Judging Dev
December 3rd, 2007 by Steve Bowbrick
If you grew up Irish or you’ve got some Irish in you you’ll know all about Eamon De Valera, the independent nation’s first patriarch. He was like a kind of Irish Churchill: a big, muscular political figure who stamped his personality on the middle years of the 20th Century but he was a contradictory and old-fashioned man and ultimately departed amid disappointment and disillusion.
He was a revered figure - even people from his political opposition respected him. As a kid I saw his picture on the wall alongside the votive pictures and the holy water in many of the homes we visited. I thought he was a saint or a cardinal.
So here’s a really absorbing nine-part consideration of the old man from RTE. I’ll warrant you’ll need to be a bit of an Irish history nerd to make it through all nine (there’s a podcast, which is handy) but listen to this sample, the sixth part of the series, ‘Comely maidens and De Valera’s Cultural vision’ (MP3). There’s something fascinating about the tone of voice and the manner of the historians involved too. They’re evidently very much of the Irish social elite. Ireland may be a republic but it has a class system like a steel trap.
