Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power by Ronan Fanning (review)

Abstract

Review Article Éamon de Valera: AWill to Power, Ronan Fanning (London: Faber & Faber, 2009), 320 pages. The majority is always wrong; the minority is seldom right’(Henrik Ibsen.) In mathematics the concept of elegance is important. The concept comprises elements of economy, directness, balance and superior judgement. It is art in the service of science or, put another way, it is that approach through which the beauty of logic approaches that of art. In these senses the late Ronan Fanning’s book on de Valera is elegant. Professor Fanning, who died in January this year, was an outstanding historian and public intellectual, and the author of, in addition to this biography, three well-received studies in twentieth-century Irish history. His earlier works included The Irish Department of Finance, 1922– 1958, Independent Ireland 1922–1948 and Fatal Path, a consideration of the extent to which British Government policy towards Ireland from1910–22 was driven by the ambitions, and jockeying for position of British politicians. He was an important member of the group which produced the Dictionary of Irish Biography and was a co-ordinating editor for the first nine volumes in the Royal Irish Academy series, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy. Although pre-eminently a ‘sources’ historian and a scholar of the archives, Ronan Fanning was also a formidable public communicator, willing to cross swords with senior politicians on history-related subjects such as the present round of national commemorations, of which he approved. He was willing, moreover, to put in context major political topics of the day. In mid-2016 he saw Brexit as the biggest threat since the Second World War to Dublin’s independent foreign policy. On occasion, he took issue sharply with journalist colleagues, for example, those of the Sunday Independent, regarding the Hume/Adams talks of the late 1980s. According to Michael Lillis, he played an influential advisory role vis-a-vis Garret FitzGerald and other Irish officials in the negotiations which led to the Carter initiative of August 1977. This first break in its traditional ‘hands-off’ policy was the basis for the constructive diplomatic role the US Government has played in Northern Ireland since then, especially under President Reagan and President Clinton. Studies • volume 106 • number 423 369 Autumn 2017 Review Article Fanning’s overall judgement is that de Valera is the most significant leader in the political history of modern Ireland and is incomparably its most eminent statesman, while remaining its single most divisive figure. This is not an original view: what is most impressive in it, however, is the concision, comprehensiveness and balance of viewpoints which go to make up the case. Particularly convincing are the facts and arguments chosen to illustrate de Valera’s attitudes to and positions on the Treaty negotiations and the Civil War; his thoughts and actions on Northern Ireland; his achievements in the drive towards full independence in the 1930s; the Second World War and neutrality; and, more generally, his attitude to Britain and British–Irish relations. This book also constitutes, as its subtitle implies, a meditation on power: winning it, retaining it and using it. In this respect Fanning covers de Valera’s personality and charisma, his energy, self-contained nature and self-confidence; his dominance of his ministers, party and supporters; and of course, his never-failing appetite for power. As early as 1921, when being inaugurated as Chancellor of NUI, de Valera used the telling phrase ‘the deedful lust of an Alexander’. Fanning also pays graceful tribute to Sinéad de Valera and occasionally even dares to sympathise with her. In what follows I look first at what Fanning considers de Valera’s most fruitful period as Irish leader, the decade and a half between 1932–48, and then, secondly and in greater detail, at the darker features of his legacy; his record in the 1921–23 period, and later in relation to Northern Ireland. In general, I find Fanning’s assessments fair and convincing, but I believe there are significant omissions in his treatment of de Valera’s activities concerning Ulster. According to Fanning, de Valera had a clear programme when he became President of the Executive Council and Minister for External Affairs...