arry off our manhood. Here was the first great demand on de Valera as the leader of the nation. He it was, more than any other man, who saved our country from a holocaust. There was a union of parties, to which the hierarchy lent its utterly invaluable moral aid, and the whole nation was pledged to resist the English aggression. We do no injustice to John Dillon, the leader of the Parliamentarians, if we affirm that it was de Valera’s will and skill that made the union of powers what it was: an unbreakable obstacle to our enemies’ design. A “German plot” was trumped up, and de Valera and others were carried off into fresh captivity; but the organised nation now was able to defy the threat against it. Conscription was abandoned.
Hence, when the general election was held at the end of the world war, the Sinn Fein movement, the Volunteers, and Eamon de Valera the leader of both, were acclaimed by the nation that they had saved in its darkest hour. The Republic swept the polls; and in January, 1919, Dáil Eireann was established.
II.—THE REPUBLIC IN BEING—1919-1921
The Republic which had been proclaimed in Easter Week, 1916, by a handful of heroes, now was erected by the nation’s vote. The first Declaration of Independence was proclaimed. A Government was set up to which the people yielded loyalty with pride and joy, and the struggle to make foreign rule in Ireland untenable began.
The policy of the Republican Government was that laid down by Sinn Féin in earlier days, which may be defined most briefly as Non-cooperation and the progressive voluntary development of an Irish State. Very soon, armed action was proved unavoidable. Crown forces harried national figures, national activities. Arms were seized, meetings attacked, Volunteers struck back. War rapidly developed between the Constabulary and the patriot forces; and Dáil Eireann, at the insistence of President de Valera (as he was now) took over responsibility for the acts of the Volunteers as the army of the Irish Republic. The Black-and-Tans were brought to Ireland to smash the Republic by terrorism. Cathal Brugha, as Minister for Defence, supported by Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, waged war with such courage, tenacity and skill that all the King’s horsemen and the King’s men could not restore administration in our island. In America, Eamon de Valera sought the recognition of the Irish Republic not with complete success, but with such a large measure of support that England’s difficulty in repression was intensified. He returned to Ireland as the hunted President of a State that the people recognised as stubbornly as the English refused its recognition. The Black and Tans burnt down Cork. In Brixton jail MacSwiney died, the hero of all who love liberty throughout the earth. Erskine Childers wielded the weapon of propaganda with such remarkable skill that British consulates everywhere found their work embarrassed, impeded, often frustrated; and the Empire was brought into difficulties such as it never had known.
In the midst, therefore, of the glorious Summer of 1921, the British premier, Lloyd George, ate his words about “taking the last gun from the last gunman,” and sought a truce. President de Valera came out of hiding, and the Dáil met in the open for the first time since the meeting at which it was established.
When the Truce was signed by General Macready, the Republican army retaining its arms, England tacitly recognised our belligerent rights, but a battle of diplomacy followed in which it was Lloyd George’s aim to subvert our people’s faith in themselves and our leaders’ courage and unity.
This battle began with an offer of limited Dominion Home Rule. The offer was made to President de Valera in the normal way of negotiation, but General Smuts published it to the world, rushing into an affair that was not the concern of any African. The Dáil met, and the President announced the Irish Government’s answer. “We reject the terms,” he said, and he went on to explain to the vast audience that packed the Round Room, and to the world beyond it, that Ireland had 