title: Booker Prize

text: In 1970, Bernice Rubens became the first woman to win the Booker Prize, for "The Elected Member". The rules of the Booker changed in 1971; previously, it had been awarded retrospectively to books published prior to the year in which the award was given. In 1971 the year of eligibility was changed to the same as the year of the award; in effect, this meant that books published in 1970 were not considered for the Booker in either year. The Booker Prize Foundation announced in January 2010 the creation of a special award called the "Lost Man Booker Prize", with the winner chosen from a longlist of 22 novels published in 1970.


title: Booker Prize

text: Alice Munro's "The Beggar Maid" was shortlisted in 1980, and remains the only short story collection to be shortlisted.


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1972, winning writer John Berger, known for his Marxist worldview, protested during his acceptance speech against Booker McConnell. He blamed Booker's 130 years of sugar production in the Caribbean for the region's modern poverty. Berger donated half of his £5,000 prize to the British Black Panther movement, because it had a socialist and revolutionary perspective in agreement with his own.


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1980, Anthony Burgess, writer of "Earthly Powers", refused to attend the ceremony unless it was confirmed to him in advance whether he had won. His was one of two books considered likely to win, the other being "Rites of Passage" by William Golding. The judges decided only 30 minutes before the ceremony, giving the prize to Golding. Both novels had been seen as favourites to win leading up to the prize, and the dramatic "literary battle" between two senior writers made front-page news.


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1981, nominee John Banville wrote a letter to "The Guardian" requesting that the prize be given to him so that he could use the money to buy every copy of the longlisted books in Ireland and donate them to libraries, "thus ensuring that the books not only are bought but also read – surely a unique occurrence".


title: Booker Prize

text: Judging for the 1983 award produced a draw between J. M. Coetzee's "Life & Times of Michael K" and Salman Rushdie's "Shame", leaving chair of judges Fay Weldon to choose between the two. According to Stephen Moss in "The Guardian", "Her arm was bent and she chose Rushdie", only to change her mind as the result was being phoned through.


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1992, the jury split the prize between Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient" and Barry Unsworth's "Sacred Hunger". This prompted the foundation to draw up a rule that made it mandatory for the appointed jury to make the award to just a single author/book.


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1993, two of the judges threatened to walk out when "Trainspotting" appeared on the longlist; Irvine Welsh's novel was pulled from the shortlist to satisfy them. The novel would later receive critical acclaim, and is now considered Welsh's masterpiece.


title: Booker Prize

text: The choice of James Kelman's book "How Late It Was, How Late" as 1994 Booker Prize winner proved to be one of the most controversial in the award's history. Rabbi Julia Neuberger, one of the judges, declared it "a disgrace" and left the event, later deeming the book to be "crap"; WHSmith's marketing manager called the award "an embarrassment to the whole book trade"; Waterstones in Glasgow sold a mere 13 copies of Kelman's book the following week. In 1994, "The Guardian"s literary editor Richard Gott, citing the lack of objective criteria and the exclusion of American authors, described the prize as "a significant and dangerous iceberg in the sea of British culture that serves as a symbol of its current malaise".


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1997, the decision to award Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" proved controversial. Carmen Callil, chair of the previous year's Booker judges, called it an "execrable" book and said on television that it should not even have been on the shortlist. Booker Prize chairman Martyn Goff said Roy won because nobody objected, following the rejection by the judges of Bernard MacLaverty's shortlisted book due to their dismissal of him as "a wonderful short-story writer and that "Grace Notes" was three short stories strung together".


title: Booker Prize

text: Before 2001, each year's longlist of nominees was not publicly revealed. From 2001, the longlisted novels started to be published each year, and in 2007 the number of nominees was capped at 12 or 13 each year.


title: Booker Prize

text: In 2001, A. L. Kennedy, who was a judge in 1996, called the prize "a pile of crooked nonsense" with the winner determined by "who knows who, who's sleeping with who, who's selling drugs to who, who's married to who, whose turn it is".


title: Booker Prize

text: The Booker Prize created a permanent home for the archives from 1968 to present at Oxford Brookes University Library. The Archive, which encompasses the administrative history of the Prize from 1968 to date, collects together a diverse range of material, including correspondence, publicity material, copies of both the Longlists and the Shortlists, minutes of meetings, photographs and material relating to the awards dinner (letters of invitation, guest lists, seating plans). Embargoes of ten or twenty years apply to certain categories of material; examples include all material relating to the judging process and the Longlist prior to 2002.


title: Booker Prize

text: Between 2005 and 2008, the Booker Prize alternated between writers from Ireland and India. "Outsider" John Banville began this trend in 2005 when his novel "The Sea" was selected as a surprise winner: Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of "The Independent", famously condemned it as "possibly the most perverse decision in the history of the award" and rival novelist Tibor Fischer poured scorn on Banville's victory. Kiran Desai of India won in 2006. Anne Enright's 2007 victory came about due to a jury badly split over Ian McEwan's novel "On Chesil Beach". The following year it was India's turn again, with Aravind Adiga narrowly defeating Enright's fellow Irishman Sebastian Barry.


title: Booker Prize

text: Historically, the winner of the Booker Prize had been required to be a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe. It was announced on 18 September 2013 that future Booker Prize awards would consider authors from anywhere in the world, so long as their work was in English and published in the UK. This change proved controversial in literary circles. Former winner A. S. Byatt and former judge John Mullan said the prize risked diluting its identity, whereas former judge A. L. Kennedy welcomed the change. Following this expansion, the first winner not from the Commonwealth, Ireland, or Zimbabwe was American Paul Beatty in 2016. Another American, George Saunders, won the following year. In 2018, publishers sought to reverse the change, arguing that the inclusion of American writers would lead to homogenisation, reducing diversity and opportunities everywhere, including in America, to learn about "great books that haven't already been widely heralded".


title: Booker Prize

text: Man Group announced in early 2019 that the year's prize would be the last of eighteen under their sponsorship. A new sponsor, Crankstart – a charitable foundation run by Sir Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman – then announced it would sponsor the award for five years, with the option to renew for another five years. The award title was changed to simply "The Booker Prize".


title: Booker Prize

text: In 2019, despite having been unequivocally warned against doing so, the foundation's jury – under the chair Peter Florence – split the prize, awarding it to two authors, in breach of a rule established in 1993. Florence justified the decision, saying: "We came down to a discussion with the director of the Booker Prize about the rules. And we were told quite firmly that the rules state that you can only have one winner ... and as we have managed the jury all the way through on the principle of consensus, our consensus was that it was our decision to flout the rules and divide this year’s prize to celebrate two winners." The two were British writer Bernardine Evaristo for her novel "Girl, Woman, Other" and Canadian writer Margaret Atwood for "The Testaments". Evaristo's win marked the first time the Booker had been awarded to a black woman, while Atwood's win, at 79, made her the oldest winner.


title: Booker Prize

text: The selection process for the winner of the prize commences with the formation of an advisory committee, which includes a writer, two publishers, a literary agent, a bookseller, a librarian, and a chairperson appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation. The advisory committee then selects the judging panel of five people, the membership of which changes each year, although on rare occasions a judge may be selected a second time. Judges are selected from amongst leading literary critics, writers, academics and leading public figures.


title: Booker Prize

text: The Booker judging process and the very concept of a "best book" being chosen by a small number of literary insiders is controversial for many. "The Guardian" introduced the "Not the Booker Prize" voted for by readers partly as a reaction to this.


title: Booker Prize

text: Author Amit Chaudhuri wrote: "The idea that a 'book of the year' can be assessed annually by a bunch of people – judges who have to read almost a book a day – is absurd, as is the idea that this is any way of honouring a writer."


title: Booker Prize

text: The winner is usually announced at a formal dinner in London's Guildhall in early October. However, in 2020, with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in place, the winner ceremony was broadcast in November from The Roundhouse, in partnership with the BBC.


title: Booker Prize

text: Luke Strongman noted that the rules for the Booker prize as laid out in 1969 with recipients limited to novelists writing in English from Great Britain or nations that had once belonged to the British Empire strongly suggested the purpose of the prize was to deepen ties between the nations that had all been a part of the empire. The first book to win the Booker, "Something to Answer For" in 1969, concerned the misadventures of an Englishman in Egypt in the 1950s at the time when British influence in Egypt was ending. Strongman wrote that most of the books that have won the Booker Prize have in some way been concerned with the legacy of the British Empire, with many of the prize winners having engaged in imperial nostalgia. However, over time many of the books that won the prize have reflected the changed balance of power from the emergence of new identities in the former colonies of the empire, and with it "culture after the empire". The attempts of successive British officials to mould "the natives" into their image did not fully succeed, but did profoundly and permanently change the cultures of the colonised, a theme which some non-white winners of the Booker prize have engaged with in various ways.


