Eamon de Valera, orig. Edward de Valera, (born Oct. 14, 1882, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Aug. 29, 1975, Dublin, Ire.), Irish politician and patriot. Born in the U.S. to a Spanish father and an Irish mother, at age two he was sent to live with his mother’s family in Ireland when his father died. In 1913 he joined the Irish Volunteers and in 1916 helped lead the rebels in the Easter Rising. He was elected president of Sinn Féin in 1917. Repudiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 that formed the Irish Free State because it imposed an oath of allegiance to the British crown and provided for the partition of Ireland, he supported the republican resistance in the ensuing civil war. In 1926 he founded Fianna Fáil, which won the 1932 elections. As taoiseach (prime minister; 1932–48), he rescinded the features of the treaty that he and many others found repugnant, and under the new constituion of 1937 he made his country a “sovereign” state renamed Ireland, or Éire. He proclaimed Ireland neutral in World War II. After twice serving again as prime minister (1951–54, 1957–59), he became president of Ireland (1959–73).
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