Churchill's Connections

Éamon de Valera

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1882-1975
Irish politician

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

‘Dev’ or ‘the Long Fellow’ (because of his height) was a teacher, political activist, Irish taoiseach and Irish president (taoiseach, meaning ‘chief’ or ‘leader’, is the equivalent to prime minister and is pronounced approximately TEE-sharch, with ‘ch’ as in the Scottish ‘loch’) . Born in New York to a Spanish father and Irish mother, he moved to Ireland with his uncle when he was two years old. He narrowly escaped execution for his part in a 1916 insurrection against British rule. He opposed the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and founded the centre-right Fianna Fáil party. He was taoiseach on three occasions and president for 14 years, retiring at age 90. He viewed Churchill as a lifelong adversary.

2. Stories

  • De Valera’s birth in the USA was a factor in saving his life in 1916.
  • De Valera and Churchill opposed each other for over 30 years from a distance, not meeting face to face until 1953.
  • Churchill has been criticised for using violent ‘Black and Tan’ forces during the War of Independence, also called the ‘Tan War’ by some republicans.
  • Churchill and Lord Birkenhead developed surprisingly constructive relationships with Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins.
  • At the end of World War II, Churchill and de Valera engaged in a verbal spat over the airwaves.
  • Churchill lived in Dublin for four years as a young boy and inherited an estate in County Antrim, which became part of Northern Ireland on its formation four months later.
  • De Valera broke out of prison using a key and file smuggled inside a fruit cake.

De Valera’s birth in the USA was a factor in saving his life in 1916.

Catherine (‘Kate’) Coll was an immigrant to the USA from Limerick, southwest Ireland, and gave birth to a son in New York in 1882. There are two birth certificates, the first naming him George, the second Edward (the latter is a ‘corrected’ version). The first lists the father’s name as Vivion de Valero, his nationality as Spanish and his occupation as an artist; the second amends his surname to de Valera. There is some uncertainty about the parents’ marital details and there is scant information about the father who Kate said died in 1885. As a young man, Edward started using the name Éamon, the Irish version of Edmund, rather than Éadhbhard (Edward). He spelled it with one ‘n’ (Éamonn is more common) and the ‘de’ with a small ‘d’, sometimes adding an accent to his last name: ‘Valéra’.

After his father’s death, the young boy relocated with his uncle to Limerick where he was brought up by his maternal grandmother. He attended nearby schools and completed a maths degree at the Royal University of Ireland, becoming a maths teacher. He contemplated the priesthood but instead committed himself to political activism, joining the Irish Volunteers, a nationalist paramilitary organisation, in 1913.

He was convicted of taking part in the anti-British Easter Rising in 1916 but was one of the few leaders to escape execution, mainly due to delays in his trial, partly caused by queries by the US consulate in Dublin about his possible US citizenship. Others were executed promptly.

He was released in an amnesty in 1917 and became president of Sinn Féin which gained a majority in Ireland in the 1918 general election with an anti-British, republican stance. In 1919, he travelled to the USA for 18 months to promote Irish independence and raise funds, leaving Michael Collins, minister for finance, in charge.

The Irish War of Independence had broken out shortly before de Valera left for the USA and lasted two and a half years, ending in a ceasefire and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Collins was instrumental in the negotiations, in which Churchill and Lord Birkenhead participated, but de Valera repudiated the treaty, despite having authorised his plenipotentiaries to conclude it.

De Valera and Churchill opposed each other for over 30 years from a distance, not meeting face to face until 1953.