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1993, to mark the prize's 25th anniversary, a ""Booker of Bookers" Prize" was given. Three previous judges of the award, Malcolm Bradbury, David Holloway and W. L. Webb, met and chose Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", the 1981 winner, as "the best novel out of all the winners".


title: Booker Prize

text: In 2006, the Man Booker Prize set up a "Best of Beryl" prize, for the author Beryl Bainbridge, who had been nominated five times and yet failed to win once. The prize is said to count as a Booker Prize. The nominees were "An Awfully Big Adventure", "Every Man for Himself", "The Bottle Factory Outing", "The Dressmaker" and "Master Georgie", which won.


title: Booker Prize

text: Similarly, The Best of the Booker was awarded in 2008 to celebrate the prize's 40th anniversary. A shortlist of six winners was chosen — Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", Coetzee' "Disgrace", Carey's "Oscar and Lucinda", Gordimer's "The Conservationist", Farrell's "The Siege of Krishnapur", and Barker's "The Ghost Road" — and the decision was left to a public vote; the winner was again "Midnight's Children".


title: Booker Prize

text: In 1971, the nature of the prize was changed so that it was awarded to novels published in that year instead of in the previous year; therefore, no novel published in 1970 could win the Booker Prize. This was rectified in 2010 by the awarding of the "Lost Man Booker Prize" to J. G. Farrell's "Troubles".


title: Booker Prize

text: In 2018, to celebrate the 50th anniversary, the Golden Man Booker was awarded. One book from each decade was selected by a panel of judges: Naipaul's "In a Free State" (the 1971 winner), Lively's "Moon Tiger" (1987), Ondaatje's "The English Patient" (1992), Mantel's "Wolf Hall" (2009) and Saunders' "Lincoln in the Bardo" (2017). The winner, by popular vote, was "The English Patient".


title: Booker Prize

text: Since 2014, each publisher's imprint may submit a number of titles based on their longlisting history (previously they could submit two). Non-longlisted publishers can submit one title, publishers with one or two longlisted books in the previous five years can submit two, publishers with three or four longlisted books are allowed three submissions, and publishers with five or more longlisted books can have four submissions.


title: Booker Prize

text: In addition, previous winners of the prize are automatically considered if they enter new titles. Books may also be called in: publishers can make written representations to the judges to consider titles in addition to those already entered. In the 21st century the average number of books considered by the judges has been approximately 130.


title: Booker Prize

text: A separate prize for which any living writer in the world may qualify, the Man Booker International Prize was inaugurated in 2005. Until 2015, it was given every two years to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation. In 2016, the award was significantly reconfigured, and is now given annually to a single book in English translation, with a £50,000 prize for the winning title, shared equally between author and translator.


title: Booker Prize

text: A Russian version of the Booker Prize was created in 1992 called the Booker-Open Russia Literary Prize, also known as the Russian Booker Prize. In 2007, Man Group plc established the Man Asian Literary Prize, an annual literary award given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year.


title: Booker Prize

text: As part of "The Times" Literature Festival in Cheltenham, a Booker event is held on the last Saturday of the festival. Four guest speakers/judges debate a shortlist of four books from a given year from before the introduction of the Booker prize, and a winner is chosen. Unlike the real Man Booker (1969 through 2014), writers from outside the Commonwealth are also considered. In 2008, the winner for 1948 was Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country", beating Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead", Graham Greene's "The Heart of the Matter" and Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One". In 2015, the winner for 1915 was Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier", beating "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (John Buchan), "Of Human Bondage" (W. Somerset Maugham), "Psmith, Journalist" (P. G. Wodehouse) and "The Voyage Out" (Virginia Woolf).


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Project X is a 2012 American found footage teen comedy film directed by Nima Nourizadeh, written by Michael Bacall and Matt Drake and produced by Todd Phillips. The film follows three friends—Thomas (Thomas Mann), Costa (Oliver Cooper) and J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown)—who attempt to gain popularity by throwing a party, a plan which quickly escalates out of their control.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The title "Project X" was initially a placeholder for a final title, but interest generated by the secretive title kept it in place. A nationwide open casting call was employed to find fresh faces. The majority of the cast were sourced from this casting call, but a few with prior acting credits, such as Mann, were accepted after multiple auditions. Filming took place on sets in Los Angeles over five weeks on a US$12 million budget. The film is presented as a home video from the perspective of an attendee using a camera to document the night's events.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: "Project X" was released in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom on March 2, 2012, and grossed over $100 million worldwide during its theatrical run. Criticism focused on the "loathsome" behavior of the lead characters and the disregard for the effects of drug use. Other reviews considered it funny and thrilling, and equated it to a modern incarnation of the 1978 comedy "Animal House". Following release, incidents of large-scale parties referenced or blamed the film as an inspiration.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: In Pasadena, high school students Costa and J.B. plan to throw a party for their friend Thomas' 17th birthday, aiming to increase their popularity. Thomas' parents go away for the weekend, leaving him alone in the house, but warn him not to have too many people over and not to drive his father's Mercedes. Thomas is reluctant to have the party at his house, but Costa continues with his plan and hires A/V student Dax to chronicle the night's events. While Costa, J.B., and Dax advertise the party throughout the school, Thomas himself invites his best friend Kirby, who has a crush on him, and Alexis, a popular girl in their school whom Thomas has his own crush on. While shopping for party supplies, the boys have a chance encounter with actor Miles Teller and nervously invite him to the party, only to discover that the celebrity has already heard about it through the grapevine and plans to attend.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The trio then visits drug dealer T-Rick to buy marijuana, wherein Costa steals his lawn gnome to use as a party mascot. As they leave, T-Rick discovers the theft and chases after them, but they escape in Thomas' mini-van. As night falls, the party's start time passes, but no one turns up, and Thomas worries that the party will fail. Suddenly, partygoers arrive en masse, Miles Teller included. Thomas intends to limit the party to the backyard and pool house, with the house guarded by Everett and Tyler, two young security guards hired by Costa. However, more and more people begin arriving, and the party moves beyond their control and into the house. Thomas questions Costa on how he advertised the party, forcing him to confess that he put ads on Craigslist and on a local radio station, worried that no one would attend. Things escalate quickly as the party draws the ire of the neighbors and the police arrive, responding to a noise complaint. However, the partygoers hide and remain silent, convincing the officers that the party has already ended. The police leave and the party resumes.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Miles Teller smashes T-Rick's gnome, revealing that it contains large amounts of ecstasy tablets, which the partygoers quickly consume, including Thomas and his friends. Thomas kisses Kirby and reveals that he loves her. Alexis meanwhile flirts with Thomas throughout the night and eventually seduces him. Kirby walks in on the pair as they are about to have sex and leaves the party upset, as does Alexis, upset with Thomas running off and being secretly filmed. The noise and chaos of the party, including violence and mass property destruction, which has now spilled into the surrounding neighborhood, receive televised news coverage with helicopters flying over the house. A dwarf guest drives Thomas' dad's Mercedes into the pool after being put into an oven by other partygoers earlier.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: T-Rick arrives armed with a flamethrower, setting fire to trees, cars, and houses in the neighborhood in search of Costa and in an attempt to reclaim his gnome, forcing the guests to flee and the party to end. The police shoot his flamethrower pack, and it explodes. Thomas, Costa, J.B., and Dax flee with the other guests as Thomas' house (and the rest of the neighborhood) is left aflame, and the SWAT team moves in to retake the neighborhood. By morning, the boys return to their respective homes to discover what punishment awaits them. After his parents return, Thomas' father commends him for throwing such a large party because he thought he was a loser but reveals that Thomas is very much in deep trouble as his college fund will be used to cover the damages. At school, the boys are cheered by the students, and Thomas reconciles romantically with Kirby.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The epilogue reveals that T-Rick survived the explosion and is arrested for his actions; Thomas is convicted for disturbing the peace, contributing to the delinquency of minors, and inciting a riot, but is also voted most likely to succeed by his classmates. Costa and J.B. are acquitted, the former having a competent and expensive lawyer but awaits results of three separate paternity tests, and the latter's parents convincing the court that he is mentally incapable and unfit to stand trial but is forced to ride the short bus for the remainder of high school. Dax, meanwhile, is under investigation for the disappearance of his parents. In a television interview with Jillian Reynolds, Costa invites her to his next party instead of giving an apology.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The cast also includes Miles Teller as himself, Martin Klebba as the dwarf guest, Rick Shapiro as drug dealer T-Rick, Rob Evors as Thomas's neighbor Rob, Caitlin Dulany and Peter Mackenzie as Thomas's parents, Nichole Bloom as J.B.'s girl, and Jesse Marco as the party DJ. Television hosts Jillian Reynolds and Jimmy Kimmel cameo as themselves.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Producer Todd Phillips described the film as an experiment, after executive producer Alex Heineman provided a basic concept, with the production team sharing tales of memorable parties that they had either attended or heard about. Writer Michael Bacall developed these stories into an outline scenario in one night with the goal of creating the "gnarliest high school party of all time". The remainder of the story was fleshed out in the following weeks. Bacall and Drake were told to "go crazy" with the script, although Bacall confessed "I was a nerd in high school so I never did anything like what's in the movie". Bacall worked on the script generally at nights between simultaneously working on the scripts for "21 Jump Street" and "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World".


