Skip to main content

/ Treasa Ní Chonchúir

My favorite photo that’s terrible of everybody in it

Five people in front of a wall of bookshelves. Three men are in the back, standing. A man and a woman sit in the foreground. The men are all in suits and ties.
L–R (standing): my great uncle James, my uncle Billy, and my grandfather, William Joseph Corcoran Ⅲ;
L–R (sitting): Uachtarán na hÉireann, President of Ireland Éamon de Valera and my grandmother, Grace.
Taken in Dev’s study at Áras an Uachtaráin in the early 1970s.

During their conversation that day, my grandfather told the story of how his father took him to see Dev speak during his 1919–20 tour of America. He had been in the States to secure American diplomatic recognition for the Irish Republic and to raise funds for her fight for independence. Dev remembered with fondness the warm reception he got in Boston.

Dev died 50 years ago , a few years after this photo was taken.