Uachtaráin

Hyde was a compelling character. From an impeccable Church of Ireland background in Roscommon, he was a multilingual polymath who cajoled much folklore from the peasantry of the west with the aid of whiskey, and his huge contribution to cultural politics was testified to by many who later became active in the struggle for independence; arguably, Hyde sent out far more men for the English to shoot than the self-serving Yeats ever did. He was appointed as the first president in the twilight of his career as a candidate acceptable to all, not least on religious grounds—though in a bitter irony no Catholic member of the cabinet would attend his funeral for fear of excommunication.

Middle-class northside Dubliner Seán T. O’Kelly to succeed Hyde in 1945. Despite having been de Valera’s right-hand man through much of the 1920s and 1930s, O’Kelly was a Knight of Columbanus and was suspected by de Valera of keeping the Catholic hierarchy inappropriately informed about government business: hence, it is argued, his marginalisation (rather than ‘elevation’) to Áras an Uachtaráin.

Eamon de Valera—his fourteen-year term did more than anything else to copperfasten the image of Áras an Uachtaráin as a retirement home.