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: It has been widely speculated that the plot was loosely based around an infamous party held by 16-year-old Australian Corey Worthington in 2008, whose party was also an out-of-control event with hundreds of gatecrashers and widespread chaos, although this was never confirmed by any of the writers or producers. Worthington became a viral sensation after being interviewed on "A Current Affair" to answer for the damage, destruction, and fear caused by the gatecrashers, and rebuffing host Tracy Grimshaw's requests for him to remove his glasses. In the movie, Kub is also interviewed on TV following the fictional party.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Nima Nourizadeh had previously only worked directing music videos and commercials, but he came to the producers' attention for his directing work on a series of party-themed Adidas commercials. Nourizadeh explained to the producers how he would want to develop the script and how he would want the film to look and feel, and he was eventually brought from London to Los Angeles, for what he believed would be two weeks, but stretched to two years. Phillips believed that Nourizadeh's interpretation of the film was compatible with his vision, influencing the decision to hire Nourizadeh in his feature film debut.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: "Project X" was not intended to be the title of the film, but it was kept to capitalize on interest generated by the rumored secrecy surrounding the project. Adding to the secrecy, producers decided to not send full scripts to any prospective cast member, instead providing only watermarked individual pages.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: To create the impression that the events of "Project X" had actually happened, the producers decided against casting known faces and instead find completely new actors. Phillips stated that the goal of the open call was to cast "unknown actors" and "real people of all ethnicities," who would not normally be given a chance to star in a film. Phillips and producer Joel Silver decided to create a nationwide open casting call, allowing any United States resident over the age of 18 to audition for "Project X" through a specially created website. Actors were required to provide videos of themselves telling embarrassing or funny stories, or dancing. However, traditional casting was still employed to allow actors with little professional acting credits to audition. The process allowed traits of the selected actors to be incorporated into their characters, including in several cases, their respective characters taking the actors' names. In casting the three leads, the production avoided solo casting and instead had a group of three actors auditioning together, switching out and adding different actors to see which group worked best together.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The casting of low-profile actors aided in keeping the production budget low by avoiding the larger salaries attached to stars. To prepare for the role and create a believable friendship between the leads, Brown, Cooper, and Mann were sent to Disneyland together and spent a weekend in a cabin at Big Bear City, California.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Principal photography was scheduled to begin on June 14, 2010, in Los Angeles on a budget of $12 million. Filming took place over twenty-five nights between 5pm and 5am on the Warner Ranch in Burbank, California. The set contained a faux residential area featuring multiple houses. The house belonging to Thomas was situated directly opposite the house used by Danny Glover's character Roger Murtaugh in the Silver-produced 1987 action film "Lethal Weapon".


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The production decided to film on a set because locating a real neighborhood that could be effectively closed off and which would allow filming throughout the evening and early morning proved difficult. Phillips explained that using a real neighborhood would have also proven difficult because of the fire damage required for the film. Much of the set was destroyed as part of filming. The film was largely shot in chronological sequence as repairing the set damage from a later scene to film an earlier one would have been difficult. Mann described the filming as a "party atmosphere", with New York disc jockey Jesse Marco on set performing music even when the cameras stopped rolling to maintain the energy of the cast and extras. Many of the same extras were brought back for multiple nights of filming, and would continue to party between scenes. Periodic takes of up to 20 minutes were made of just extras dancing. During filming, Burbank police were called to the set concerning noise complaints made by nearby residents.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: "Project X" was filmed in cinéma vérité style, only displaying the events of the film through the first-person view of the cameraman observing the party, to create the effect of the audience being in attendance at the out of control party. Nourizadeh stated that the style allowed the film to seem "real" and "show some of the realities of what kids do". Cinematographer Ken Seng and Nourizadeh tested twelve different camera systems before choosing the digital-HD Sony F23 video camera, basing their decision on its ability to handle sudden extreme changes in lighting due to natural daylight and strobe lights.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The film is primarily presented from the perspective of the character Dax and his camera, but Nourizadeh also obtained footage by providing the cast and extras with recording devices such as BlackBerrys and iPhones to capture events occurring outside of the perspective or knowledge of the cameraman. This resulted in hours of unusable footage that had to be observed by Nourizadeh and his team to find segments that could be incorporated into the final film. Nourizadeh stated "when you have real material being shot by real people, it then kind of feels like it is. It is found footage. I hated spending 10 hours looking through bits of flip footage – people didn't press stop, it's like in their pockets. But yeah, it was great, man." Other footage was provided from fictional police and news cameras to give a different perspective on the events.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The "Project X (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)" was released on iTunes and on CD on February 28, 2012, by WaterTower Music. The album features 13 tracks which appeared throughout the film, with songs by Kid Cudi, D12, MGK, Nas, and .


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The score spent 18 weeks on the US "Billboard" 200, where it peaked at number 12. The album reached number five on the Top Digital Albums, number one on the Top Soundtracks and Top Independent Albums, and number three on the Top Rap Albums and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. It also charted on the Top Canadian Albums at number eight, the Swiss Albums Chart at number 73, the French Albums Chart at number 20, and the Belgian Ultratop 50 Albums Charts at number 66 in Flanders and number 29 in Wallonia. In the United States, the album was the number 6 selling soundtrack album of 2012, selling approximately 217,000 units.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: "Project X" held its world premiere on February 29, 2012, at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, followed by an after party with performances by Kid Cudi, Tyler, The Creator, and The Hundred in the Hands. Party guests were greeted by a Los Angeles Police Department cruiser and a bouncer warning them to keep their clothes on.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The film was scheduled for release in November 2011, but in August of that year the date was pushed back four months to March 2012. The film first received a wide release on March 1, 2012, in Australia, followed on March 2, 2012, by the United States and Canada.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: "Project X" was released on DVD, Blu-ray, the UltraViolet cloud storage service and digital download on June 19, 2012. Two versions of the Blu-ray were released: one containing a Blu-ray and UltraViolet copy of the film, and a combo pack containing the film on Blu-ray, DVD and UltraViolet. The Blu-ray version contains an extended edition featuring approximately 6 minutes of additional footage, the theatrical cut, and presents the film in 1080p/AVC with DTS-HD Master Audio sound. The home release also contains three featurettes: "Project X: Declassified", a behind-the-scenes look at the film's production; "Project X: The Pasadena Three", showing the casting of the three leads, Mann, Cooper, and Brown; and "Project Xpensive", detailing how much the damage caused in the film would have cost in reality. The DVD version sold 401,204 units in the United States during its first week, earning approximately $5.9 million, and , it had sold 1,012,223 units and earned $15.5 million from home media sales.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: During its box office run, the film grossed $54.7 million in North America and $48 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $102.7 million, against a budget of $12 million.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: The film opened to $1.2 million in midnight takings from 1,003 theaters in the United States and Canada. Throughout its opening day, the film's release was expanded to 3,055 theaters, where it grossed a total of $8.2 million including midnight takings. The end of the opening weekend saw the film take a total of $21 million—an average of $6,891 per theater—finishing as the number-two-grossing film of the weekend behind the animated family film "The Lorax" ($70.2 million), and exceeding expectations that it would finish with a gross in the mid- to high teens. "Project X" was highly popular with males and youth; 58 percent of the opening-weekend audience for the film was male, and 67 percent of the audience was under the age of 25.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Outside of North America, the film had its most successful opening weekends in France ($3.8 million), Australia ($1.3 million), and Germany ($1.2 million). These countries also represented its largest total gross takings, with $15 million from France, $4.4 million from Australia, and $4.3 million from Germany.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 28% based on 138 reviews, with an average rating of 4.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Unoriginal, unfunny, and all-around unattractive, "Project X" mines the depths of the teen movie and found-footage genres for 87 minutes of predictably mean-spirited debauchery." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B" on an A+ to F scale, with young males rating it the highest (A), and males in general rating the film higher (B+) than females (C+).


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Criticism against the film focused on the perceived misogynistic and mean-spirited behavior of the characters, and disregard for the effects of drugs. "Empire"s Chris Hewitt gave the film one star out of five, and referred to the central characters portrayed by Mann, Cooper, and Brown, as "spectacularly unlikable". Hewitt labeled the characters "unrepentant, nihilistic, vile, venal, animalistic, avaricious, charmless, entitled, sub-Kardashian, stunningly irresponsible brats". Hewitt ended his review by stating that the film was "possibly the worst film of the last 20 years. It's certainly the worst comedy of the last 20 years". Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" was similarly critical, calling it "grimly depressing, glumly unfunny teensploitation", but admitted that it would "enthrall a portion of the high school/college age demographic it depicts, just as it alternately outrages, confounds and disgusts other, presumably older audiences." "USA Today"s Claudia Puig found the film treated female characters poorly, labeling it a "heinous, misogynistic movie filled with faceless crowds and nary a character who resembles an actual human being", a sentiment echoed by Melissa Anderson of "The Village Voice" who felt the film promoted "skull-numbing hedonism without consequences", and "second-nature misogyny", and that the only purpose of the male characters is to "'get high, fuck bitches.'"


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Robbie Collin of "The Telegraph" called the film "flamboyantly loathsome on every imaginable level" and was critical of the three lead characters, saying "unlike "Superbad"s leads, these three are poisonously unpleasant, and the supposedly comedic banter between them comes off as bullying." "The Los Angeles Times"s Robert Abele called the main trio "numbingly predictable" and the film itself "unoriginal", stating the film "bears a cravenly piggish attitude toward rewarding socially unacceptable behavior that feels unseemly rather than exciting".


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: "The New York Times" Neil Genzlinger said that the funny script and skilled editing potentially made it the ""Animal House" of the iPhone generation". Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" praised the film for updating the clichés of similarly themed films from the 1970s to the 1980s like "Animal House" and "Risky Business" "so that they look just dangerous enough to make nostalgia feel naughty", but stated that the film does not offer anything more outrageous than real parties, despite implying "that it's breaking down bold new barriers of misbehavior". Gleiberman accused negative reviews of "fulfilling the role of all those uptight parents in '50s news reports about the dangers of rock & roll", by applying moral judgments to the events of the film. "Time Out" Joshua Rothkopf gave the film four stars out of five, calling it "brainless", but feeling that the sheer anarchy of the film's events were "thrilling". Pete Travers of "Rolling Stone" praised the film as "gut-bustingly funny" that appealed to a base youth element to become "shitfaced and run amok", and said that it puts its own spin on "Animal House". Travers gave particular mention to Mann as "excellent"; however, he also stated that Nourizadeh's filmmaking was a "disaster".


