De Valera, Eamon, << `dehv` uh LAIR uh, AY muhn >> (1882-1975), was a leader in Ireland’s fight to win independence. De Valera was born on Oct. 14, 1882, in New York City, of a Spanish father and an Irish mother. He spent his childhood in Ireland and became a leader in the unsuccessful Easter Rising in 1916. A British court sentenced him to death, but the sentence was changed to life imprisonment, partly because he was American-born. He was released in 1917. He was sent to prison again in 1918. While in prison, de Valera was elected to the British Parliament. Like all electoral victors from the Sinn Féin party, however, he refused to take his seat in Parliament. He escaped from prison in 1919 and returned to Dublin, where he was elected president of an Irish parliament. Later in 1919, he left for the United States on an 18-month fund-raising tour for the self-proclaimed Irish Republic.
In 1921, de Valera took part in negotiations with the British government that established the Irish Free State. But this settlement divided Ireland, and he opposed it. In 1926, de Valera quit as president of Sinn Féin because the party refused to recognize Dail Eireann (Assembly of Ireland), whose members had to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. He then formed the Fianna Fáil (Soldiers of Destiny) party, which won control of the government in 1932.
From 1932 to 1937, de Valera served as president of the Executive Council that governed the Irish Free State. In this position, he held powers similar to those of a prime minister. From 1937 to 1948, he was prime minister of the Irish Free State, which became the Republic of Ireland in 1949. He served as the republic’s prime minister from 1951 to 1954 and from 1957 to 1959 and was elected its president in 1959 and 1966. He died on Aug. 29, 1975.
