<p>Éamon de Valera was the single most consequential Irish figure of the twentieth century. He was a leader in the Easter Rising, the figurehead of the anti-Treaty rebels during the dark days of the Civil War and, later, as the founder of Fianna Fáil and president of Ireland, the pivotal figure in the birth of the Republic.<br>In this, the first volume of a magisterial new biography, acclaimed historian and broadcaster David McCullagh charts De V...