As secretary of state for the colonies in 1921 and 1922, it was Churchill’s task to implement the Anglo-Irish Treaty which he viewed as an appropriate compromise: the establishment of the Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire. However, De Valera resigned as head of state in January 1922, refusing to accept the ongoing British influence, and the country entered a year of civil war between pro- and anti-treaty forces, won by the pro-treaty side. Churchill’s memoirs record his disdain for de Valera’s opposition to the agreement and for de Valera’s lengthy airings of anti-British grievances.1

During Churchill’s wilderness years, he denounced de Valera’s systematic unpicking of the treaty following Fianna Fáil’s election victory in 1932, particularly the change of status of the ‘treaty ports’. Three deep water ports (Berehaven, Cobh and Lough Swilly) had been retained by the UK in case of future war, negotiated in the wake of the German U-boat campaign in World War I. Following damaging trade hostilities between the UK and Ireland in the 1930s, Neville Chamberlain transferred the ports to Ireland in 1938.

The loss of the treaty ports was again strongly criticised by Churchill during and after World War II, as was de Valera’s insistence on Ireland’s neutrality, although Ireland gave some tacit support for the Allies.* There was a flash point when de Valera visited the German embassy on Hitler’s death to express his condolences, particularly as he had not done so at the US embassy on Roosevelt’s death three weeks earlier.

After they met in 1953, Churchill commented, ‘A most agreeable occasion. I like the man.’2 The closest de Valera came to reciprocating was to say, ‘Sir Winston Churchill was a great Englishman’, immediately qualified by saying, ‘but we in Ireland had to regard him over a long period as a dangerous adversary.’3 De Valera was not invited to Churchill’s funeral, after the British ambassador in Dublin had indicated that he would probably not accept.

* There was some sharing of intelligence, for example. De Valera returned Allied aircrew that were downed in Ireland but detained German ones. When Belfast was bombed in April 1941, he sent the Dublin Fire Brigade to assist and protested to Berlin, saying that the Irish were one and the same people. Hitler was nervous about negative Irish reaction potentially bringing the USA into the war and discontinued attacks on Northern Ireland.

Churchill has been criticised for using violent ‘Black and Tan’ forces during the War of Independence, also called the ‘Tan War’ by some republicans.

Churchill is sometimes said to have ‘created’ the Black and Tans, ex-soldiers deployed as temporary police constables in Ireland from March 1920, but the idea was proposed in 1919 by Walter Long, a unionist politician and former head of the Budget Protest League. Churchill endorsed their use during a major shortage of manpower in the Royal Irish Constabulary (‘RIC’) when it was battling the Irish Republican Army (‘IRA’) in the War of Independence. The name came from the dark green (‘black’) RIC tunics and khaki (‘tan’) army trousers and was also derived from the ‘Black and Tans’ hunting pack of Kerry Beagles, named after their two-tone coat.

Most of the British cabinet, including Churchill, initially viewed the conflict as a result of criminal activity rather than as a war and so made it a police rather than a military matter. Soldiers unemployed after World War I responded to a recruiting campaign, with around 10,000 hired in total, including around 800 who were Irish born. Contrary to widespread belief, few had a criminal record.

Integration into the police force was poor and discipline disintegrated. The Black and Tans committed many atrocities including illegal killings and arson, sometimes as revenge for IRA attacks and sometimes randomly. Two other groups attached to the police, the ‘Auxiliaries’ and the ‘Specials’, also developed reputations for atrocities.

The violent behaviour was largely ignored in London. Prime Minister David Lloyd George maintained an aggressive political approach and Churchill was typically belligerent. Clementine tried to sensitise Churchill: ‘Do my darling use your influence now for some sort of moderation or at any rate justice in Ireland. […] It always makes me unhappy and disappointed when I see you inclined to take for granted that the rough iron-fisted ‘Hunnish’ way will prevail.’4

Faced with an ever-deteriorating situation, Lloyd George was eventually forced to commence negotiations for Irish independence. A ceasefire went into effect in July 1921 and the Black and Tans were discharged in 1922 except for around 700 who joined the Palestine Police Force.

Churchill and Lord Birkenhead developed surprisingly constructive relationships with Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins.

