WHEN DE VALERA WAS HOST.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20494, 12 March 1932, Page 13

WHEN DE VALERA WAS HOST.

it ———o—id ;|j ISI'F.C'LA i.I.Y WRITTEN FOR THE PRESS.) .y lßy Jessie Mackav.] -e w ,d Irish politics, little to the tore these iy eight years past, again stir the cablereader's imagination these days, with , v the roturn of the Pianna Fail to poivcr. iy For ten years W. T. Cosgrave has held d the reins of government, and that so " ably, so poised between Sc.yUa and Cha,j,' rybdis.. that we wonder, Ireland having is given him the topmost vote for any t, electorate, and moreover returned his P whole Cabinet—we wonder, X say, why IS she did not keep him altogether. But ii, since Ireland has taken unaccountably 19 to keep her own counsel, we shall be N left wondering why she loves and leaves ( 1 the man she trusted, but never poetif>_ callv petted as ''Liam B:ut. her , e "Fair-Uairod William." v y The President. e The solid fact remains, that Ireland r- has lifted her erstwhile idol, Eamonn d do Valcra, off thc shelf, dusted, and veil instated him. He is "The Proc- sideut," but with a new and eircumt- scribed meaning. Not as the mere Preis sident of Dail Kireann, tho Prime is Minister of Ireland, fb wit, did de in Valcra stride out of power in the stormy if days that saw the Treaty born and d accepted, but as the President of the thou I- recently proclaimed Irish Republic. Does n he plan for the wider title again? Suf- -- fiee it to say that, like the rcsurreeu ted schoolman he is, he left in a tangle s of words nnd returns in a tangle of 0 words, but with the saving promise that 3 he will abide by Labour's vote and 1 voice, So Labour, nine all told, hoids the balance between Dublin and Downe ing Stroet, between Fianna Fail and t "Liam Ban's"' stiff, safe Treaty Gov--5 crnment. t Back again by Labour's grace—Ln- .. bour that ever loved but seldom fob lowed de Valera: even Irish Labour j leans away from gumnanship—back (.• again, with what learned behind this j new web of words that so strangely s echoes the old? Has he found that facts, not words, and measures, not Titanic gestures are the prosaic staple of statcr craft? Has lie learned that Ireland lies ; within tho orbit of Europe, not the [ Bens that roll against Ily Brasil? Very I particularly has he learned to pick a [ Cabinet? | At de Valera's Left Hand. "Without treading on shell-torn 1 ground, may one who has eaten de » Valera's salt give a fleeting vignette of ; him in an hour that is gone, when he I entertained the delegates to the Irish ; Race Conference at lunch in Paris on January 28th, 1922? j It is not in the golden garish session- . room of the Hptel Salle Continentale we . are met this last,morning, but in the 1 organisers' committee rooms in tho ) Grand Hotel, where most of the overfc seas delegatus are staying. And there, ' simply and gracefully, de Valera issues I his invitation, and we adjourn on the instant to the great sunken dining- , hall, beside and abovo which the musi- > cians play nightly amid tall palms and ► semi-tropical blooms. .Winter dies 1 there at the Hotel's first doorway. ! Long they seem to be, marshalling the mighty ones to their seats. We, 1 the lesser, stand fneeklv back till we ■ are wafted round the lift test board of nil. Oh joy to be of no account 1 Last ; of all, de Valera has seated himself, I and where am Iby some divine miracle, but at his left hand? Hint wns'de Valera's way: never man made a ■ujder mouth for place in the sun, and never a tinier "minikin riou' " for himself. The Phoenician. This were a poor momont to gain an impression of a right-hand neighbour's corporate personality. But for eight days past I have had de Valera in view from all "airts'' and angles, and angles ' havo it, not curves. A long, solemn, olive-cheeked baby ho. must have been, who seldom cried and seldom orowed. Uncommonly tall, and proportionately slender, he had passed through campaigns of drill that had not eradicated the suspicion of a schoolman's stoop—or was it simply tho sectional longitudes of that type? The dark hair, the tawny face, the tawny eyes replete with an inscrutable gentleness in repose, in harmony with all oddly 11 nAryan princeliness. Years afterwards iu New Zealand the right word cnine to me, listening to a learned BritishIsraelite friend discoursing on the farwandered race-types of ancient Ireland. ''Phoenician ?" said T. "Why. of course! Do Valera is Phoenician." But, Mileßian or Phoenician, that strange, gentle aloofness of their president charmed the bounding; Irish spirit of Sinn Fein, itself in its inceo. tion A thing aloof nnd gentl.v, faintly posiernoinn. One remembers nutting it another way two months later /'lriijhmnii are Ymriouslv fond of going to church. Looking at de Valera make? ♦hem feol they aro there." T>v tlia* time, it'is true. I have seen and heard another de Valera, at College Green and in the J>ail—- a syren-voiced demagogic leader, no less a throw-back to ancient Phoenicia'. About the Table. However, this is a far ory l'rom Paris —Paris at once so pitilessly modern, and so pitilessly medieval. This ornate sunken hall is neither of Ashdod nor of St, Ge«evisv« to-day, it is a slice of Ireland - troui top to—no, Ji"t bottom. I had yet to learn the abysmal deeps of a disgruntled Dublin tram guard's mind. One casts a gJanoQ into the charmed circle easily, failing to locate Juan O'Donnell, the sprightly, gallant little Duke of Tc* tuan, a soldier whose exiled forebears fled to Spain many a generation ago. He, like his fathers, has sworn never to set foot in Ireland till it is free (alas! Jle will not do that iu life, n ' CastiHan vault holds him now). One ' fails also to locate the courteous, blueeyod dreamer, Lord Ashbourne, who 1 litis devoted life and fortune to teach- j incr and endowing the Erse language. Not alone is he in believing tbnt Ire- ' land's glory will return with Ireland's * anoiVnt tongue. But very easily one ' discerns a far grepter man than eithor ; of these, Professor Eoin McNeill, the historian of ancient* Ireland. —Good. * nr<\v. jjenial little Eoin McNeill, thu j friend of Padraic Penrse, ;md lifted to ' be shot after I?a?tor week, hnfc the J British savant* would not hear J of it. Not far from hhn sits a nrincc ( in Israel. Dr. Mauriec O'Reilly, Master 1 of St. John's College, Sydney, who lias led the Dominion delegates in straight 1 ways of clarity and constitutional thinking. Wherever those two aro ! met. coruscations of wit and wisdom take t.ho living boreal air. j. And wo who sit at the farther board, N sufficient glory it wevo for us to liave j the host in our midst. But who is do t Valera's vis-a-vis but Dr. Douglaß r Hyde, translator and poet, songs are sung wherever the elect of $ tho race m<9et—Douglas My do, ample, r goodly, and gallant, with his long hair I falling over "a collar like unto the t snowy stoeks that savants woro in gala day? gone hy. And who is my own 1 vis-i-vis, tall and graceful as a blaol> F swan, a prinaess. of autumnal charm? Who knows not Madame Gonne McBride : who was the loveliest girl in Ire- 1 land? Her delicate artistry has * illustrated * many a literary treat sure from the priceless press v of Burn*, Oates in Dublin i now she lives but to feed anA tend war- v