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Several reviewers were particularly critical towards Cooper and his character. Hewitt called him "the most annoying movie character since Jar Jar Binks", while others similarly described him as "singularly loathsome, venal and without humor", "supremely annoying", "that dick in a sweater-vest" and a "misogynistic" imitation of Jonah Hill "minus the timing, sad sack appeal and motormouth grace". Conversely, Genzlinger praised Cooper for bringing a "mischievous likability" to Costa that "anchors" the events.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Cooper was nominated for two 2012 MTV Movie Awards for Best Comedic Performance and Best On-Screen Dirtbag, and the film received a nomination for Best Music for the Steve Aoki remix of the Kid Cudi song Pursuit of Happiness. "Project X" was listed as the number 1 most illegally downloaded film of 2012 on BitTorrent with approximately 8.7 million downloads.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: On March 9, 2012, "Project M" became the first event to gain media attention after a party invitation was posted on Twitter by Farmington Hills, Michigan, high schooler Mikey Vasovski, and was subsequently passed to thousands of users, to the point that the message was being resent once per second, and was posted on Craigslist. The party was dubbed "Project M" by Vasovski, and the invitation contained the address of a foreclosed home where the party would take place. By 9 a.m. on March 9, potential party-goers began arriving at the location, but by 11 a.m. the party had been officially cancelled after police began escorting people off of the premises. Based on his promotion job, Vasovski was offered a summer internship by Gawker Media.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: On March 13, 2012, two separate parties were attempted in Miramar, Florida, and Houston, Texas. In Miramar, people were invited to a foreclosed home to recreate the film as "Project X House Party 2". The promoter was arrested and charged with $19,000 of criminal damage before the party had begun. Police claimed to have turned away 2,000 teenagers who approached the property unaware of the party's cancellation. In Houston, 13 teenagers were arrested after successfully throwing a party and causing up to $100,000 of damage to an empty home. When police questioned the teens about their motivation, they claimed to have been inspired by the film. A second Houston party attracted between 500 and 1,000 guests, but resulted in the death of one person after an attendee started firing a gun when police attempted to break up the event.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: On September 21, 2012, a party in the small Dutch town of Haren spiraled out of control after a Facebook invitation. News reports indicated that "There were multiple mentions of an American film called "Project X"", and that some revelers wore T-shirts marked 'Project X Haren'. The damage was estimated to be over €1 million ($1.32 million).


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: In 2012, a party called "Proyecto X" ("Project X" in Spanish) was held in the Pilar Partido of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. The event gathered 4,500 teenagers who were sold alcohol.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: In 2014, a party called "Project P" was thrown in Mecosta County, Michigan that attracted more that 2,000 people to an isolated farm house. There were go-go dancers, strippers, a fire thrower and two DJs reportedly hired for the party. Dozens of participants were taken to area hospitals after overdosing on drugs (particularly heroin) and alcohol including one reported sexual assault. Police from seven agencies who responded chose to manage the situation from the perimeter because of the risk of hundreds of intoxicated drivers fleeing the scene. Three suspected organizers of the rave were formally charged.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: On August 16, 2014 in Mexico in the state of Jalisco in the city of Zapopan a party called La Fiesta de los 4 mil got out of control after a young man named Alejandro Chassin Godoy made an event on Facebook. The party was held on the day of his birthday. A few days after the disaster was revealed the attendance of guests at the event had reached 6799 people. There were 6 injured and 281 were arrested. The majority of the guests were young teenagers. According to the Guadalajara Police, the guests had guns and secured 462 grams of Marijuana at the party. Chass was fined 2.800 pesos for damages caused at the party.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: Rapper Ken Carson's debut studio album "Project X" was named after the film, and its artwork references the film's promotional material.


title: Project X (2012 film)

text: On March 6, 2012, four days after its release, Warner Bros. announced a sequel, with Bacall returning to write a script. On May 19, 2015, the studio officially announced that the sequel would be titled "Project XX" and was initially scheduled for release on August 19, 2016. In December 2021, Jonathan Daniel Brown had commented on Instagram the sequel will "never happen".


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Éamon de Valera (, ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of government and head of state and had a leading role in introducing the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Prior to de Valera's political career, he was a commandant of Irish Volunteers at Boland's Mill during the 1916 Easter Rising. He was arrested and sentenced to death but released for a variety of reasons, including the public response to the British execution of Rising leaders. He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, de Valera served as the political leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin until 1926, when he, along with many supporters, left the party to set up Fianna Fáil, a new political party which abandoned the policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: From there, de Valera went on to be at the forefront of Irish politics until the turn of the 1960s. He took over as president of the Executive Council from W. T. Cosgrave and later became Taoiseach, with the adoption of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937. He served as Taoiseach on three different occasions: from 1937 to 1948, from 1951 to 1954, and finally from 1957 to 1959. He remains the longest serving Taoiseach by total days served in the post. He resigned in 1959 upon his election as president of Ireland. By then, he had been Leader of Fianna Fáil for 33 years and he, along with older founding members, began to take a less prominent role relative to newer ministers such as Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney. De Valera served as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973, two full terms in office.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera's political beliefs evolved from militant Irish republicanism to strong social, cultural and fiscal conservatism. He has been characterised as having a stern and unbending, and also devious demeanour. His roles in the Civil War have also been interpreted as making him a divisive figure in Irish history. Biographer Tim Pat Coogan sees his time in power as being characterised by economic and cultural stagnation, while Diarmaid Ferriter argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere, cold, and even backward figure was largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Éamon de Valera was born on 14 October 1882 in New York City, the son of Catherine Coll, who was originally from Bruree, County Limerick, and Juan Vivion de Valera, described on the birth certificate as a Spanish artist born in 1853. Some researchers have placed his father's place of birth in Cuba, while others have suggested other locations; according to Antonio Rivero Taravillo, he was born in Seville, while Ronan Fanning has him born in the Basque Country.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: He was born at the Nursery and Child's Hospital, Lexington Avenue, a home for destitute orphans and abandoned children. His parents were reportedly married on 18 September 1881 at St Patrick's Church in Jersey City, New Jersey, but archivists have not located any marriage certificate or any birth, baptismal, or death certificate information for anyone called Juan Vivion de Valera (nor for "de Valeros", an alternative spelling). On de Valera's original birth certificate, his name is given as George de Valero and his father is listed as Vivion de Valero. Although he was known as Edward de Valera before 1901, a fresh birth certificate was issued in 1910, in which his first name was officially changed to Edward and his father's surname given as "de Valera". As a child, he was known as "Eddie" or "Eddy".


