Editing Éamon de Valera (section)

== Revolutionary years ==
===1916 Easter Rising===
[[File:De Valera addressing a crowd.jpg|thumb|left|upright|De Valera addressing a crowd on the steps of [[Ennis Courthouse]], County Clare, in July 1917]]
On 24 April 1916, the [[Easter Rising]] began. Forces commanded by de Valera occupied [[Boland's Mill]]{{r|gunther1940}} on Grand Canal Street in Dublin. His chief task was to cover the southeastern approaches to the city. After a week of fighting, the order came from [[Pádraig Pearse]] to surrender. De Valera was court-martialled, convicted, and sentenced to death, but the sentence was immediately commuted to [[penal servitude]] for life.

De Valera was among the few republican leaders the British did not execute.<ref name="gunther1940">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.149663/2015.149663.Inside-Europe#page/n393/mode/2up | title=Inside Europe | publisher=Harper & Brothers | last=Gunther|first=John | author-link = John Gunther|year=1940 | pages=371}}</ref> It has been argued that his life was saved by four facts. First, he was one of the last to surrender and he was held in a different prison from other leaders, thus his execution was delayed by practicalities. Second, the US Consulate in Dublin made representations before his trial (i.e., was he actually a United States citizen and if so, how would the United States react to the execution of one of its citizens?) while the full legal situation was clarified.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}} The UK was trying to bring the US into the war in Europe at the time, and the Irish American vote was important in US politics.{{r|gunther1940}} Third, when Lt-Gen [[John Maxwell (British Army officer)|Sir John Maxwell]] reviewed his case he said, "Who is he? I haven't heard of him before. I wonder would he be likely to make trouble in the future?" On being told that de Valera was unimportant, he commuted the court-martial's death sentence to life imprisonment.<ref name = "BartonBehind">Barton, Brian. ''From Behind a Closed Door, Secret Court Martial Records of 1916'', The History Press</ref>{{rp|93}} De Valera had no [[Fenian]] family or personal background and his [[MI5]] file in 1916 was very slim, detailing only his open membership in the Irish Volunteers.<ref name = "BartonBehind"/>{{rp|92}} Fourth, by the time de Valera was court-martialled on 8 May, political pressure was being brought to bear on Maxwell to halt the executions; Maxwell had already told [[British Prime Minister]] [[H. H. Asquith]] that only two more were to be executed, [[Seán Mac Diarmada]] and [[James Connolly]], although they were court-martialled the day after de Valera. His late trial, representations made by the American Consulate, his lack of Fenian background and political pressure all combined to save his life, though had he been tried a week earlier he would probably have been shot.<ref name = "BartonBehind"/>{{rp|91–94}}

[[File:Eamon de Valera's cell in Kilmainham Gaol.jpg|left|thumb|upright|The [[Kilmainham Gaol]] cell of Éamon de Valera]]

De Valera's supporters and detractors argue about his bravery during the Easter Rising. His supporters claim he showed leadership skills and a capacity for meticulous planning. His detractors claim he suffered a [[nervous breakdown]] during the Rising. According to accounts from 1916, de Valera was seen running about, giving conflicting orders, refusing to sleep and on one occasion, having forgotten the password, almost getting himself shot in the dark by his own men. According to one account, de Valera, on being forced to sleep by one subordinate who promised to sit beside him and wake him if he was needed, suddenly woke up, his eyes "wild", screaming, "Set fire to the railway! Set fire to the railway!" Later in the Ballykinlar [[internment]] Camp, one de Valera loyalist approached another internee, a medical doctor, recounted the story, and asked for a medical opinion as to de Valera's condition. He also threatened to sue the doctor, future [[Fine Gael]] [[Teachta Dála|TD]] and Minister, [[Thomas F. O'Higgins|Dr. Tom O'Higgins]], if he ever repeated the story.<ref>Tim Pat Coogan, ''De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow'' (Hutchinson, London, 1993). pp. 69–72. {{ISBN|0-09-175030-X}}.</ref> The British reportedly, however, considered de Valera's forces the best-trained and best-led among the rebels.{{r|gunther1940}} De Valera's latest biographer, [[Anthony J. Jordan]], writes of this controversy, "Whatever happened in Boland's Mills, or any other garrison, does not negate or undermine in any way the extraordinary heroism of "Dev" and his comrades".<ref name = "JordanIrishCatholic"/>{{rp|37}}

