Bertie not in the same league as his party founder on the world stage
Politicians making promises are not usually very inspiring, and this was all the more apparent in his case because he was only promising to increase our overseas development aid in seven years’ time.
It is not as if the UN does not have serious problems now. The United States and Britain trampled on the UN charter in going to war in Iraq, and the UN itself has been discredited and demoralised by a massive scam that involved the secretary general’s son.
In relatively similar circumstances Eamon de Valera had the world sit up and listen. Yet the 30th anniversary of his death passed virtually unnoticed on August 29.
Some reviled the Long Fellow as a blind visionary who clung to office too long. In doing so he robbed Seán Lemass of the chance of coming to power at an age at which he might have had an even greater impact. Lemass was certainly one of our best Taoisigh, but he was past his prime before he came to power, and his time at the helm was therefore limited.
People frequently argue that de Valera should have quit after losing the 1948 general election. This would have given Lemass longer to display his enormous talents. Yet the chances were that he would never have been Taoiseach if de Valera went in 1948 because Seán MacEntee was a much more likely successor then.
MacEntee would probably have been a disaster. His dreadful performance as Minister for Finance from 1951 to 1954 destroyed his chances of ever becoming Taoiseach.
It has become fashionable for ignorant commentators to deride de Valera’s record during World War II for supposedly pursuing a selfish neutrality that was blind to the moral issues at stake in the war. That ignores the fact that he secretly provided the Allies with all the help he could.
The British were denied the use of Irish bases, but de Valera argued that those would have been essentially useless to them. In time the British and Americans concluded that Irish bases would actually have been worse than useless because they would have handicapped the Allies, who would have been obliged to defend them even though they would have been of no naval value.
De Valera deserves even more credit for cementing the foundations of our democracy in the 1930s. In the period between the two world wars, the Irish Free State was one of the few countries with a Roman Catholic majority that did not turn to dictatorship and fascism.
Italy embraced Mussolini, Poland turned to Pilsudski, Hungary to Horthy, Austria to Dollfuss, Spain to Franco, and Portugal to Salazar. Those were all supposedly Catholic dictators, as was the worst tyrant of all, Hitler, who had his power base in Catholic Bavaria.
Of course, we had our own close call in this country. In 1932, Eoin O’Duffy, the man that Michael Collins chose as his chief of staff, sought to emulate Mussolini by trying to organise a coup d’etat to prevent Fianna Fáil coming to power. As Garda Commissioner, O’Duffy tried to interest colleagues in the coup, but fortunately his own force and the army would have nothing to do with his machinations.
When Cumann na nGaedheal and other critics of de Valera reorganised under the Fine Gael banner in 1933, they turned O’Duffy as their first leader. He then went whoring after the false god of fascism and became such an embarrassment that he was ousted. The next threat to our democracy came from the other side of the political spectrum, the so-called republicans, but de Valera came down on them like the figurative ton of bricks as they sought to align with Nazi Germany.
When de Valera made his first visit to the League of Nations in 1932 his government had inherited a seat on the council and it fell to him to deliver the opening address to the assembly, as the Irish Free State had the council presidency, which rotated every three months. There had been speculation about whether he would even bother to attend the session, but he confounded his critics not only by attending but also by delivering a forceful address that attracted enormous international attention.
UNLIKE the blather of Bertie’s address, glossing over the problems of the UN, de Valera spotlighted the League’s shortcomings and emphasised the need to strengthen the organisation in order to provide it with the necessary influence to achieve its worthy aims.
“Out beyond the walls of this assembly,” he said, “there is the public opinion of the world, and if the league is to prosper, or even survive, it must retain the support and confidence of that public opinion as a whole.”
The only effective way of silencing the criticism was to enlist the support of millions of apathetic people by showing the covenant was indeed “a solemn pact, the obligations of which no state, great or small, will find it possible to ignore”.
“No state should be permitted to jeopardise the common interest by selfish action contrary to the covenant,” de Valera continued, “and no state is powerful enough to stand for long against the league if the governments in the league and their peoples are determined that the covenant shall be upheld.”
While he did not mention Japan by name, there was no doubt he was alluding to the recent Japanese invasion of Manchuria when he talked of the necessity of ensuring no aggressor profited from aggression.
When he finished the assembly seemed dumbfounded. He sat down to “a stony silence unbroken by a single note of applause”, according to one widely circulated news agency report that appeared in the Irish Times, New York Herald Tribune, Manchester Guardian, and Daily Express. All gave the unmistakable impression that the speech had been strongly resented by the diplomats present. Despite those reports, the speech was actually well received by the diplomats. The gathering had apparently not realised that de Valera had finished for some moments, which accounted for the stunned silence at the end of his address. This silence was followed by a burst of genuine applause.
“In the lobbies the speech received nothing but praise,” the correspondent of the London News Chronicle noted. “It was the most candid piece of criticism that within my recollection any league chairman has ever dared to utter. Yet the speech was moderate in tone, entirely without bitterness and - indeed - indicative of the speaker’s sympathy with the work and aims of the league.”
The international press warmly applauded the speech. “This morning Mr de Valera made the best speech I ever heard from a president of the league,” wrote the correspondent of the London Daily Herald. “That is not only my own judgment. It is the opinion of almost every league journalist with whom I have spoken.”
The League of Nations had rarely heard such a speech. “It is Mr de Valera’s personal work,” the New York Times noted in a front-page report. “It unquestionably made him the outstanding personality of this session.”
While Dev said what needed to be said, Bertie said essentially nothing, and the international press ignored him.
