Amon De Valera

Éamon de Valera is the most remarkable man in the history of modern Ireland. Much as Churchill personified British resistance to Hitler and de Gaulle personified the freedom of France, de Valera personified Irish independence. From his emergence in the aftermath of the 1916 rebellion as the republican leader, he bestrode Irish politics like a colossus for over fifty years. On the eve of the centenary of the Irish revolution, one of Ireland's most eminent historians explains why Eamon de Valera was such a divisive figure that he has never until now received the recognition he deserves. This biography reconciles an acknowledgement of de Valera's catastrophic failure in 1921-22, when his petulant rejection of the Anglo-Irish Treaty shaped the dimensions of a bloody civil war, with an appreciation of his subsequent greatness as the statesman who single-handedly severed the ties with Britain and defined nationalist Ireland's sense of itself.

Eamon de Valera has often been characterised as a stern, un-bending, devious and divisive Irish politician. Diarmuid Ferriter challenges this caricature using letters, documents and photographs. This book chronicles the extraordinary career of the most significant politician of modern Irish history.

From the host of RTÉ's Primetime and author of The Reluctant Taoiseach, the widely acclaimed biography of John A. Costello, Rise 1882-1932 is the first volume of a major two-part reassessment of the man who shaped modern Ireland. Eamon de Valera is the most single most consequential Irish figure of the twentieth century. He was a leader of the Easter Rising, the figurehead of the anti-treaty rebels during the dark days of the Civil War and later, as the founder of Fianna Fáil and President of Ireland, the pivotal figure in the birth of the Republic. While de Valera the statesman, the rebel, the visionary, has passed over into a sort of myth, de Valera the man remains an elusive, almost opaque presence. Precious little is known of his background, his motivations - the roots, in short, of his ferocious devotion to a very particular brand of Irish nationalism. Here, in the first part of a major two-volume reassessment, historian and broadcaster David McCullagh considers the man behind the colossal achievements. McCullagh sketches a ground-breaking portrait of de Valera, his times and his complex, ever-shifting legacy. The concluding volume of this work, Rule 1932-1975, will be published in autumn 2018. 'De Valera can elicit hostility or, worse, gullibility in historians. McCullagh avoids these faults: dispassionate, comprehensive and the best exploitation yet of the voluminous de Valera archive.' John Bowman, historian and broadcaster. 'Combines the investigative skills of an experienced journalist with the detachment of an accomplished historian. This vividly readable and at times gripping biography tackles head-on all of the perennial de Valera controversies, including his parentage, his role in the 1916 Rising, his relationship with Michael Collins, his responsibility for the Civil War and his subsequent rise to power, and does so with acuity and objectivity. A comprehensive, mature biography, both enlightening and entertaining.' Maurice Manning

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Packed with violence, political drama and social and cultural upheaval, the years 1913-1923 saw the emergence in Ireland of the Ulster Volunteer Force to resist Irish home rule and in response, the Irish Volunteers, who would later evolve into the IRA. World War One, the rise of Sinn Fin, intense Ulster unionism and conflict with Britain culminated in the Irish war of Independence, which ended with a compromise Treaty with Britain and then the enmities and drama of the Irish Civil War. Drawing on an abundance of newly released archival material, witness statements and testimony from the ordinary Irish people who lived and fought through extraordinary times, A Nation and not a Rabble explores these revolutions. Diarmaid Ferriter highlights the gulf between rhetoric and reality in politics and violence, the role of women, the battle for material survival, the impact of key Irish unionist and republican leaders, as well as conflicts over health, land, religion, law and order, and welfare.

The relationship between the Fianna F���¡il party and the Irish Press, both founded by Eamon de Valera in an era of political revolution, has been much misunderstood. Blamed for causing the bitter civil war and isolated in its aftermath by the political establishment, de Valera took what seemed the only course of action and founded his own political party and newspaper. In the aftermath of independence, nation building began with both Fianna F���¡il and Fine Gael competing to influence the process as much as possible. The Irish Press gave voice to de Valera's vision for Ireland and Irishness, and defended it from its detractors, namely the Fine Gael party, providing him with a means to counter hostility in the media, orchestrated particularly by the Irish Independent and the Irish Times. The author gives a fascinating view of the war of words between the two papers, their fight for rural readership and the role of Irish Press in bringing Fianna F���¡il to power. He explores the possibility of the Irish Press being de Valera, rather than, party-dominated and analyses the gradual disintegration of the relationship between the party and the paper as the de Valera family found itself gradually alienated from the paper's readers, a modernising Ireland and a changing Fianna F���¡il party.