After imprisonment in [[Dartmoor (HM Prison)|Dartmoor]], [[Maidstone (HM Prison)|Maidstone]] and [[Lewes (HM Prison)|Lewes]] prisons, de Valera and his comrades were released under an amnesty in June 1917. On 10 July 1917, he was elected as the [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[East Clare (UK Parliament constituency)|East Clare]] (the constituency which he represented until 1959) in a by-election caused by the death of the previous incumbent [[William Hoey Kearney Redmond|Willie Redmond]], brother of the Irish Party leader John Redmond, who had died fighting in World War I. In the [[1918 Irish general election|1918 general election]] he was elected both for that seat and [[East Mayo (UK Parliament constituency)|Mayo East]].<ref name=elecs_irl>{{cite web|url=http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=921|title=Éamon de Valera|work=ElectionsIreland.org|access-date=1 June 2009|archive-date=30 November 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101130174725/http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=921|url-status=live}}</ref> As an [[abstentionist]] de Valera would not have gone to Westminster, but was not able to do so regardless because in early 1918 he was again arrested.{{r|gunther1940}}

Because most other Irish rebellion leaders were dead, in 1917 de Valera had been elected [[President of Sinn Féin]],{{r|gunther1940}} the party which had been blamed incorrectly for provoking the Easter Rising.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}} This party became the political vehicle through which the survivors of the Easter Rising channelled their republican ethos and objectives.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eamon-de-Valera|title=Eamon de Valera {{!}} president of Ireland|work=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=4 September 2017|archive-date=5 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180705234328/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eamon-de-Valera|url-status=live}}</ref> The previous President of Sinn Féin, [[Arthur Griffith]], had championed an Anglo-Irish dual-monarchy based on the [[Austro-Hungarian]] model, with independent legislatures for both Ireland and Britain.

===President of Dáil Éireann===
[[Sinn Féin]] won a huge majority in the 1918 general election, largely thanks to the British executions of the 1916 leaders, the threat of conscription with the [[Conscription Crisis of 1918]] and the first-past-the-post ballot. They won 73 out of 105 Irish seats, with about 47% of votes cast. 25 seats were uncontested. On 21 January 1919, 27 Sinn Féin MPs (the rest were imprisoned or impaired), calling themselves Teachtaí Dála (TDs), assembled in the [[Mansion House, Dublin|Mansion House]] in Dublin and formed an Irish parliament, known as [[First Dáil|Dáil Éireann]] (translatable into English as the ''Assembly of Ireland''). The [[Ministry of Dáil Éireann]] was formed, under the leadership of the [[President of Dáil Éireann|Príomh Aire]] (also called President of Dáil Éireann) [[Cathal Brugha]]. De Valera had been [[German Plot (Ireland)|re-arrested in May 1918]] and imprisoned and so could not attend the January session of the Dáil. He escaped from [[HM Prison Lincoln|Lincoln Gaol]], England in February 1919.<ref>Macardle, p. 283</ref> As a result, he replaced Brugha as Príomh Aire in the April session of Dáil Éireann.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}[[File:Eamon De Valera, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front, wearing cap and gown LCCN99471563 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|upright|De Valera in academic dress to receive an honorary degree from [[College of the Holy Cross]] in [[Massachusetts]]]]