title: Éamon de Valera

text: According to Coll, Juan Vivion died in 1885 leaving Coll and her child in poor circumstances. Éamon was taken to Ireland by his uncle Ned at the age of two. When his mother remarried in the mid-1880s, he was not brought back to live with her, but was reared by his grandmother, Elizabeth Coll, her son Patrick and her daughter Hannie, in Bruree, County Limerick. He was educated locally at Bruree National School, County Limerick and C.B.S. Charleville, County Cork. Aged sixteen, he won a scholarship. He was not successful in enrolling at two colleges in Limerick, but was accepted at Blackrock College, Dublin, at the instigation of his local curate.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: He played rugby at Blackrock and Rockwell College, then for Munster around 1905. He remained a lifelong devotee of rugby, attending international matches even towards the end of his life when he was nearly blind.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: At the end of his first year at Blackrock College he was student of the year. He also won further scholarships and exhibitions and in 1903 was appointed teacher of mathematics at Rockwell College, County Tipperary. It was here that de Valera was first given the nickname "Dev" by a teaching colleague, Tom O'Donnell. In 1904, he graduated in mathematics from the Royal University of Ireland. He then studied for a year at Trinity College Dublin but, owing to the necessity of earning a living, did not proceed further and returned to teaching, this time at Belvedere College. In 1906, he secured a post as a teacher of mathematics at Carysfort Teachers' Training College for women in Blackrock, Dublin. His applications for professorships in colleges of the National University of Ireland were unsuccessful, but he obtained a part-time appointment at St Patrick's College, Maynooth and also taught mathematics at various Dublin schools, including Castleknock College (1910–1911; under the name Edward de Valera) and Belvedere College.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: There were occasions when de Valera seriously contemplated the religious life like his half-brother, Fr. Thomas Wheelwright, but ultimately he did not pursue this vocation. As late as 1906, when he was 24 years old, he approached the President of Clonliffe Seminary in Dublin for advice on his vocation. De Valera was throughout his life portrayed as a deeply religious man, and in death asked to be buried in a religious habit. His biographer, Tim Pat Coogan, speculated that questions surrounding de Valera's legitimacy may have been a deciding factor in his not entering religious life. Being illegitimate would have been a bar to receiving priestly orders, but not to becoming a lay member of a religious order.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: As a young "" (Irish speaker), de Valera became an activist for the Irish language. In 1908, he joined the Árdchraobh of Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League), where he met Sinéad Flanagan, a teacher by profession and four years his senior. They were married on 8 January 1910 at St Paul's Church, Arran Quay, Dublin.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: The couple had five sons: Vivion (1910–1982), Éamon (1913–1986), Brian (1915–1936), Rúaidhrí (1916–1978), and Terence (Terry; 1922–2007); and two daughters: Máirín (1912–1984) and Emer (1918–2012). Brian de Valera predeceased his parents.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: While he was already involved in the Gaelic revival, de Valera's involvement in the political revolution began on 25 November 1913, when he joined the Irish Volunteers. The organisation was formed to oppose the Ulster Volunteers and ensure the enactment of the Irish Parliamentary Party's Third Home Rule Act won by its leader John Redmond. After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, de Valera rose through the ranks and it was not long before he was elected captain of the Donnybrook branch. Preparations were pushed ahead for an armed revolt, and he was made commandant of the Third Battalion and adjutant of the Dublin Brigade. He took part in the Howth gun-running. He was sworn by Thomas MacDonagh into the oath-bound Irish Republican Brotherhood, which secretly controlled the central executive of the Volunteers. He opposed secret societies, but this was the only way he could be guaranteed full information on plans for the Rising.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: On 24 April 1916, the Easter Rising began. Forces commanded by de Valera occupied Boland's Mill on Grand Canal Street in Dublin. His chief task was to cover the southeastern approaches to the city. After a week of fighting, the order came from Pádraig Pearse to surrender. De Valera was court-martialled, convicted, and sentenced to death, but the sentence was immediately commuted to penal servitude for life.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera was among the few republican leaders the British did not execute. It has been argued that his life was saved by four facts. First, he was one of the last to surrender and he was held in a different prison from other leaders, thus his execution was delayed by practicalities. Second, the US Consulate in Dublin made representations before his trial (i.e., was he actually a United States citizen and if so, how would the United States react to the execution of one of its citizens?) while the full legal situation was clarified. The UK was trying to bring the US into the war in Europe at the time, and the Irish American vote was important in US politics. Third, when Lt-Gen Sir John Maxwell reviewed his case he said, "Who is he? I haven't heard of him before. I wonder would he be likely to make trouble in the future?" On being told that de Valera was unimportant, he commuted the court-martial's death sentence to life imprisonment. De Valera had no Fenian family or personal background and his MI5 file in 1916 was very slim, detailing only his open membership in the Irish Volunteers. Fourth, by the time de Valera was court-martialled on 8 May, political pressure was being brought to bear on Maxwell to halt the executions; Maxwell had already told British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith that only two more were to be executed, Seán Mac Diarmada and James Connolly, although they were court-martialled the day after de Valera. His late trial, representations made by the American Consulate, his lack of Fenian background and political pressure all combined to save his life, though had he been tried a week earlier he would probably have been shot.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera's supporters and detractors argue about his bravery during the Easter Rising. His supporters claim he showed leadership skills and a capacity for meticulous planning. His detractors claim he suffered a nervous breakdown during the Rising. According to accounts from 1916, de Valera was seen running about, giving conflicting orders, refusing to sleep and on one occasion, having forgotten the password, almost getting himself shot in the dark by his own men. According to one account, de Valera, on being forced to sleep by one subordinate who promised to sit beside him and wake him if he was needed, suddenly woke up, his eyes "wild", screaming, "Set fire to the railway! Set fire to the railway!" Later in the Ballykinlar internment Camp, one de Valera loyalist approached another internee, a medical doctor, recounted the story, and asked for a medical opinion as to de Valera's condition. He also threatened to sue the doctor, future Fine Gael TD and Minister, Dr. Tom O'Higgins, if he ever repeated the story. The British reportedly, however, considered de Valera's forces the best-trained and best-led among the rebels. De Valera's latest biographer, Anthony J. Jordan, writes of this controversy, "Whatever happened in Boland's Mills, or any other garrison, does not negate or undermine in any way the extraordinary heroism of "Dev" and his comrades".


