"DEV"

"DEV" - the long fellow casts a long shadow!

Eamonn De Valera is a big name in my house. I grew up in a Fianna Fail Household, the party founded by “Dev” and to say it was a partisan upbringing would be not a million miles from the truth.

Fianna Fail is Gaelic for “Soldiers of Destiny”. Pronounced Feena fall, its longtime adversary was and indeed is Fine Gael (family of the Irish).

Fianna Fail has many faces, I suppose, to many people. To some they were ultra conservative, to others..ultra radical. Myself, I felt that the party was a populist party which until recently had not forgotten its roots basically the common people of Ireland. A center party with strong republican ideals.

Back in the seventies, my father became more involved in politics and I grew aware even more so of Dev & his legacy through my Grandfather Mick and from ‘my mother’s knee’ as the saying goes.

It was Fianna Fail Governments which instituted the great Drives in National Housing, Social security, Health, Education, Agriculture, Fisheries, Rural Electrification, National infrastructures. Huge bounds in eradicating TB were established by the Government and an Armagh man called Dr. James Deeny well before Noel Browne took credit for it in the first Inter-party Government.

My young mind then had not heard of “the cult of personality” but it was something very much a part of “the party”. The leaders were venerated. The links to 1916 always extolled.

As I sat in dusty party rooms during elections, I listened to the old party faithful describe the opposition (primarily “Fine Gael”) as blueshirts, west brits, and traitors (these were the nice names!) whilst the Labour party were treated with indifference mostly if nothing else. When I encountered the opposition’s old party faithful, they were equally as hostile, epithets like “Spanish Bastards” & “long fools” being thrown owing to the question of Dev’s parentage, name & height.

The legacy of the Civil war was still alive in those days, (the early 70’s) especially as the trauma of Northern Ireland unfolded. Dev was President at this stage. Alone in his house “in the park”. His party about to go into a 4 year hiatus as opposition before returning under Jack lynch to a huge majority. The previous “Fine Gael” led Government being associated with incredible hardship.

Anyway, I digress; the purpose of this commentary is to applaud “Dev” for a speech he made on the 16th of May, 1945. It is a wonderful retort to the Winston Churchill’s victory speech of three days earlier. Churchill simply has to be Statesman of the 20th century (in my book at least). When one considers titans like FDR, De Gaulle, JFK, Adenauer, Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Gorbachev, it is not a lightly given accolade but one has to admire the stance that He and Britain took against Hitler & his fascist hordes in the spring of 1940…In this cynical age, it is good to stop and think about the terrible sacrifice that the young men & women of the allies made in the defeat of a terrible evil.

On 13 May 1945, towards the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill in his Victory in Europe speech, broadcast to the world, was critical of Taoiseach Eamonn de Valera and Ireland's policy of neutrality throughout the war.

Churchill’s problem was with the Irish Government, not the people on this issue. The “master tactician” did not figure that Ireland joining the Allies would probably have prompted a German invasion, an invasion the British let alone the Irish could not have stopped. The German invasion of Greece and their airborne invasion of Crete showed they easily could have accomplished this fact. Churchill declared,

"Owing to the action of Mr. de Valera, so much at variance with the temper and instinct of thousands of Southern Irishmen who hastened to the battle-front to prove their ancient valour, the approaches and the Southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by the hostile aircraft and U-boats. This was indeed a deadly moment in our life, and if it had not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland we would have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera or perish forever from the earth."

Three days later, de Valera, in a much anticipated reply, outlined Ireland's right as an independent state to remain neutral. His response was praised widely in Ireland for its strength, dignity and restraint.

It is indeed fortunate that Britain's necessity did not reach the point when Mr. Churchill would have [invaded Ireland]. All credit to him that he successfully resisted the temptation which, I have not doubt, many times assailed him in his difficulties and to which I freely admit many leaders might have easily succumbed. It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards.

By resisting his temptation in this instance, Mr. Churchill, instead of adding another horrid chapter to the already bloodstained record of the relations between England and this country, has advanced the cause of international morality an important step-one of the most important, indeed, that can be taken on the road to the establishment of any sure basis for peace. . .

Mr. Churchill is proud of Britain's stand alone, after France had fallen and before America entered the War.

Could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time on returning consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul?

Mr. Churchill is justly proud of his nation's perseverance against heavy odds. But we in this island are still prouder of our people's perseverance for freedom through all the centuries. We, of our time, have played our part in the perseverance, and we have pledged ourselves to the dead generations who have preserved intact for us this glorious heritage, that we, too, will strive to be faithful to the end, and pass on this tradition unblemished.

Stirring stuff, eh?

I remember an old cartoon in “Dublin Opinion”, featuring the “Bould”, Winston sitting by the wireless which is emitting the words “that was An Taoiseach, Eamonn De Valera”. Winston, cigar in hand..(with the caption bubble from his mouth) saying “listen & learn”.

The fact remains that Ireland’s neutrality was a positive neutrality in favour of the allies, such as allowing downed allied airmen return to the UK whilst imprisoning German officers for the term of the war. Not to mention allowing Irishmen to join the allies. (De Valera had imposed a prohibition on Irish Nationals joining Franco’s forces in 1936 in the Spanish civil war).

Still, it is a wonderful response from “Dev” to a Statesman that the world truly owes a debt to. Churchill’s marshalling of his Country’s reserves in her darkest days is indeed a stirring epic which will be recounted in the centuries to come. The horrors of Nazi Germany were yet to be unveiled at the time of these statements.

The above is also a testimony to the schizophrenic relationship that Ireland has with England. The shared ties are paradoxically the ties that bind. The language, religion, heritages that are inextricably bound together like twisted vines around an old oak tree. These ties are fast disappearing as both nations take their place in the new Europe which ironically, actually seems to be bringing the nations closer together than ever before.

History is a poisoned chalice, we would do well to remember to never sip from that cup again.