In the hope of securing international recognition, [[Seán T. O'Kelly]] was sent as an envoy to Paris to present the Irish case to the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Peace Conference]] convened by the great powers at the end of World War I. When it became clear by May 1919 that this mission could not succeed, de Valera decided to visit the United States. The mission had three objectives: to ask for official recognition of the [[Irish Republic]], to float a loan to finance the work of the Government (and by extension, the [[Irish Republican Army (1917–22)|Irish Republican Army]]), and to secure the support of the American people for the republic. His visit lasted from June 1919 to December 1920 and had mixed success, including a visit to [[Fenway Park]] in [[Boston]] in front of 50,000 supporters.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/1919/06/30/eamon-valera-pleads-irish-cause-fenway-park/mgvbvIyHAyWwG6Gbx4e96K/story.html|title=Eamon De Valera pleads Irish cause at Fenway Park |newspaper=The Boston Globe|access-date=23 February 2019|archive-date=11 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211171458/https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/1919/06/30/eamon-valera-pleads-irish-cause-fenway-park/mgvbvIyHAyWwG6Gbx4e96K/story.html|url-status=live}}</ref> One negative outcome was the splitting of the Irish-American organisations into pro- and anti-de Valera factions.<ref name = "JordanIrishCatholic"/>{{rp|63–70}} He met the young Harvard-educated leader from [[Puerto Rico]], [[Pedro Albizu Campos]], and forged a lasting and useful alliance with him.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alianzabolivariana.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=430|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617141011/http://www.alianzabolivariana.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=430|url-status = usurped|archive-date=17 June 2013|title=Pedro Albizu Campos: El Ultimo Libertador de America|date=19 January 2006|work=Alianza Bolivariana Para Los Pueblos de Nuestra America|access-date=12 March 2012}}</ref> It was during this American tour that he recruited his long-serving personal secretary, [[Kathleen O'Connell]], an Irish emigrant who would return to Ireland with him.<ref name=Dolan>{{cite book|last1=Dolan|first1=Anne|editor1-last=McGuire|editor1-first=James|editor2-last=Quinn|editor2-first=James|title=Dictionary of Irish Biography|date=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|chapter=O'Connell, Kathleen}}</ref> In October 1919, he visited the [[University of Notre Dame]] campus in Indiana, where he planted a tree and also laid a wreath by the statue of [[William Corby]]. He toured the university archives and spoke in [[Washington Hall (University of Notre Dame)|Washington Hall]] about the cause of Ireland in front of twelve hundred students.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Notre Dame: Washington Hall|url=http://archives.nd.edu/washingt.htm|access-date=4 March 2021|website=archives.nd.edu|archive-date=17 May 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517071720/http://archives.nd.edu/washingt.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Hope|first=Arthur J.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/251881423|title=Notre Dame, one hundred years|date=1948|publisher=University Press|oclc=251881423|access-date=4 March 2021|archive-date=12 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210912121217/https://www.worldcat.org/title/notre-dame-one-hundred-years/oclc/251881423|url-status=live}}</ref>[[File:Eamon de Valera at Holy Cross College cph.3a47637.jpg|thumb|De Valera at the [[College of the Holy Cross]] in 1920]]De Valera managed to raise $5,500,000 from American supporters, an amount that far exceeded the hopes of the Dáil.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.S.192108170006.html |title=Dáil Éireann – Volume 2 – Vote of thanks to the people of America |date=17 August 1921 |work=Houses of the Oireachtas |access-date=6 December 2008 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120908125827/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.S.192108170006.html |archive-date=8 September 2012 }}</ref> Of this, $500,000 was devoted to the American presidential campaign in 1920, helping him gain wider public support there.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.F.C.192006290062.html |title=Dáil Éireann – Volume 1 – Ministerial Motions. – Presidential election campaign in USA |date=29 June 1920 |work=Houses of the Oireachtas |access-date=6 December 2008 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607133142/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.F.C.192006290062.html |archive-date=7 June 2011 }}</ref> In 1921, it was said that $1,466,000 had already been spent, and it is unclear when the net balance arrived in Ireland.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.F.C.192105100047.html |title=Dáil Éireann – Volume 1 – Debates on Reports. – Finance |date=10 May 1921 |work=Houses of the Oireachtas |access-date=6 December 2008 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071119185346/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.F.C.192105100047.html |archive-date=19 November 2007 }}</ref> Recognition was not forthcoming in the international sphere. He also had difficulties with various Irish-American leaders, such as [[John Devoy]] and Judge [[Daniel F. Cohalan]], who resented the dominant position he established, preferring to retain their control over Irish affairs in the United States.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}
While American recognition for the Republic had been his priority, in February 1921, De Valera redirected [[Patrick McCartan]] from Washington to Moscow. McCartan was told by [[Maxim Litvinov]], that the opportunity of recognition and assistance had passed. The Soviet priority was a trade agreement with Britain (signed in March). In June the British government (with a view to both domestic and American opinion) published the proposed treaty between the [[Dáil Éireann (Irish Republic)|Dáil]] government and the Soviets, and related correspondence.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Arthur|first=Michell|title=Revolutionary Government in Ireland: Dáil Éireann 1919–1922|publisher=Gill & Macmillan|year=1995|isbn=9780717120154|location=Dublin|pages=191–192}}</ref>