title: Éamon de Valera

text: After imprisonment in Dartmoor, Maidstone and Lewes prisons, de Valera and his comrades were released under an amnesty in June 1917. On 10 July 1917, he was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Clare (the constituency which he represented until 1959) in a by-election caused by the death of the previous incumbent Willie Redmond, brother of the Irish Party leader John Redmond, who had died fighting in World War I. In the 1918 general election he was elected both for that seat and Mayo East. But because most other Irish rebellion leaders were dead, in 1917 he was elected President of Sinn Féin, the party which had been blamed incorrectly for provoking the Easter Rising. This party became the political vehicle through which the survivors of the Easter Rising channelled their republican ethos and objectives. The previous President of Sinn Féin, Arthur Griffith, had championed an Anglo-Irish dual-monarchy based on the Austro-Hungarian model, with independent legislatures for both Ireland and Britain.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Sinn Féin won a huge majority in the 1918 general election, largely thanks to the British executions of the 1916 leaders, the threat of conscription with the Conscription Crisis of 1918 and the first-past-the-post ballot. They won 73 out of 105 Irish seats, with about 47% of votes cast. 25 seats were uncontested. On 21 January 1919, 27 Sinn Féin MPs (the rest were imprisoned or impaired), calling themselves Teachtaí Dála (TDs), assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin and formed an Irish parliament, known as Dáil Éireann (translatable into English as the "Assembly of Ireland"). The Ministry of Dáil Éireann was formed, under the leadership of the Príomh Aire (also called President of Dáil Éireann) Cathal Brugha. De Valera had been re-arrested in May 1918 and imprisoned and so could not attend the January session of the Dáil. He escaped from Lincoln Gaol, England in February 1919. As a result, he replaced Brugha as Príomh Aire in the April session of Dáil Éireann.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In the hope of securing international recognition, Seán T. O'Kelly was sent as envoy to Paris to present the Irish case to the Peace Conference convened by the great powers at the end of World War I. When it became clear by May 1919 that this mission could not succeed, de Valera decided to visit the United States. The mission had three objectives: to ask for official recognition of the Irish Republic, to float a loan to finance the work of the Government (and by extension, the Irish Republican Army), and to secure the support of the American people for the republic. His visit lasted from June 1919 to December 1920 and had mixed success, including a visit to Fenway Park in Boston in front of 50,000 supporters. One negative outcome was the splitting of the Irish-American organisations into pro- and anti-de Valera factions. He met the young Harvard-educated leader from Puerto Rico, Pedro Albizu Campos, and forged a lasting and useful alliance with him. It was during this American tour that he recruited his long-serving personal secretary, Kathleen O'Connell, an Irish emigrant who would return to Ireland with him. In October 1919, he visited the University of Notre Dame campus in Indiana, where he planted a tree and also laid a wreath by the statue of William Corby. He toured the university archives and spoke in Washington Hall about the cause of Ireland in front of twelve hundred students.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera managed to raise $5,500,000 from American supporters, an amount that far exceeded the hopes of the Dáil. Of this, $500,000 was devoted to the American presidential campaign in 1920, helping him gain wider public support there. In 1921, it was said that $1,466,000 had already been spent, and it is unclear when the net balance arrived in Ireland. Recognition was not forthcoming in the international sphere. He also had difficulties with various Irish-American leaders, such as John Devoy and Judge Daniel F. Cohalan, who resented the dominant position he established, preferring to retain their control over Irish affairs in the United States.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: While American recognition for the Republic had been his priority, in February 1921, De Valera redirected Patrick McCartan from Washington to Moscow. McCartan was told by Maxim Litvinov, that the opportunity of recognition and assistance had passed. The Soviet priority was a trade agreement with Britain (signed in March). In June the British government (with a view to both domestic and American opinion) published the proposed treaty between the Dáil government and the Soviets, and related correspondence.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Meanwhile, in Ireland, the conflict between the British authorities and the Dáil (which the British declared illegal in September 1919), escalated into the Irish War of Independence. De Valera left day-to-day government, during his eighteen-month absence in the United States, to Michael Collins, his 29-year-old Minister for Finance. De Valera and Collins would later become opponents during the Irish Civil War.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In January 1921, in his first appearance in the Dáil, after his return to a country gripped by the War of Independence, de Valera introduced a motion calling on the IRA to desist from ambushes and other tactics that were allowing the British to successfully portray it as a terrorist group, and to take on the British forces with conventional military methods. This they strongly opposed, and de Valera relented, issuing a statement expressing support for the IRA, and claimed it was fully under the control of the Dáil. He then, along with Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack, brought pressure to bear on Michael Collins to undertake a journey to the United States himself, on the pretext that only he could take up where de Valera had left off. Collins successfully resisted this move and stayed in Ireland. In the elections of May 1921, all candidates in Southern Ireland were returned unopposed, and Sinn Féin secured some seats in Northern Ireland. Following the Truce of July 1921 that ended the war, de Valera went to see Prime Minister David Lloyd George in London on 14 July. No agreement was reached, and by then the Parliament of Northern Ireland had already met. It became clear that neither a republic, nor independence for all 32 counties, was going to be offered; Lloyd George told de Valera he could "put a soldier in Ireland for every man, woman and child in it" if the IRA did not immediately agree to stop fighting. In August 1921, de Valera secured Dáil Éireann approval to change the 1919 Dáil Constitution to upgrade his office from prime minister or chairman of the cabinet to a full President of the Republic. Declaring himself now the Irish equivalent of King George V, he argued that as Irish head of state, in the absence of the British head of state from the negotiations, he too should not attend the peace conference called the Treaty Negotiations (October–December 1921) at which British and Irish government leaders agreed to the effective independence of twenty-six of Ireland's thirty-two counties as the Irish Free State, with Northern Ireland choosing to remain under British sovereignty. It is generally agreed by historians that whatever his motives, it was a mistake for de Valera not to have travelled to London.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Having effected these changes, a boundary commission came into place to redraw the Irish border. Nationalists expected its report to recommend that largely nationalist areas become part of the Free State, and many hoped this would make Northern Ireland so small it would not be economically viable. A Council of Ireland was also provided in the Treaty as a model for an eventual all-Irish parliament. Hence neither the pro- nor anti-Treaty sides made many complaints about partition in the Treaty Debates.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: The Republic's delegates to the Treaty Negotiations were accredited by de Valera and his cabinet as plenipotentiaries (that is, negotiators with the legal authority to sign a treaty without reference back to the cabinet), but were given secret cabinet instructions by de Valera that required them to return to Dublin before signing the Treaty. The Treaty proved controversial in Ireland insofar as it replaced the Republic by a dominion of the British Commonwealth with the King represented by a Governor-General of the Irish Free State. The Irish delegates Arthur Griffith, Robert Barton and Michael Collins supported by Erskine Childers as Secretary-General set up their delegation headquarters at 22 Hans Place in Knightsbridge. It was there, at 11.15 am on 5 December 1921, that the decision was made to recommend the Treaty to Dáil Éireann. The Treaty was finally signed by the delegates after further negotiations which closed at 02:20 on 6 December 1921.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera baulked at the agreement. His opponents claimed that he had refused to join the negotiations because he knew what the outcome would be and did not wish to receive the blame. De Valera claimed that he had not gone to the treaty negotiations because he would be better able to control the extremists at home, and that his absence would allow leverage for the plenipotentiaries to refer back to him and not be pressured into any agreements. Because of the secret instructions given to the plenipotentiaries, he reacted to news of the signing of the Treaty not with anger at its contents (which he refused even to read when offered a newspaper report of its contents), but with anger over the fact that they had not consulted "him", their president, before signing. His ideal drafts, presented to a secret session of the Dáil during the Treaty Debates and publicised in January 1922, were ingenious compromises but they included dominion status, the "Treaty Ports", the fact of partition subject to veto by the parliament in Belfast, and some continuing status for the King as head of the Commonwealth. Ireland's share of the imperial debt was to be paid.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: After the Treaty was narrowly ratified by 64 to 57, de Valera and a large minority of Sinn Féin TDs left Dáil Éireann. He then resigned and Arthur Griffith was elected President of Dáil Éireann in his place, though respectfully still calling him 'The President'. On a speaking tour of the more republican province of Munster, starting on 17 March 1922, de Valera made controversial speeches at Carrick on Suir, Lismore, Dungarvan and Waterford, saying that: ""If the Treaty were accepted," [by the electorate] "the fight for freedom would still go on, and the Irish people, instead of fighting foreign soldiers, will have to fight the Irish soldiers of an Irish government set up by Irishmen."" At Thurles, several days later, he repeated this imagery and added that the IRA: ""..would have to wade through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government, and perhaps through that of some members of the Irish Government to get their freedom."" In a letter to the Irish Independent on 23 March de Valera accepted the accuracy of their report of his comment about "wading" through blood, but deplored that the newspaper had published it.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera objected to the oath of allegiance to the King that the treaty required Irish parliamentarians to take. He also was concerned that Ireland could not have an independent foreign policy as part of the British Commonwealth when the British retained several naval ports (see Treaty Ports) around Ireland's coast. As a compromise, de Valera proposed "external association" with the British Empire, which would leave Ireland's foreign policy in her own hands and a republican constitution with no mention of the British monarch (he proposed this as early as April, well before the negotiations began, under the title "Document No. 2"). Michael Collins was prepared to accept this formula and the two wings (pro- and anti-Treaty) of Sinn Féin formed a pact to fight the 1922 Irish general election together and form a coalition government afterwards. Collins later called off the pact on the eve of the election. De Valera's opponents won the election and civil war broke out shortly afterwards in late June 1922.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Relations between the new Irish government, which was backed by most of the Dáil and the electorate, and the anti-treatyites, under the nominal leadership of de Valera, now descended into the Irish Civil War (June 1922 to May 1923), in which the pro-treaty Free State forces defeated the anti-treaty IRA. Both sides had wanted to avoid civil war, but fighting broke out over the takeover of the Four Courts in Dublin by anti-treaty members of the IRA. These men were not loyal to de Valera and initially were not even supported by the executive of the anti-treaty IRA. However, Michael Collins was forced to act against them when Winston Churchill threatened to re-occupy the country with British troops unless action was taken. When fighting broke out in Dublin between the Four Courts garrison and the new Free State Army, republicans backed the IRA men in the Four Courts, and civil war broke out. De Valera, though he held no military position, backed the anti-treaty IRA, or "irregulars", and said that he was re-enlisting in the IRA as an ordinary volunteer. On 8 September 1922, he met in secret with Richard Mulcahy in Dublin to try to halt the fighting. However, according to de Valera, they "could not find a basis" for agreement.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Though nominally head of the anti-treatyites, de Valera had little influence. He does not seem to have been involved in any fighting and had little or no influence with the revolutionary military leadership, headed by IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch. De Valera and the anti-treaty TDs formed a "republican government" on 25 October 1922 from anti-treaty TDs to "be temporarily the Supreme Executive of the Republic and the State, until such time as the elected Parliament of the Republic can freely assemble, or the people being rid of external aggression are at liberty to decide freely how they are to be governed". However, it had no real authority and was a pale shadow of the Dáil government of 1919–21.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In March 1923, de Valera attended the meeting of the IRA Army Executive to decide on the future of the war. He was known to be in favour of a truce but he had no voting rights and it was narrowly decided to continue hostilities. The leader of the Free State, W. T. Cosgrave, insisted that there could be no acceptance of a surrender without disarming.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: On 30 April 1923, the IRA's new Chief of Staff, Frank Aiken (Lynch had been killed), called a ceasefire. This was followed on 24 May by an order for volunteers to "dump arms". De Valera, who had wanted an end to the internecine fighting for some time, backed the ceasefire order with a message in which he called the anti-treaty fighters "the Legion of the Rearguard", saying that "The Republic can no longer be successfully defended by your arms. Further sacrifice on your part would now be in vain and the continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest and prejudicial to the future of our cause. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the republic. Other means must be sought to safeguard the nation's right."


title: Éamon de Valera

text: After this point many of the republicans were arrested in Free State round-ups when they had come out of hiding and returned home. De Valera remained in hiding for several months after the ceasefire was declared; however, he emerged in August to stand for election in County Clare. Making a campaign appearance in Ennis on 15 August, de Valera was arrested on the platform and interned at Kilmainham jail. He was moved to Arbour Hill barracks briefly prior to his release on 16 July 1924.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: After the IRA dumped their arms rather than surrender them or continue a now fruitless war, de Valera returned to political methods. In 1924, he was arrested in Newry for "illegally entering Northern Ireland" and held in solitary confinement for a month in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: During this time, de Valera came to believe that abstentionism was not a workable tactic in the long term. He now believed that a better course would be to try to gain power and turn the Free State from a constitutional monarchy into a republic. He tried to convince Sinn Féin to accept this new line. However, a vote to accept the Free State Constitution (contingent on the abolition of the Oath of Allegiance) narrowly failed. Soon afterwards, de Valera resigned from Sinn Féin and seriously considered leaving politics.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: However, one of his colleagues, Seán Lemass, convinced de Valera to found a new republican party. In March 1926, with Lemass, Constance Markievicz and others, de Valera formed a new party, Fianna Fáil ("The Warriors of Destiny"), a party that was to dominate 20th-century Irish politics. While Sinn Féin still held to an abstentionist line, Fianna Fáil was dedicated to republicanising the Free State from within if it gained power.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Having attracted most of Sinn Féin's branches due to Lemass' organisational skill, the new party made swift electoral gains in the general election on 9 June 1927. In the process, it took much of Sinn Féin's previous support, winning 44 seats to Sinn Féin's five. It refused to take the Oath of Allegiance (portrayed by opponents as an 'Oath of Allegiance to the Crown' but actually an "Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Free State" with a secondary "promise of fidelity to the King in his role in the Treaty settlement").


title: Éamon de Valera

text: The oath was largely the work of Collins and based on three sources: British oaths in the dominions, the oath of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a draft oath prepared by de Valera in his proposed treaty alternative, "Document No. 2"). De Valera began a legal case to challenge the requirement that members of his party take the Oath, but the assassination of the Vice-President of the Executive Council (deputy prime minister) Kevin O'Higgins on 10 July 1927 led the Executive Council under W. T. Cosgrave to introduce a Bill on 20 July requiring all Dáil candidates to promise on oath that if they were elected they would take the Oath of Allegiance. Forced into a corner, and faced with the option of staying outside politics forever or taking the oath and entering, de Valera and his TDs took the Oath of Allegiance on 12 August 1927, though de Valera himself described the Oath as "an empty political formula".


