googletag.enableServices(); Éamon de Valera is a man that has enjoyed iconic status in the Irish history books for more reasons than being one of the Leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. Powered by, Badges  |  child and participated in the Easter Rising against British rule, Asquith to halt all the executions. As a consequence of their abject poverty, his Uncle Ned took him back to Ireland at the age of 2 years. (function() { His mother later re-married and had another son. Fianna Fail. Critics claim he did this to evade responsibility for the inevitable compromises it entailed. Éamon de Valera, the dominant political figure of Ireland’s 20th century, was an enigmatic figure to the end of his life. He was also president of Sinn Fein from 1917 to 1926 and was to become prime minister and president of an independent Ireland. } else { Political pressure was being brought to bear on Lt. Gen. Sir John Maxwell by Prime Minister H.H. Not having a scholarship to continue his education further, he had to leave to earn a living. During the Easter Rising, Éamon de Valera commanded the 3rd Battalion of Irish Volunteers at Boland’s Mill on Grand Canal Street in Dublin. The Irish Volunteers were formed for a number of reasons, not least to try and curtail the brutality of the British Military and the Metropolitan Police on the strikers of the 1913 lock out. One rebel commander, Éamon de Valera, refused to … He was immediately arrested and taken to a different prison than that of the other leaders. Eamon De Valera. The IRB secretly controlled the central executive of the Volunteers. He was told that De Valera was unimportant, and consequently, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. 3 Comments googletag.defineSlot('/111100742/home_leaderboard', [728, 90], 'leaderboard').addService(googletag.pubads()); He was born at the Nursery and Child's Hospital, Lexington Avenue, a home for destitute orphans and abandoned children. Now available to order from Waterstones Book Stores USA ; England / Ireland, Tags: 1916, Dublin, Easter, Freedom, IRA, Irish, Rising, Struggle, Share !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); However, his death sentence was commuted to penal servitude almost immediately after his court martial. He was born in New York in 1882 to a Irish mother and a Spanish father. During the Rising, he was commandant at Boland’s Bakery; following the surrender he was court-martialled and sentenced to death. document.write('googletag.defineSlot(\"\/111100742\/home_2nd_sidebar\", [180, 150], \"sidebar2\").addService(googletag.pubads());'); His was the most formative influence on the development of the new state. What building did the rebels take as their headquarters during the Easter rising? This page has been archived and is no longer updated. document.write('