Eamon de Valera Poster

The story of the Irish Revolution is featured in this podcast series https://irishhistorypodcast.ie/category/war-of-independence/. Eamon de Valera emerged as a leading figure in the republican movement in the 1910s. A commander in the 1916 Rising, he was sentenced to death in the aftermath of the revolt. This was commuted to a prison sentenced and he was released in 1917. Joining Sinn Fein he stood as the party candidate in the Clare East by-election. He was elected party president and also president of the Volunteers (the forerunner of the IRA) in 1917. Arrested in the summer of 1918 his daring escape form Lincoln Jail garnered world wide press attention. He departed Ireland in the summer of 1919 for the US where he would spend the following 18 months only returning to Ireland in the December 1920. He famously rejected the Treaty with the United Kingdom which brought the War of Independence opposing the Free State in the Civil War which began in the summer of 1922. He became an increasingly marginal figure within the anti-Treaty republican movement as the Civil War dragged on eventually ending in defeat in 1923.

In 1926 he founded Fianna Fail with others who had been defeated in the Civil War. As party leader he became Taoiseach in 1932 when Fianna Fail won the general election that year. The poster is A3 sized and comes in a protective roll.