Collins was known as the ‘Big Fellow’ from childhood, for his boldness. He fought in the Easter Rising and was director of intelligence in the IRA from 1919. During the War of Independence he ran ‘the Squad’ (his ‘Twelve Apostles’) whose operations included assassinating 14 British MI5 officers in Dublin on the morning of 21 November 1920. In the afternoon, the Black and Tans opened fire at a Gaelic football match at Croke Park, Dublin, also killing 14, including a player. The day became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, as was a later confrontation in 1972. The British placed a bounty on Collins but he was never captured.

After the ceasefire in 1921, de Valera appointed Collins and Sinn Féin’s founder Arthur Griffith to negotiate the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The negotiators met one evening at Churchill’s London residence and Collins was in a foul mood, complaining about how he had recently been hunted day and night with a price upon his head. Churchill showed him a copy of a reward notice for his own capture during the Boer war (see Jan Smuts), saying: ‘At any rate it [yours] was a good price – £5,000. Look at me – £25 dead or alive. How would you like that?’5 (Equivalent prices are £260,000 and £3,400 today.) Collins laughed and their previously tense relationship improved significantly during the following discussions. After the treaty was agreed, Collins instructed an intermediary: ‘Tell Winston we could never have done it without him.’6

The participation of Birkenhead in negotiations was critical, indicating government compromise because he (like most Conservatives) had previously opposed any transfer of power. He too established a reasonable relationship with Collins. The day before the treaty signing, Collins wrote to a friend that he believed Birkenhead had committed political suicide, which was partly true, as some unionists never forgave him for what they saw as treachery. More poignantly, Collins wrote, ‘Think – what have I got for Ireland? Something which she has wanted these past seven hundred years. Will anyone be satisfied at the bargain? Will anyone? I tell you this – early this morning I signed my death warrant.’7 Eight months later he was shot dead in an ambush by treaty opponents.

At the end of World War II, Churchill and de Valera engaged in a verbal spat over the airwaves.

In a BBC broadcast on 13 May 1945, Churchill included a tribute to the many Irish people who had fought with the British in the war and contrasted them to de Valera. He blamed him directly for the closure of vital shipping lanes. If it had not been for Northern Ireland, Churchill said, ‘we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera or perish forever from the earth.’ He continued that Britain had shown great restraint in not using force against Ireland and instead had ‘left the de Valera Government to frolic with the German and later with the Japanese representatives to their hearts’ content’.8

De Valera’s response, much anticipated in Ireland, came three days later, on national radio. It was widely expected to be one of outrage but was instead calm and measured, with some withering passive aggression (he was a devotee of Machiavelli’s writings). Although his speech did not have as wide an audience as Churchill’s, it is considered by some to be his best in a long career, increasing his domestic popularity considerably. He couched biting criticisms in double-edged praise, borrowing from Churchill’s own themes.

‘Mr. Churchill is proud of Britain’s stand alone, after France had fallen and before America entered the War’, he said. ‘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?’9

De Valera was greeted with cheers when he left the radio studio. Churchill’s son Randolph said his father listened to the speech and ‘was very quiet for a long time after it was delivered’.10

Churchill lived in Dublin for four years as a young boy and inherited an estate in County Antrim, which became part of Northern Ireland on its formation four months later.

Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph, fell out with Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and was ostracised from London society.* Randolph moved to Dublin as personal assistant to his father, John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, who was viceroy of Ireland. Winston was two years old; his brother Jack was born in Dublin. They lived in a house in Phoenix Park, next to what is now the official residence of the Irish president, formerly inhabited by the viceroy. Winston’s first memories were of Ireland, including being concussed after falling off his donkey when it was startled by a passing political march: ‘This was my first introduction to Irish politics’.11

Churchill’s grandmother, the Duchess of Marlborough, was Frances Vane, daughter of Irishman Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry. Charles was born in Dublin, became a cavalry officer and helped to put down the Irish Rebellion of 1798. His Irish family seat was Mount Stewart in County Down. During the Great Famine of 1845, he appeared to be more concerned with its renovation than with famine relief but Frances was decorated by Queen Victoria for her efforts during the 1879 famine.