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the conflict between the [[British government|British authorities]] and the Dáil (which the British declared illegal in September 1919), escalated into the [[Irish War of Independence]]. De Valera left day-to-day government, during his eighteen-month absence in the United States, to [[Michael Collins (Irish leader)|Michael Collins]], his 29-year-old [[Minister for Finance (Ireland)|Minister for Finance]]. De Valera and Collins would later become opponents during the Irish Civil War.<ref>Coogan, Tim Pat ''de Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow'' pp. 120–122, {{ISBN|0-09-995860-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-09-995860-4}}.</ref>

===President of the Republic===
In January 1921, in his first appearance in the [[Dáil]], after his return to a country gripped by the War of Independence, de Valera introduced a motion calling on the IRA to desist from ambushes and other tactics that were allowing the British to successfully portray it as a [[terrorism|terrorist]] group,<ref>[[D. G. Boyce]], ''Englishmen and Irish Troubles: British Public Opinion and the Making of Irish Policy, 1918–1922'' (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1972), pp. 92–93.</ref> and to take on the British forces with conventional military methods. This they strongly opposed, and de Valera relented, issuing a statement expressing support for the IRA, and claiming it was fully under the control of the Dáil. He then, along with Cathal Brugha and [[Austin Stack]], brought pressure to bear on Michael Collins to undertake a journey to the United States himself, on the pretext that only he could take up where de Valera had left off. Collins successfully resisted this move and stayed in Ireland. In the [[1921 Irish elections|May 1921 elections]], all candidates in [[Southern Ireland (1921–1922)|Southern Ireland]] were returned unopposed, Nationalists and Sinn Féin secured 12 seats in [[Northern Ireland]] including leaders such as de Valera, Michael Collins, [[Eoin MacNeill]] and [[Arthur Griffith]].<ref>Macardle, p. 453</ref>
 
Following the [[Truce of July 1921]] that ended the war, de Valera went to see Prime Minister [[David Lloyd George]] in London on 14 July. No agreement was reached, and by then the [[Parliament of Northern Ireland]] had already met. It became clear that neither a republic nor independence for all 32 counties, was going to be offered; Lloyd George told de Valera he could "put a soldier in Ireland for every man, woman and child in it" if the IRA did not immediately agree to stop fighting.<ref>Coogan, Tim Pat ''De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow'' p. 234.</ref> In August 1921, de Valera secured Dáil Éireann's approval to change the 1919 [[Dáil Constitution]] to upgrade his office from prime minister or chairman of the cabinet to a full President of the Republic.<ref>Mcardle, p. 502</ref> Declaring himself now the Irish equivalent of King [[George V]], he argued that as Irish head of state, in the absence of the British head of state from the negotiations, he too should not attend the peace conference called the [[Anglo-Irish Treaty|Treaty Negotiations]] (October–December 1921) at which British and Irish government leaders agreed to the effective independence of twenty-six of Ireland's [[Counties of Ireland|thirty-two counties]] as the [[Irish Free State]], with Northern Ireland choosing to remain under British sovereignty. It is generally agreed by historians that whatever his motives, it was a mistake for de Valera not to have travelled to London.<ref name="JordanIrishCatholic" />{{rp|91}}

Having effected these changes, the [[Irish Boundary Commission]] met in 1922-25 to redraw the Irish border. [[Irish nationalism|Nationalists]] expected its report to recommend that largely nationalist areas of Northern Ireland (South Armagh, South Down, Derry City and the Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh) become part of the Free State, and many hoped this would make Northern Ireland so small it would not be economically viable. A [[Council of Ireland]] was also provided in the Treaty as a model for an eventual all-Irish parliament. Hence neither the pro- nor anti-Treaty sides made many complaints about [[Partition of Ireland|partition]] in the [[Treaty Debates]].

===Anglo-Irish Treaty===
The Republic's delegates to the Treaty Negotiations were accredited by de Valera and his cabinet as [[plenipotentiary|plenipotentiaries]] (that is, negotiators with the legal authority to sign a treaty without reference back to the cabinet), but were given secret cabinet instructions by de Valera that required them to return to Dublin before signing the Treaty.<ref>P. S. O'Hegarty, ''A History of Ireland Under the Union: 1801 to 1922'' (New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1969), 751.</ref> The Treaty proved controversial in Ireland insofar as it replaced the Republic by a [[dominion]] of the [[Commonwealth of Nations|British Commonwealth]] with the King represented by a [[Governor-General of the Irish Free State]]. The Irish delegates Arthur Griffith, [[Robert Barton]] and Michael Collins supported by [[Erskine Childers (author)|Erskine Childers]] as Secretary-General set up their delegation headquarters at 22 [[Hans Place]] in [[Knightsbridge]]. It was there, at 11.15&nbsp;am on 5 December 1921, that the decision was made to recommend the Treaty to [[Dáil Éireann]]. The Treaty was finally signed by the delegates after further negotiations which closed at 02:15 on 6 December 1921.<ref>Mcardle, p. 590</ref>

