Life
1882-1966 [var. 1882; see also John T. Kelly, poss. f.]; b. Dublin, ed.
O’Connell Schools; joined Gaelic League, 1898; mngr. Claidheamh
Soluis; mbr. Ciste Cnótha (of Gaelic League), 1910; co-fndr.
Sinn Féin, and Irish Volunteers; staff-capt. in GPO, 1916; imprisoned;
T. D., Dublin, 1919; Irish delegation to Paris Peace Conference, 1919
- where he was assisted by Madame Vivanti, the wife of John Chartres;
Sinn Féin envoy to America, 1922; fndr.-mbr Fianna Fáil;
vice-President FF Exec. Council; min .Local Govt. and Public Health, 1932-39;
Tanaiste, 1937-45; Irish ambassador [envoy] in Paris and Rome, 1919-21;
2nd President of Ireland, 1945-59, being succeeded by de Valera; the National
Gallery of Ireland holds a crayon portrait by Seán O’Sullivan (1949). DIB DIH
Patrick Keatinge, ‘The Formative Years of the Irish
Diplomatic Service’, Éire-Ireland, 6, 3 (Autumn 1971), pp.57-71.
Notes
Dismissed delegates at Fianna Fáil Ard Feis of 1932, calling the
speakers from the floor who insisted on the break-up of the so called
big ranches as ‘squeaks’: ‘You are too provincial, too
narrow and small-minded to see the big thing that has grown upon you.
National Ireland has reawakened and restored the national spirit ...’
(Worker’s Voice, 19 Nov. 1932; cited in Luke Gibbons, Transformations
in Irish Culture, Field Day, Cork UP 1996, p.103.
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