Book review: Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power

Ronan Fanning describes Éamon de Valera’s behaviour in the immediate aftermath of the Treaty as petulant, inflammatory, ill judged, and profoundly undemocratic. Ryle Dwyer says this is a fair and balanced assessment.

UNLIKE some of the earlier biographies of Éamon de Valera, Ronan Fanning seeks neither to deify nor demonise his subject. Instead he provides a lively account recognising his subject’s accomplishments and failures.

de Valera came to the fore during the Easter Rebellion. The author notes that he surrendered with his men, but he overlooks an important sequence. Before surrendering de Valera took a young British cadet to Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital and handed him over before surrendering himself to Captain Edo Hinzen of the British Army.