Judging W.T. Cosgrave by Michael Laffan (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews Judging W.T. Cosgrave, Michael Laffan (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2014), 340 pages. Introducing this well-researched, sympathetic but fair-minded biography of W T Cosgrave, Michael Laffan describes the Irish Free State’s founding father as ‘one of the forgotten figures of Irish history’. A search on the Royal Irish Academy’s Irish History Online supports this claim, despite Cosgrave’s tenure as one of the longest-serving heads of government in inter-war Europe.1 The bibliographical website lists only eighteen titles on Cosgrave as a historical subject; these include three biographical studies but – strikingly – no full-length academic biography. In contrast, it lists 238 works on Éamon de Valera and, despite his short career, 139 publications on Michael Collins. Cosgrave has also left a light imprint on the public consciousness. Laffan sees, as symbolic of his neglect, the recent discovery of a lost Seán Keating portrait of the politician among a roll of forgotten paintings. While Laffan regrets the overshadowing of a figure central to the history of the independent Irish State, his study illuminates many of the reasons for Cosgrave’s fate, including his unassuming persona, lack of charisma, intellectual and political limitations, and now-unfashionable social and ideological outlook. Indeed, some of these limitations can be discerned from Keating’s undistinguished portrait, particularly when juxtaposed with his contemporaneous heroic portrayal of firemen, hurlers and Aran islanders. Keating’s biographer, Éimear O’Connor, suggests that the artist’s depiction of Cosgrave epitomised ‘his dissatisfaction with those that he felt didn’t even have the pretence of being interested in culture’, as well as his wider disappointment at the failure of the Irish revolution to produce a more progressive society.2 Cosgrave’s modesty, even temperament and solid leadership style also counted against him, provoking little of the divisiveness or passions which de Valera’s name still conjures. An accidental leader, he had none of the will to power or self-aggrandising preoccupation with his place in posterity that renders de Valera such a tricky but compelling biographical subject. Unlike his more successful nemesis (who was aged ninety and blind when he finally departed Áras an Uachtaráin as the world’s oldest head of the state), Cosgrave appearedsanguinewhendepartingpubliclifein1944.Heturneddownappeals to run for the presidency in favour of an unpretentious retirement consisting Studies • volume 106 • number 421 113 Spring 2017: Book Reviews of simple pleasures such as reading the Irish Independent, breeding cows, equestrian pursuits and religious devotions as an altar server and member of the Legion of Mary. Born into a comfortable Dublin family in 1890, Cosgrave shared much in common with other members of the radical minority who came to form the revolutionary generation. Considered a ‘good steady boy’ at the Christian Brothers’ school where he boarded, his first display of militant nationalism came in 1900 when he opposed Queen Victoria’s visit to Dublin. A serial-joiner of nationalist bodies, and early supporter of Sinn Féin, he was elected to Dublin Corporation in 1908. Conscientious and pragmatic, Cosgrave succeeded in forging connections with the (publican and landlorddominated ) Redmondite majority in the corporation despite his advanced nationalist politics. His reputation for efficiency and integrity saw him retain a prominent role as chair of its influential finance committee following the collapse of electoral support for Sinn Féin by 1915. He was therefore unusual among the revolutionaries of the first Dáil in having considerable experience of elected office and public administration. Joining the Irish Volunteers – but not the IRB – Cosgrave fought bravely with Éamonn Ceannt at the South Dublin Union, despite personally considering the Easter Rising an act of ‘madness’. After 1916, he would pursue a political (rather than military) path to independence, even if, at political meetings in later life, he enjoyed forcing republican hecklers to admit that they had never fired a gun for Irish freedom. Reprieved from a sentence of death, he was released from prison in June 1917, and elected a Sinn Féin MP for Kilkenny City following a by-election two months later. As Minister for Local Government during the War of Independence, when he strived to reform local government and Poor Law administration, he...