SINN FEIN LEADER.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 1, 1 January 1921, Page 5

SINN FEIN LEADER.

DE VALERA'S RETURN.

LANDED IN IRELAND. (By Cable.— Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 10.30 a.m.) NEW YORK,- December 31. Mr. Harry Boland, secretary to Eamonn de Yalera, -'President o"f the Irish Republic." announces that de Yalera has landed in Ireland.—lA and N.Z. Cable.) A SECRET DEPARTURE. WHERE IS THE SINN FEIN LOAN? (Received 1.30 p.m.) NEW" YORK, December 31. The announcement of De Valera's arrival in Ireland does not mention how the Sinn Fein chief journeyed. He d.d not apply for -i pass-port though he crossed in a liner's crew. * De Yalera disappeared three weeks age His secretary emphatically denied that he had returned to Ireland, stating that he was merely seeking a rest. His prolonged absence, however, caused several Irish organisations to inquire what had become of the two or three million dollars which De Yalera had raised in. the L'nited States by bond subscriptions during his year's stay.

The -secretary insists that secrecy was necessary to avoid De Yalera's apprehension by the British, but in view of hints from London that De Yalera would not be molested, it is thought he has returned to enter into negotiation-, with the fßritlsh Government.—-(A. and N.Z. Cable.)

De Yalera has spent a year ; n the United States, which he visited n connection with the Republican propaganda, srA more particularly with the effort to float a Sinn Fein loan. He was one of the few active Sinn Fein leaders who escaped the penalty of death after the Easter Week rising in Dublin in 1915, where in the disposition of battle he was commandant of the ringside area. As picturesque a figure as the romantic Countess Markievicz, he was condemned, like her, tc penal servitude for life, an_L like her, released in the general amnesty to Sinn Fein prisoners.

De Yalera's Irish patriotism appears to be all the more intense by reason of the fact that he was born in New York, and that his father. Vivian de Yalera, was a Spaniard. His mother, however, whose maiden name was Kate Coll. came from County Limerick. America did not hold Eamonn long, as at the age of two he was taken to Ireland and dwelt with his mother's folk. As he grew to boyhood lie took every advantage of the somewhat limited schooling available, and afterwards went to Blackrock College, where he was esteemed as much for his athletics as his scholarship. From Blackrock he gained a mathematical science scholarship for the National University. Mathematics is not romantic, but it had an overpowering attraction for the romantic De Yalera. A more violent passion than mathematics, however, seized upon him when he took up the study of the Gaelic tongue. It became with him an obsession, which was not lessened by his marriage in 1910 to Miss S. OTlannigan, one ■*>{ the most capable and enthusiastic propagandist member of the Gaelic League. De Yalera joined the Irish Volunteers when they were first formed, and later, when the split occurred, took sides with the intransigeants against the constitutional body, the 1.N.V., which followed John Redmond. Gaelic was then put aside as a central interest, and De Yalera took up military matters with the fiercest energy. A friend and pupil of his, one of the most distinguished of the younger Dublin poets, says of De Yalera at this time:—

'He mastered all the science of war in a very few months. He used to discuss military operations with mc with the eagerness of a child, and at home he would spend hours studying tactics with chessmen as soldiers." ITie same friend adds: 'Tersonally, Eamonn is the most child-like and urbane of men. I could not conceive him hurting anything or anyone wantonly. Like all the other leaders nurtured in Gaelic League idealism, Ireland is to him not so much a country as a religion, for which a man should shrink from no sacrifice. Eamonn de Valera is thirty-four years of age. In appearance*he has the "ivory sallowness and deep, passionate eyes of his Spanish descent. He is very tall, very I muscular, and full of nervous vitality."