De Valera baulked at the agreement. His opponents claimed that he had refused to join the negotiations because he knew what the outcome would be and did not wish to receive the blame. De Valera claimed that he had not gone to the treaty negotiations because he would be better able to control the extremists at home, and that his absence would allow leverage for the plenipotentiaries to refer back to him and not be pressured into any agreements. Because of the secret instructions given to the plenipotentiaries, he reacted to news of the signing of the Treaty not with anger at its contents (which he refused even to read when offered a newspaper report of its contents), but with anger over the fact that they had not consulted ''him'', their president, before signing. His ideal drafts, presented to a secret session of the Dáil during the Treaty Debates and publicised in January 1922, were ingenious compromises{{original research inline|date=March 2022}} but they included dominion status, the ''Treaty Ports'', the fact of partition subject to veto by the parliament in Belfast, and some continuing status for the King as head of the Commonwealth. Ireland's share of the imperial debt and the payment of war pensions was to be paid.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.P.A.170001.html |title=De Valera's Treaty proposals |work=Houses of the Oireachtas |access-date=6 December 2008 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218222359/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.P.A.170001.html |archive-date=18 February 2012 }}</ref>

After the Treaty was narrowly ratified by 64 to 57, de Valera and a large minority of Sinn Féin TDs left Dáil Éireann. He then resigned and Arthur Griffith was elected President of Dáil Éireann in his place, though respectfully still calling him 'The President'. On a speaking tour of the more republican province of [[Munster]], starting on 17 March 1922, de Valera made controversial speeches at [[Carrick on Suir]], [[Lismore, County Waterford|Lismore]], [[Dungarvan]] and [[Waterford]], saying that: "''If the Treaty were accepted,'' [by the electorate] ''the fight for freedom would still go on, and the Irish people, instead of fighting foreign soldiers, will have to fight the Irish soldiers of an Irish government set up by Irishmen.''" At [[Thurles]], several days later, he repeated this imagery and added that the IRA: "''..would have to wade through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government, and perhaps through that of some members of the Irish Government to get their freedom.''" In a letter to the [[Irish Independent]] on 23 March de Valera accepted the accuracy of their report of his comment about "wading" through blood, but deplored that the newspaper had published it.<ref>J.J. O'Kelly ([[Sceilg]]) ''A Trinity of Martyrs'', Irish Book Bureau, Dublin; pp. 66–68. "Sceilg" was a supporter of de Valera in 1922.</ref>

De Valera objected to the oath of allegiance to the King that the treaty required Irish parliamentarians to take.<ref>Mcardle, pgs. 578-579</ref> He also was concerned that Ireland could not have an independent foreign policy as part of the British Commonwealth when the British retained several naval ports (see [[Treaty Ports (Ireland)|Treaty Ports]]) around Ireland's coast. As a compromise, de Valera proposed "[[external association]]" with the [[British Empire]], which would leave Ireland's foreign policy in her own hands and a republican constitution with no mention of the British monarch (he proposed this as early as April, well before the negotiations began, under the title "Document No. 2"). Michael Collins was prepared to accept this formula and the two wings (pro- and anti-Treaty) of Sinn Féin formed a pact to fight the [[1922 Irish general election]] together and form a coalition government afterwards. Collins later called off the pact on the eve of the election. De Valera's opponents won the election and civil war broke out shortly afterwards in late June 1922.<ref>Coogan, Tim Pat ''de Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow'' p. 299, {{ISBN|0-09-995860-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-09-995860-4}}.</ref>