worn Ireland's poor. A quick ancl friendly eye has Madame Meßride; she notices my plate empty of some lordly hunter's cliah; there is a rapid whisper, and instantly some Edenicj substitute appear* in its place. "Ah, good!" murmur* de Valera, vaguely aud kindly. Madame Meßride now fixos an empty glass with her regal glance. Another Edenic miracle is wrought, the while I softly, for her ear alone, make my island itpologia: "Many women in my country drink no win?." ''Ah, good!" murmurs de YaJera, kindlier than before. Ender and Maker of Conflict. Alaa! No Queen of Love and Beauty can order for de Valera himself tho barest certainty of any meal, . Edenic or not. At my left hand aits his seefe« tary, gunny-faced Sean Meßride. Sits, did! say? No, hovers like a young eagie, , his eye sweeping the vast hall, and messages are raining in on him. Every second instant one is dropped into de -Valera's- ear, and wins a swift inaudible reply- Fain a romantic southerner would have ventured a New /Jealander's word on the Homeric fights of the week concluded, and the consummate chairmanship that shed j the / oil of conciliation over every breaker that would have swept the Conference to ruin. Strange 1 This Jekyll-Hyde man while in Paris had more than the schoolman's gift of rid--1 dime words; he had a personality that at the last could rise even contrary to ' his own desire,' and lift with it the ] fiercest tangle of acrimonies and hates i to die and dissolve into diffused har« , mony in a sunlight higher than any summer's 011 earth. Was that l^ e \ Valera's true hour? Then why did he t turn in Dublin into the JekylkHydo that staged the Battle of the Courts and blew a fiery breath over . (ho buried dragon's toeth throughout , Ireland till each sprang tip, as in the * Greek tale, a warrior armed and I unary ? 1 But who dre;micd at that moment of urn ?on's teeth and double personalities? In a flash of secretarial science, 1 asked the Gaelic name of the new world-Irish society created yesterdayde \ olera's pen flashed from its scabhard, a convenient note-hook was slipped into his hand. The two words he wrote lie before me now, clear, tiny. Tltmje turn* and hair-strokes, meaning "The Family or the Gael." The sift intonation, the . peace that seemed to halo the lovelv Written name, the uplift of that world-wide Irish idea in de Valera's great are they to be born nun in in a wiser aftermath of the spirit? Is the Jekyll- 1 Hvde complex purified for ever of the ® primitive pnnman ? We shall soon see. J I here is no more to remember of that M*:ist in the sjreat sunken-flin'ng-hsill. The»e were some who ate de Vajora's o salt that dnv who followed him to v the death: others there must have been I would have finished the fight a against him in Odin's own Valhalla- a Oui bono? t