Charles Vane was born Charles Stewart but changed his name as a condition of his marriage to Winston’s great-grandmother, Frances Vane-Tempest, an Anglo-Irish heiress whose inheritances included an estate in County Antrim. As the result of her descendants having no children, the ‘Garron Tower’ estate in Antrim passed to Winston when his second cousin was killed in a train crash in January 1921, enabling him to finance his purchase of Chartwell. He sold some of the estate in 1931 and the last part in 1948.

Another of his relatives with Irish connections was his uncle, Moreton Frewen, who married Clara Jerome, sister of Winston’s mother Jennie. Frewen inherited a 3,000 acre (1,200 hectare) estate in Innishannon, County Cork in south-western Ireland which Churchill visited to see his cousin Clare (later Clare Sheridan), who sculpted Trotsky and was accosted by Mussolini. Frewen was briefly a nationalist politician representing North East Cork.

* Randolph tried to blackmail him in a dispute involving Randolph’s older brother: see George Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough.

De Valera broke out of prison using a key and a file smuggled inside a fruit cake.

Despite sounding like a cartoon plot, the file-in-a-cake method worked for de Valera in 1919. He and some of his colleagues were incarcerated in 1918 for allegedly conspiring with Germany in World War I, later shown to be a spurious charge. He was consigned to Lincoln prison in the East Midlands and became an active participant in the prison chapel. He made an impression of the chaplain’s master key using wax from the chapel candles. Seán Milroy, a fellow prisoner and amateur artist, drew a cartoon on a Christmas card showing himself locked out of his house with an oversized key, using measurements from De Valera’s wax impression. The card was sent to a sympathetic priest in Leeds who forwarded it to Dublin where it was seen by Michael Collins. The prison censors did not notice anything untoward.

Collins suspected that it included a hidden message but could not figure it out until receiving hints in further communications. A key was made and hidden in a cake, which was delivered to de Valera, without the prison finding the key. It was too small, however, as was a second, also smuggled in a cake. De Valera realised that the wax must have shrunk.

The next cake contained a blank key but it was the wrong type. Another blank was sent, with a file, in a heavy fruit cake, the contents again escaping detection. Fellow-prisoner Peter de Loughry, who was skilled in metalworking, made a master key which de Valera used to let himself and two others out of their cells one evening in February 1919. They made their way to the exercise yard, outside which were Collins and Harry Boland, another senior republican figure. Collins had broken his own makeshift key in the lock of the yard gate but de Valera managed to push it out from the inside and unlock the gate. They also had a rope ladder but it was not needed.

They made their way to a nearby pub, caught a taxi to Nottinghamshire, then another taxi to Sheffield from where they were taken to Manchester by car. They split up and reached Ireland by ferry in different disguises (de Valera as a priest). A week later, de Valera left for the USA and by the time of his return the other prisoners from the discredited ‘German plot’ had been released and he was not pursued by the authorities.

