William Thomas Cosgrave

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(b. Dublin, 6 June 1880; d. 16 Nov. 1965) Irish; President of the Executive Council of the Irisch Free State (premier) 1922 – 32 Cosgrave fought in the General Post Office during the Easter Rising of 1916, for which he was initially sentenced to death, but was released in December 1916. Acting as treasurer of the emergent Sinn Fein movement, he was elected to Westminster as Sinn Fein MP for Kilkenny in 1917 and was returned to the revolutionary 1st Dail in the British general election of 1918. He served in the Sinn Fein provisional government as Minister for Local Government. A supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 (though not a signatory), Cosgrave emerged unexpectedly as chairman of the provisional government on 25 August 1922, on the death of Michael Collins and the earlier death, on 12 August, of Arthur Griffith. On 6 December 1922 Cosgrave became the first President of the Executive Council (i.e. premier) of the Irish Free State. He was also its Minister for Finance. In 1923 he founded the pro-treaty party Cumann na nGaedheal. He was premier until electoral defeat by the Fianna Fáil in February 1932. Following a further defeat in 1933 he stood down in favour of the quasi-Fascist General O'Duffy but re-emerged as president of a reconstituted party, now Fine Gael, in 1935, which he led until his retirement in 1944. His son Liam served as premier (now termed Taoiseach) from 1973 to 1977.

Almost unknown on coming into office, Cosgrave was a quiet and self-effacing man rather overshadowed by the larger figures of his era. His style of leadership was more that of a chairman than a chief, and many of the measures brought forward were institutional and unspectacular. His ministry had to survive several crises, including an army mutiny, the failure of the Irish Boundary Commission, and the assassination of the ministry's strong figure, Kevin O'Higgins, in July 1927. His party and government were politically diverse, held together by little other than adherence to the 1921 treaty, an increasingly wasting position, especially with its failure to accommodate the views of Irish Labour. But it did preside successfully over Ireland's transition from state of bitter civil war to a stable, if highly conservative, democracy. This was by no means guaranteed, but Cosgrave helped to secure it in February 1932 by ensuring an orderly transfer of power to his erstwhile civil war opponent and latterly parliamentary adversary, Éamon de Valera.