Cosgrave, Irish Free State’s First P.M., Dead

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30916, 24 November 1965, Page 16

Cosgrave, Irish Free State’s First P.M., Dead

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyrißht; DUBLIN, Nov. 23. William Cosgrave, the first Prime Minister of the Irish Free State —o nee sentenced to death by the British—died recently at the age of 85. A British court martial imposed the death sentence on him after he had fought in the 1916 Easter rising of the Irish nationalists, but he was reprieved and the sentence commuted. He became first chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State when it was set up in 1922 after the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty. He was a member of every Cabinet from then until Mr Eamon de Valera’s Fianna Fail party came to power in 1932.

He retired from politics in 1944, to become chairman of the Irish Racing Board. He was a founder member of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party, and his son, Liam Cosgrave, is present leader of that party of the Opposition in the Republic’s Parliament. Death and Murder Mr Cosgrave was first elected to the Presidency because of a death and a murder, the Associated Press said. He was Minister of Finance in the Provisional Government in 1922 when President Arthur Griffith went to London for negotiations.

Mr Griffith died suddenly on August 12 and Michael Collins was chosen to succeed him.

Just 10 days later, Mr Collins was slain in a roadside ambush and the Dail (Parliament) elected Mr Cosgrave behind locked doors in a building ringed with guards. Mr Cosgrave commanded the garrison of the Dublin workhouse in the Easter Rebellion and a British court martial sentenced him to death. Sentence Commuted

An Irish major sentenced with him was executed, but Mr Cosgrave’s sentence was commuted to life in prison. A general amnesty in 1917 freed him.

A pioneer in the Sinn Fein movement, Mr Cosgrave was prominent in the struggle for Irish independence from Britain but remained a man who preferred compromise to force. This pitted him against the ultra-nationalists led by Eamon de Valera, now President of Ireland.

In 1918 Mr Cosgrave was elected in Kilkenny to serve in the House of Commons even though he was still a “prisoner of war” in Wales at the time. He did not take the seat. Instead he sat in the Dail, voted for the Irish Republic and served in the illegal government's first four cabinets When the Irish Cabinet split over an agreement with Britain in 1921 that was to lead to the Free State, Mr Cosgrave’s vote was decisive in

approving the treaty. Mr de Valera’s followers rejected anything short of total independence. Although Mr Cosgrave and Mr de Valera had once been intimate friends, the treaty set them apart and Mr de Valera rallied his followers to resist.

While Mr de Valera’s forces were in the field, Mr Cosgrave acted both as President and Minister of Defence. Angry nationalists burned his

home in the Dublin suburbs and he and other Ministers lived under guard. Mr de Valera finally brought his followers into the Dail in 1927 and five years later he succeeded Mr Cosgrave as the republic’s ’chief executive by a vote of 70-66 in Parliament. Mr Cosgrave continued to lead his opposition party until 1944 when he retired because of ill health after 35 turbulent years in politics.