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera never organised Fianna Fáil in Northern Ireland and it was not until 7 December 2007 that Fianna Fáil was registered there by the UK Electoral Commission.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In the 1932 general election Fianna Fáil secured 72 seats and became the largest party in the Dáil, although without a majority. Some Fianna Fáil members arrived at the first sitting of the new Dáil carrying arms, amid fears that Cumann na nGaedheal would not voluntarily surrender power. However, the transition was peaceful. De Valera was elected President of the Executive Council "(Prime Minister)" by the Dáil by a vote of 81–68, with the support of the Labour Party and Independent politicians, and took office on 9 March.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: He at once initiated steps to fulfill his election promises to abolish the oath and withhold land annuities owed to the UK for loans provided under the Irish Land Acts and agreed as part of the 1921 Treaty. This launched the Anglo-Irish Trade War when the UK in retaliation imposed economic sanctions against Irish exports. De Valera responded in kind with levies on British imports. The ensuing "Economic War" lasted until 1938.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: After De Valera had urged King George V to dismiss McNeill as Governor-General, the King suggested an alternative course of action: that McNeill, instead, carry on a while longer as viceroy and only then resign, which he did on 1 November 1932. Subsequently, a 1916 veteran, Domhnall Ua Buachalla, was appointed Governor-General. To strengthen his position against the opposition in the Dáil and Seanad, de Valera directed the Governor-General to call a snap election in January 1933 and de Valera's party won 77 seats, giving Fianna Fáil an overall majority. Under de Valera's leadership, Fianna Fáil won further general elections in 1937, 1938, 1943, and 1944.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera took charge of Ireland's foreign policy as well by also acting as Minister for External Affairs. In that capacity, he attended meetings of the League of Nations. He was president of the Council of the League on his first appearance at the league in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1932 and, in a speech that made a worldwide impression, appealed for genuine adherence by its members to the principles of the covenant of the league. In 1934, he supported the admission of the Soviet Union into the league. In September 1938, he was elected nineteenth president of the Assembly of the League, a tribute to the international recognition he had won by his independent stance on world questions.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera's government followed the policy of unilaterally dismantling the treaty of 1921. In this way he would be pursuing republican policies and lessening the popularity of republican violence and the IRA. De Valera encouraged IRA members to join the Irish Defence Forces and the Gardaí. He also refused to dismiss from office those Cumann na nGaedheal, Cosgrave supporters, who had previously opposed him during the Civil War. He did, however, dismiss Eoin O'Duffy from his position as Garda Commissioner after a year. Eoin O'Duffy was then invited to be head of the Army Comrades Association (ACA) formed to protect and promote the welfare of its members, previously led by J.F. O'Higgins, Kevin O'Higgins's brother. This organisation was an obstacle to de Valera's power as it supported Cumann na nGaedheal and provided stewards for their meetings. Cumann na nGaedheal meetings were frequently disrupted by Fianna Fáil supporters following the publication of the article: "No Free Speech for Traitors" by Peadar O'Donnell, an IRA member.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: The ACA changed its name to the "National Guard" under O'Duffy and adopted the uniform of black berets and blue shirts, using the straight-armed salute, and were nicknamed the Blueshirts. They were outwardly fascist and planned a march in August 1933 through Dublin to commemorate Michael Collins, Kevin O'Higgins, and Arthur Griffith. This march struck parallels with Mussolini's march on Rome (1922), in which he had created the image of having toppled the democratic government in Rome. De Valera revived a military tribunal, which had been set up by the previous administration, to deal with the matter. O'Duffy backed down when the National Guard was declared an illegal organisation and the march was banned. Within a few weeks, O'Duffy's followers merged with Cumann na nGaedhael and the Centre Party to form "United Ireland", or Fine Gael, and O'Duffy became its leader. Smaller local marches were scheduled for the following weeks, under different names. Internal dissension set in when the party's TDs distanced themselves from O'Duffy's extreme views, and his movement fell asunder.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Fianna Fáil having won the 1937 election held the same day as the plebiscite that ratified the constitution, de Valera continued as President of the Executive Council until 29 December 1937, when the new constitution was enacted. On that date, de Valera's post automatically became that of Taoiseach which was a considerably more powerful office. Notably, he could advise the President to dismiss Ministers individually – advice that the President was bound to follow by convention. The old Executive Council had to be dissolved and reformed if its President wanted to remove a Minister. Additionally, he could request a parliamentary dissolution on his own authority. Previously, the right to seek a dissolution was vested with the Council as a whole.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In social policy, de Valera's first period as Taoiseach saw the introduction (in 1947) of means-tested allowances for people suffering from infectious diseases.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: With the new constitution in place, de Valera determined that the changed circumstances made swift resolution to Ireland's ongoing trade war with the UK more desirable for both sides — as did the growing probability of the outbreak of war across Europe. In April 1938, de Valera and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, lifting all duties imposed during the previous five years and ending British use of the Treaty Ports it had retained in accordance with the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The return of the ports was of particular significance, since it ensured Irish neutrality during the coming Second World War.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: During the 1930s, de Valera systematically stripped the Irish Free State constitution – a constitution originally drafted by a committee under the nominal chairmanship of his rival, Collins – of features tying Ireland to the United Kingdom, limiting its independence and the republican character of its state. De Valera was able to carry out this program of constitutional change by taking advantage of three earlier modifications of constitutional arrangements. First, though the 1922 constitution originally required a public plebiscite for any amendment enacted more than eight years after its passage, the Free State government under W. T. Cosgrave had amended that period to sixteen years. This meant that, until 1938, the Free State constitution could be amended by the simple passage of a "Constitutional Amendment Act" through the Oireachtas. Secondly, while the Governor-General of the Irish Free State could reserve or deny Royal Assent to any legislation, from 1927, the power to advise the Governor-General to do so no longer rested with the British government in London but with His Majesty's Government in the Irish Free State, which meant that, in practice, the Royal Assent was automatically granted to legislation; the government was hardly likely to advise the governor-general to block the enactment of one of its own bills. Thirdly, though in its original theory, the constitution "had" to be in keeping with the provisions of the Anglo-Irish Treaty as the fundamental law of the state, that requirement had been abrogated a short time before de Valera gained power.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: The Oath of Allegiance was abolished, as were appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The opposition-controlled Senate, when it protested and slowed down these measures, was also abolished. In 1931, the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, which established the legislative equal status of the self-governing Dominions of the then British Commonwealth, including the Irish Free State, to one another and the United Kingdom. Though a few constitutional links between the Dominions and the United Kingdom remained, this is often seen as the moment at which the Dominions became fully sovereign states.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera, in his capacity as Prime Minister of His Majesty's Government in the Irish Free State, wrote in July 1936 to King Edward VIII in London indicating that he planned to introduce a new constitution, the central part of which was to be the creation of an office de Valera provisionally intended to call "President of Saorstát Éireann" (), which would replace the Governor-General. De Valera used the sudden abdication of Edward VIII as King to pass two bills: one amended the constitution to remove all mention of the monarch and Governor-General, while the second brought the monarch back, this time through statute law, for use in representing the Irish Free State at a diplomatic level. With the implementation of the Constitution of Ireland (), the title ultimately given to the president was "President of Ireland" ().


title: Éamon de Valera

text: As Paul Bew concludes, in the constitution of 1937 de Valera was "trying to placate left-wing Republicans with national phrases and pious people with expressly Catholic bits [and] patriarchal Catholicism".