3. Biographical summary

OccupationTeacher, activist, politician
CountryIreland
CareerJoined Irish Volunteers (1913). Easter Rising commander (1916). Imprisoned (1916-17). President of Sinn Féin (1917-26). Elected Sinn Féin member of parliament (1918). Imprisoned (1918-19); escaped. Head of state (1919-22). Chancellor of the National University of Ireland (1921-75). Founder and leader of Fianna Fáil (1926-59). Leader of the opposition (1927-32). President of League of Nations Council (1932) and Assembly (1938). Minister for External Affairs (1932-48). Taoiseach (1937-48, 1951-54, 1957-59). President of Republic of Ireland (1959-73).
Born14 October 1882 in New York City, New York, U.S.; birth name George de Valero; amended on 1910 birth certificate to Edward de Valera
FatherJuan Vivion de Valero (later Valera) (c.1853-c.1885), Spanish sculptor, music teacher or artist
MotherCatherine ‘Kate’ Coll (1856-1932), nurse; from Bruree, Limerick; said to have married de Valera in 1881; married Charles Wheelwright, coachman, British, in 1888
SiblingsOnly child. Step-siblings by mother and Charles Wheelwright:
1. Annie (1889-1897)
2. Thomas (1890–1946), priest
EducationC.B.S. Charleville secondary school, Cork; Blackrock College secondary school, Blackrock, county Dublin; Royal University, Dublin (mathematics); Trinity College, Dublin (incomplete)
SpouseSinéad (birth name Jane) O’Flanagan (1910-1975), m. 1910 until her death; author of children’s books, Irish teacher (students included de Valera)
ChildrenFive sons, two daughters:
1. Vivion (1910–1982), politician, businessman, lawyer
2. Máríin (1912–1984), professor of botany
3. Éamon (1913–1986), professor of obstetrics and gynaecology
4. Brian (1915–1936), died in a horse accident, aged 20
5. Rúaidhrí (1916–1978), archaeologist
6. Emer (1918–2012), mother of nine children
7. Toirleach ‘Terry’ (1922–2007), solicitor
Died1975 in a nursing home in Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland (10 years after Churchill), aged 92; pneumonia, heart failure
BuriedGlasnevin cemetery, Dublin, Ireland
NicknameEddy/Eddie (as a child); Dev; the Long Fellow (due to height)
Height6’3” (1.91 m)
TIME magazineFront cover: 1932, 1940

4. See also

Churchill’s family connections with Ireland

  • Spencer-Churchill, John (7th Duke of Marlborough)
  • Spencer-Churchill, Lord Randolph
  • Sheridan, Clare

Other characters

  • Birkenhead, Lord (F.E. Smith)
  • Lloyd George, David

Churchill controversies

  • Anti-appeasement
  • Excessive force
  • Imperialism

5. Further reading

De Valera

  • Coogan, Tim Pat, De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow (Head of Zeus, 2015)
  • Fanning, Ronan, Éamon de Valera (Harvard University Press, 2016)

De Valera and Churchill

Churchill and Ireland

  • Bew, Paul, Churchill and Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2016)
  • Langworth, Richard M., ‘Churchill and the Myths of Ireland’, Richard M. Langworth, 2019
  • McNamara, Robert, The Churchills in Ireland: Connections and Controversies (Irish Academic Press, 2012)

Anglo-Irish war

  • Leeson, D.M., The Black and Tans: British Police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence, 1920-1921 (OUP Oxford, 2011)
  • Townshend, Charles, The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918-1923 (Penguin Books Limited, 2013)
  • Ward, Alan J., ‘Churchill and the Anglo-Irish War 1919-1922’, International Churchill Society, 2009

Miscellaneous

6. References

1 Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis Volume IV: 1918-1928: The Aftermath (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), p. 197.

2 Charles M.W. Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965 (Constable, 1966), p. 499.

3 Telegraph, ‘De Valera “Never Forgave Churchill”’, Telegraph, 2001 <>.

4 Winston S. Churchill and Clementine Churchill, Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, ed. by Mary Soames (Black Swan, 1999), p. 232.

5 Winston S. Churchill, Thoughts and Adventures, ed. by James W. Muller (Thornton Butterworth, 1932), p. 170. Some reports indicate that a figure of £10,000 was offered for Collins but the number Churchill reported was £5000.

6 Martin Gilbert and Randolph Churchill, Winston S. Churchill. Companion Volume 4, Part 1. January 1917 – June 1919 (Heinemann, 1977), p. 64.

7 Tim Pat Coogan, De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow (Head of Zeus, 2015), p. 279.

8 Winston S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963: Volume 7: 1943-1949, ed. by Robert Rhodes James (Chelsea House Publishers, 1974), p. 7158.

9 Coogan, De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow, p. 611.

10 Coogan, De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow, p. 612.

11 Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (Scribner, 1932), p. 2.