Search Results for 'de Valera'

Bertie Ahern, the country’s longest serving taoiseach since De Valera, is set to visit NUI Galway next week as an honoured guest of the Literary and Debating Society.

Week II

Eamon de Valera was in Galway on the evening of May 11 1940 engaged in a by-election campaign, when he was told that Germany had invaded Belgium and Holland that morning. He was outraged. Belgium felt that by declaring its neutrality it was protected from Hitler. But it was sadly mistaken. Germany felt threatened (at least it pretended to be), that the Allies may use Belgium as a ‘jumping off’ base to attack her. With terrifying speed and ruthlessness, using new tactics of fighter bombers and tanks, Germany subdued both countries in a matter of days.

Irish neutrality will be protected and copperfastened by a Yes vote to Lisbon. Irish neutrality will be seriously undermined by a treaty bristling with military articles, so it is wiser to vote No.

DURING REFERENDA on European treaties - such as during the recet Lisbon Treaty campaign - you will meet the odd excitable type who’ll tell you that he’s voting No because some closet member of Youth Defence or the Communist Party of Ireland told him the treaty would end Irish neutrality.

A 34-year-old bakery worker from Ballina has claimed before the High Court that his arm was broken when gardaí used excessive force to arrest and handcuff him. The incident happened during a disturbance outside a nightclub in which, he alleges, he was not involved, the Irish Times reported this week.