title: Éamon de Valera

text: The Constitution was approved in a plebiscite on 1 July 1937 and came into force on 29 December 1937.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: By September 1939, a general European war was imminent. On 2 September, de Valera advised Dáil Éireann that neutrality was the best policy for the country. This policy had overwhelming political and popular support, though some advocated Irish participation in the war on the Allied side, while others, believing that "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity", were pro-German. Strong objections to conscription in the North were voiced by de Valera. In June 1940, to encourage the neutral Irish state to join with the Allies, Winston Churchill indicated to de Valera that the United Kingdom would push for Irish unity, but believing that Churchill could not deliver, de Valera declined the offer. The day after the attacks on Pearl Harbor Churchill wired de Valera: "Now is your chance. Now or never! A nation once again. I will meet you wherever you wish." The British did not inform the Government of Northern Ireland that they had made the offer to the Irish government, and De Valera's rejection was not publicised until 1970. The government secured wide powers for the duration of the Emergency, such as internment, censorship of the press and correspondence, and the government control of the economy. The "Emergency Powers Act" lapsed on 2 September 1946, though the State of Emergency declared under the constitution was not lifted until the 1970s. This status remained throughout the war, despite pressure from Chamberlain and Churchill. However, de Valera did respond to a request from Northern Ireland for fire tenders to assist in fighting fires following the 1941 Belfast Blitz.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Persistent claims that de Valera sent a personal note of congratulation to Subhas Chandra Bose upon his declaration of the Azad Hind (Free India) government in 1943, have been shown to be inaccurate, and largely a misrepresentation by Japanese consular staff in Dublin of a statement by a small and unofficial Republican group unconnected to the Irish government.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Controversially, de Valera formally offered his condolences to the German ambassador in Dublin on the death of Adolf Hitler in 1945, in accordance with diplomatic protocol. This did some damage to Ireland, particularly in the United States – and soon afterwards de Valera had a bitter exchange of words with Churchill in two famous radio addresses after the end of the war in Europe. De Valera denounced reports of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as "anti-national propaganda"; according to Bew, this was not out of disbelief but rather because the Holocaust undermined the main assumption underlying Irish neutrality: moral equivalence between the Allies and the Axis.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: The de Valera government was reputedly harsh with Irish Army deserters who had enlisted to fight with the Allied armies against the Axis. The legislation in question was the Emergency Powers (No. 362) order which was passed in August 1945. On 18 October 1945, Thomas F. O'Higgins moved to annul the order. He did not condone desertion, but felt that the order was specifically harsh on those deserters who had served in the Allied forces. General Richard Mulcahy also spoke against the Order, disagreeing with the way in which it applied to enlisted men and not to officers. It was revoked with effect from 1 August 1946, but was in effect continued by section 13 of the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: After de Valera had spent sixteen years in power without answering the crucial questions of partition and republican status the public demanded a change from Fianna Fáil government. In the 1948 election, de Valera lost the outright majority he had enjoyed since 1933. It initially looked as if the National Labour Party would give Fianna Fáil enough support to stay in office as a minority government, but National Labour insisted on a formal coalition agreement, something de Valera was unwilling to concede. However, while Fianna Fáil was six seats short of a majority, it was still by far the largest party in the Dáil, with 37 more TDs than the next largest party and rival, Fine Gael (the successor to Cumann na nGaedheal). Conventional wisdom held that de Valera would remain Taoiseach with the support of independent deputies.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: This belief came to nought when (after the final votes were counted) the other parties realised that if they banded together, they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil, and would be able to form a government with the support of at least seven independents. The result was the First Inter-Party Government, with John A. Costello of Fine Gael as its compromise candidate for Taoiseach. Costello was duly nominated, consigning de Valera to opposition for the first time in 16 years. The following year, Costello declared Ireland as a republic, leaving partition as the most pressing political issue of the day.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera, now Leader of the Opposition, left the actual parliamentary practice of opposing the government to his deputy, Seán Lemass, and himself embarked on a world campaign to address the issue of partition. He visited the United States, Australia, New Zealand and India, and in the latter country, was the last guest of the Governor-General, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, before he was succeeded by the first Indian-born Governor-General. In Melbourne, Australia, de Valera was feted by the powerful Catholic Archbishop Daniel Mannix, at the centenary celebrations of the diocese of Melbourne. He attended mass-meetings at Xavier College, and addressed the assembled Melbourne Celtic Club. In Brisbane, Australia, at the request of the influential and long serving Archbishop Duhig de Valera laid the foundation stone for the new High School building at Marist Brothers College Rosalie. In October 1950, just thirty years after his dramatic escape from Lincoln Gaol, he returned to Lincoln and received the freedom of the gaol. The Anti-Partition of Ireland League of Great Britain marked the occasion with a dinner in his honour and the toast was 'Anglo-Irish Friendship'. A key message in de Valera's campaign was that Ireland could not join the recently established North Atlantic Treaty Organization as long as Northern Ireland was in British hands; although Costello's government favoured alliance with NATO, de Valera's approach won more widespread support and prevented the state from signing the treaty.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Returning to Ireland during the Mother and Child Scheme crisis that racked the First Inter-Party Government, de Valera kept silent as Leader of the Opposition, preferring to stay aloof from the controversy. That stance helped return de Valera to power in the 1951 general election, but without an overall majority. His and Fianna Fáil's popularity was short-lived, however; his government introduced severe, deflationary budgetary and economic policies in 1952, causing a political backlash that cost Fianna Fáil several seats in the Dáil in by-elections of 1953 and early 1954. Faced with a likely loss of confidence in the Dáil, de Valera instead called an election in May 1954, in which Fianna Fáil was defeated and a Second Inter-Party Government was formed with John A. Costello again as Taoiseach.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: On 16 September 1953, de Valera met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for the first and only time, at 10 Downing Street. (The two men had seen each other at a party in 1949, but without speaking). He surprised the UK Prime Minister by claiming that if he had been in office in 1948 Ireland would not have left the Commonwealth.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: It was during this period that de Valera's eyesight began to deteriorate and he was forced to spend several months in the Netherlands, where he had six operations. In 1955, while in opposition, de Valera spoke against the formation of a European Parliament and European federalism, noting that Ireland ""did not strive to get out of that British domination [...] to get into a worse [position]"".


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Like the first coalition government, the second lasted only three years. At the general election of 1957, de Valera, then in his seventy-fifth year, won an absolute majority of nine seats, the greatest number he had ever secured. This was the beginning of another sixteen-year period in office for Fianna Fáil. A new economic policy emerged with the First Programme for Economic Expansion. In July 1957, in response to the Border Campaign (IRA), Part II of the Offences Against the State Act was re-activated and he ordered the internment without trial of Republican suspects, an action which did much to end the IRA's campaign.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera's final term as Taoiseach also saw the passage of numerous reforms in health and welfare. In 1952, unemployment insurance was extended to male agricultural employees, child allowances were extended to the second child, and a maternity allowance for insured women was introduced. A year later, eligibility for maternity and child services and public hospital services was extended to approximately 85% of the population.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: While Fianna Fáil remained popular among the electorate, 75-year-old de Valera had begun to be seen by the electorate as too old and out of touch to remain as head of government. At the urging of party officials, de Valera decided to retire from government and the Dáil and instead seek the presidency of Ireland. He won the 1959 presidential election on 17 June 1959 and resigned as Taoiseach, Leader of Fianna Fáil and a TD for Clare, six days later, handing over power to Seán Lemass.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera was inaugurated President of Ireland on 25 June 1959. He was re-elected President in 1966, aged 84. That would remain a world record for oldest elected head of state until 2013, At his retirement in 1973 at the age of 90, he was the oldest head of state in the world.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: As President of Ireland, de Valera received many state visits, including the 1963 visit of US president John F. Kennedy. Five months later de Valera attended the state funeral for Kennedy in Washington, D.C. and accompanied a group of 24 Defence Forces cadets who performed a silent drill at his grave site. In June 1964, he returned to Washington, D.C. as the second President of Ireland to address the United States Congress.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In 1966, the Dublin Jewish community arranged the planting and dedication of the Éamon de Valera Forest in Israel, near Nazareth, in recognition of his support for Ireland's Jews.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In January 1969, de Valera became the first President to address both houses of the Oireachtas, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Dáil Éireann.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In 1969, seventy-three countries sent goodwill messages to NASA for the historic first lunar landing. These messages still rest on the lunar surface. De Valera's message on behalf of Ireland stated, "May God grant that the skill and courage which have enabled man to alight upon the Moon will enable him, also, to secure peace and happiness upon the Earth and avoid the danger of self-destruction."


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Éamon de Valera died from pneumonia and heart failure in Linden Convalescent Home, Blackrock, Dublin, on 29 August 1975, aged 92. His wife, Sinéad de Valera, four years his senior, had died the previous January, on the eve of their 65th wedding anniversary. His body lay in state at Dublin Castle and was given a full state funeral on 3 September at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, which was broadcast on national television. Over 200,000 people reportedly lined the three-mile funeral route from Dublin city centre to Glasnevin Cemetery. He is buried in Glasnevin alongside his wife and son Brian.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Ireland's dominant political personality for many decades, de Valera received numerous honours. He was elected Chancellor of the National University of Ireland in 1921, holding the post until his death. Pope John XXIII bestowed on him the Order of Christ (KSC). He received honorary degrees from universities in Ireland and abroad. In 1968, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), a recognition of his lifelong interest in mathematics. He also served as a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (for Down from 1921 to 1929 and for South Down from 1933 to 1937), although he held to the republican policy of abstentionism and did not take his seat in Stormont.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera was criticised for ending up as co-owner of one of Ireland's most influential group of newspapers, Irish Press Newspapers, funded by numerous small investors who received no dividend for decades. De Valera is alleged by critics to have helped keep Ireland under the influence of Catholic conservatism. De Valera rejected, however, demands by organisations like Maria Duce that Roman Catholicism be made the state religion of Ireland, just as he rejected demands by the Irish Christian Front for the Irish Free State to support Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: De Valera's preoccupation with his part in history, and his need to explain and justify it, are reflected in innumerable ways. His faith in historians as trustworthy guardians of his reputation was not absolute. He made many attempts to influence their views and to adjust and refine the historical record whenever he felt this portrayed him, his allies or his cause inaccurately or unfavourably to his mind, these could often mean the same thing. He extended these endeavours to encompass the larger Irish public. An important function of his newspaper group, the Irish Press group, was to rectify what he saw as the errors and omissions of a decade in which he had been the subject of largely hostile commentary.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: In recent decades, his role in Irish history has no longer been unequivocally seen by historians as a positive one, and a biography by Tim Pat Coogan alleges that his failures outweigh his achievements, with de Valera's reputation declining while that of his great rival in the 1920s, Michael Collins, was rising. A more recent 2007 work on de Valera by historian Diarmaid Ferriter presents a more positive picture of de Valera's legacy.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: Bertie Ahern, at a book launch for Diarmaid Ferriter's biography of de Valera, described de Valera's achievements in political leadership during the formative years of the state:


title: Éamon de Valera

text: One of de Valera's finest hours was his regrouping of the Republican side after defeat in the civil war, and setting his followers on an exclusively peaceful and democratic path, along which he later had to confront both domestic Fascism and the IRA. He became a democratic statesman, not a dictator. He did not purge the civil service of those who had served his predecessors, but made best use of the talent available.


title: Éamon de Valera

text: A notable failure was his attempt to reverse the provision of the 1937 Constitution in relation to the electoral system. On retiring as Taoiseach in 1959, he proposed that the Proportional Representation system enshrined in that constitution should be replaced. De Valera argued that Proportional Representation had been responsible for the instability that had characterised much of the post war period. A constitutional referendum to ratify this was defeated by the people. One aspect of de Valera's legacy is that since the foundation of the state, a de Valera has nearly always served in Dáil Éireann. Éamon de Valera served until 1959, his son, Vivion de Valera, was also a Teachta Dála (TD). Éamon Ó Cuív, his grandson, is currently a member of the Dáil while his granddaughter, Síle de Valera is a former TD. Both have served in ministries in the Irish Government.