THE IRISH LEADERS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3451, 29 November 1932, Page 2

THE IRISH LEADERS

MR. E. DE VALERA. He was christened Edward de Valera, but the Gaelic revival transformed him into Eamon, and that is the name by which the world knows him. The President of the Irish Free State is also the leader of the Fianna Fail, the Republican Party, which, like so many other parties before it, is discovering that time will produce organisations that stand farther to the Left. Mr. de Valera's appearance is familiar to most people. He is tall, gaunt, angular, with a mop oi untidy hair. He possesses a voice which is curiously attractive at first, but which quickly becomes monotonous, its limited range and uniform level of tone being a burden to the listener. Yet this man, despite a series of events which would have wrecked the career of many another politician, retains his hold on authority in the Irish Free State. By what means is this accomplished? Mr. de Valera's secret is his personal magnetism. He draws people to him and holds them. Yet it is significant that quite a number of those closely associated with him in the past dislike him and distrust him intensely. Sixteen years ago he was a professor of mathematics in a training college, employing his spare time in studying the Irish language and "playing at soldiers" with the Irish Volunteers. For a moment in the Easter of 1916 that play became grim earnest, and as a Commandant of the insurgents he rose from obscurity. The execution of some of the leaders left him a prominent survivor in a lost cause, and when the Sinn Fein movement swept the country Mr. de Valera found national leadership thrust upo'n him. He has never forgotten this and has never been willing to relinquish the role.

MR. W. T. COSGRAVE

"William T. Cosgrave is the realist of the Irish Free State," wrote an American journalist once, and it is true. Mr. Cosgrave, with General Richard Mulcahy, carried on after the youthful general, "Mick" Collins, was killed by an Irregular's bullet ten years ago. Much has happened in Ireland since then, and from these many events the figure of Mr. Cosgrave emerges as a man of considerable stature. Complete unselfishness, devotion to his country, and untiringeffort have marked this workaday philosopher who is destitute of theories but ever at grips with the facts.

It is rather curious that Mr. Cosgrave should be the man to save the Free State. Ireland's leaders have often been men of emotional instability, very different from the patient administrative type of a Gosgrave. He has little 0/ that appeal which enables Mr. de Valera to sway a crowd with a sweep of his long, lean arm. Some of the victories which Mr. Cosgrave has gained in his electorate have been narrow. He is rather an idealist, and in family and career he is the man of affairs. Before the fighting which led to the information of the Free State he was a greengrocer and licensed victualler. One of his brothers-in-law was the famous "Bird" Flanagan, known to all Dublin as "The Bird." And Mr. Cosgrave himself contributed to the family name for waggishness. He once rode on horseback to the Gresham Hotel and up a flight of stairs, and his favourite trick was to get a policeman to chase him on suspicion of having stolen a ham. When he was 29—23 years ago —he was a member of the Dublin Corporation, and by 1915 he was chairman of its Finance Committee. He became a lieutenant of Irish Volunteers when the fever of nationalism began to spread, and he was one of the leaders of the thousand men who took up arms at Easter, 1916. He was sentenced to death by a British Court, but the sentence was lated commuted to imprisonment, and finally he was released. He entered Parliament on the Sinn Fein ticket, was a member of Mr. de Valera's first "Cabinet," and when Collins and Griffith split with Mr. de Valera over the Treaty, Mr. Cosgrave was one of its defenders. Then came the sudden death of the two treaty leaders, ten days apart, and Mr. Cosgrave was left with the fight on his hands.