Éamon de Valera nearly became UCC professor before the Easter Rising

The shape of modern Ireland could have been very different if Éamon de Valera had not been pipped in his little-known application for a maths professorship at University College Cork three years before the Easter Rising.

The Ulsterman who pipped him to the post in 1913 later joined the British Army and was killed in action in France in July 1916. In the same year, de Valera avoided execution for his role as an Irish Volunteers commandant in the Easter Rising, owing to a mixture of the timing of his hearing, his US birth, and other factors.

Des McHale, emeritus professor of maths at UCC, said while it is well known that de Valera was mathematical in his thinking, few people realise he almost won the post as professor of mathematical physics at the university in 1913.