Prisoner Into Politician

The spring of 1917 in Ireland was a peaceful season in contrast with the year that had preceded. The rising of Easter week of 1916 had failed militarily and the peace it precipitated did not prove effective for either the Irish rebels or their English adversaries. By dint of constant agitation and devious means of communication with relatives and friends at home, the Irish prisoners in English jails began to take an active part in political developments in Ireland. Eamon de Valera, once condemned to death and now a life-term prisoner, wasassembling the forces of the future from behind walls and bars. Irish men and women never before concerned with national affairs ralliedunder the banner of Sinn Fein, the party that was not a party, the cause that was a crusade. Patriots began concentrating their efforts around this unifying force and their aims and aspirations centered around the martyrs of the 1916 rising, both dead and living. With other meansprohibited, the old familiar practice of fighting through Parliamentary channels was resumed, and when word penetrated the walls of Lewes Prison in England in the month of May, 1917, to the effect that a prisoner would be named to stand on the Irish Republican platform for a Parliamentary by-election in County Longford, Ireland, the inmates found ways and means to discuss the situation among themselves. Their leader, Eamon de Valera, at first took the point of view that this would compromise Republican principles

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