===Civil War===
{{Main|Irish Civil War}}
Relations between the new Irish government, which was backed by most of the Dáil and the electorate, and the anti-treatyites, under the nominal leadership of de Valera, now descended into the Irish Civil War (June 1922 to May 1923), in which the pro-treaty Free State forces defeated the anti-treaty IRA. Both sides had wanted to avoid civil war, but fighting broke out over the [[Battle of Dublin|takeover of the Four Courts]] in Dublin by anti-treaty members of the IRA. These men were not loyal to de Valera and initially were not even supported by the executive of the anti-treaty IRA. However, Michael Collins was forced to act against them when [[Winston Churchill]] threatened to re-occupy the country with British troops unless action was taken. When fighting broke out in Dublin between the Four Courts garrison and the new [[Free State Army]], republicans backed the IRA men in the Four Courts, and civil war broke out. De Valera, though he held no military position, backed the [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|anti-treaty IRA]], or ''irregulars'', and said that he was re-enlisting in the IRA as an ordinary volunteer. On 8 September 1922, he met in secret with [[Richard Mulcahy]] in Dublin to try to halt the fighting. However, according to de Valera, they "could not find a basis" for agreement.<ref>Coogan, Tim Pat ''de Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow'' p. 338, {{ISBN|0-09-995860-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-09-995860-4}}.</ref>

Though nominally head of the anti-treatyites, de Valera had little influence. He does not seem to have been involved in any fighting and had little or no influence with the revolutionary military leadership, headed by [[Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army|IRA Chief of Staff]] [[Liam Lynch (general)|Liam Lynch]]. De Valera and the anti-treaty [[Teachta Dála|TDs]] formed a "[[Irish republican legitimatism|republican government]]" on 25 October 1922 from anti-treaty TDs to "be temporarily the Supreme Executive of the Republic and the State, until such time as the elected Parliament of the Republic can freely assemble, or the people being rid of external aggression are at liberty to decide freely how they are to be governed and what shall be their political relations with other countries" .<ref>Mcardle, p. 808</ref> However, it had no real authority and was a pale shadow of the [[Government of the 1st Dáil|Dáil government of 1919–21]].{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

In March 1923, de Valera attended the meeting of the IRA Army Executive to decide on the future of the war. He was known to be in favour of a truce but he had no voting rights and it was narrowly decided to continue hostilities.<ref name=JordanIrishCatholic/>{{rp|131}} The leader of the Free State, [[W. T. Cosgrave]], insisted that there could be no acceptance of a surrender without disarming.<ref>Jordan, Anthony J. ''W. T. Cosgrave: Founder Of Modern Ireland''. Westport Books, 2006, p. 89.</ref>

On 30 April 1923, the IRA's new Chief of Staff, [[Frank Aiken]] (Lynch had been killed), called a ceasefire. This was followed on 24 May by an order for volunteers to "dump arms". De Valera, who had wanted an end to the internecine fighting for some time, backed the ceasefire order with a message in which he called the anti-treaty fighters "the Legion of the Rearguard", saying that "The Republic can no longer be successfully defended by your arms. Further sacrifice on your part would now be in vain and the continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest and prejudicial to the future of our cause. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the republic. Other means must be sought to safeguard the nation's right."<ref>{{cite book | last = Bowyer Bell | first = J. | author-link = J. Bowyer Bell | title = The Secret Army: The IRA | publisher = Transaction Publishers | year = 1997 | page = [https://archive.org/details/secretarmyira00bell/page/38 38] | isbn = 1-56000-901-2 | url = https://archive.org/details/secretarmyira00bell/page/38 }}</ref>

After this point, many of the republicans were arrested in Free State round-ups when they had come out of hiding and returned home. De Valera remained in hiding for several months after the ceasefire was declared; however, he emerged in August to stand for election in [[County Clare]]. Referring to the Clare electorate he said: "If the people of Clare elect me as their candidate again, I will be with them and nothing but a bullet will stop me".<ref>Mcardle, p. 864</ref> Making a campaign appearance in [[Ennis]] on 15 August, de Valera was arrested on the platform and interned at Kilmainham jail. He was moved to [[Arbour Hill]] barracks briefly prior to his release on 16 July 1924.<ref>[https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/building-a-state-in-the-shadow-of-civil-war-part-1-1.234896 'Building a state in the shadow of civil war (Part 1)' ''Irish Times'']</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1924/07/17/archives/de-valera-and-stack-are-set-at-liberty-more-releases-expected.html |title='De Valera and Stack Are Set at Liberty; More Releases Expected Within 24 Hours', ''The New York Times'', 17 July 1924 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=17 July 1924 |access-date=19 November 2021 |archive-date=19 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211119094731/https://www.nytimes.com/1924/07/17/archives/de-valera-and-stack-are-set-at-liberty-more-releases-expected.html |url-status=live }}</ref>