, because at that stage, he, like a lot of other people judging de Valera on his published statements, regarded him as a moderate.

de Valera summoned a Cabinet meeting of the members available in Dublin and announced that he was calling for the resignations of the three absent members, Collins, Barton and Griffith. Cosgrave stood up to him, saying he ought to wait to see what the three had to say first.

Barton 'strongly reproached the President'79 and said the whole situation had arisen because of de Valera's 'vacillation'. He had had his chance of going to London and had refused.

De Valera was back to his old tactic of taking an extreme course while sounding moderate.

It was a 'revelation' to Childers to discover that de Valera was not thinking of appealing to moderate opinion.

The debate lasted for thirteen days of private and public sessions during which de Valera behaved as if he were motivated, not by precepts of Republicanism, but by notions of the divine right of kings. One commentator has written: 'Whenever the President wanted to say something he seemed to act almost as if he had a right to determine his own procedure.'87 In all he interrupted the proceedings more than 250 times.

However de Valera got his way with the private session suggestion. He had two major objectives in following this course. One, he wanted Dail approval for the sort of draft treaty he felt should have been signed. Secondly, he returned to the charge of signing without permission:

With Collins gone the major political personality left in the Free State was on the other side, de Valera.

de Valera had better fortune in efforts to regain power. His pacific arguments of August had not found acceptance. A line more likely to secure extremist support was again espoused with such success that by January 1923 he had regained influence once more with the Republican military leadership to a point where he was in a position to draft a statement for Liam Lynch rejecting peace proposals.

De Valera had also been active. He subjected deputies who announced their intention of voting for the Treaty to inquisitions for their threatened lèse-majesté.

Once in power, taking advantage of Britain's preoccupation with the Abdication crisis, de Valera introduced a more sectarian, but republican-sounding, Constitution which abolished the Oath and the Governor General, and stands to this day.

Most of the group escaped the fighting, de Valera getting away in a Red Cross ambulance

De Valera concerned himself with four issues during his protracted stay in America: the raising of money; the securing of recognition of the Irish Republic; the defeat of the League of Nations; and the recognition of himself as the supreme spokesman and arbiter of policy on Ireland by the leaders of the existing Irish-American organisations.

Collins was willing to go to war, but as Griffith, de Valera and Figgis correctly divined, the public was not, and it would take several more months of repression and British policy blundering before the shooting of detectives and officials could be countenanced.

Collins wrote to the Freeman, protesting at the slur on de Valera. But the gesture had no effect on the Great Adamantine. For although, as one of the pro-Treaty members of the Committee, Joseph McGuinness, said in the Dail afterwards, 'the people on this side literally went on their knees to President de Valera to try and preserve the unity of the country

Although a procedural agreement between the pro- and anti-Treaty sides before the debate had given the last word to Griffith, de Valera tried to have the final say by making a melodramatic declaration that the 'document would rise up in judgement