Minister for Finance Secretary of Local Government
Which position did W. T. Cosgrave hold in Oct 1922?
W . T . Cosgrave William Thomas Cosgrave ( 6 June 1880 – 16 November 1965 ) was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1932 , Leader of the Opposition in both the Free State and Ireland from 1932 to 1944 , Leader of Fine Gael from 1934 to 1944 , founder and leader of Fine Gaels predecessor , Cumann na nGaedheal , from 1923 to 1933 , Chairman of the Provisional Government from August 1922 to December 1922 , President of Dáil Éireann from September 1922 to December 1922 , Minister for Finance from 1922 to 1923 and Minister for Local Government from 1919 to 1922 . He served as a Teachta Dála ( TD ) from 1921 to 1944 . He was a Member of Parliament ( MP ) for the North Kilkenny constituency from 1918 to 1922 . While Cosgrave never officially held the office of Taoiseach ( the current title of Irelands prime minister , created in 1937 ) , he is recognised to have been the first Taoiseach due to having been the Free States first head of government . His son , Liam , served as Taoiseach from 1973 to 1977 . Early and private life . William Thomas Cosgrave was born at 174 Jamess Street , Dublin in 1880 , to Thomas Cosgrave , grocer , and Bridget ( Nixon ) Cosgrave . He was educated at the Christian Brothers School at Malahide Road , Marino , before entering his fathers publican business . Cosgrave first became politically active when he attended the first Sinn Féin convention in 1905 . He was a Sinn Féin councillor on Dublin Corporation from 1909 until 1922 and joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913 , although he never joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood because he didnt believe in secret societies . He played an active role in the Easter Rising of 1916 , serving under Éamonn Ceannt as a Captain at the South Dublin Union . Following the rebellion , Cosgrave was sentenced to death , but that was later commuted to penal servitude for life and he was interned at Frongoch , Wales . Whilst imprisoned , he won a seat for Sinn Féin in the Kilkenny City by-election of August 1917 . After his victory , he made a speech on the balcony of the courthouse . In September 1917 , he and Michael Collins addressed a crowd in Dunboyne , County Meath , urging people to join the Irish Volunteers . Cosgrave again won an Irish seat at the 1918 general election , this time for Kilkenny North . Although he and many other Sinn Féin MPs were still in prison at the time , 27 free Sinn Féin MPs , in accordance with their partys manifesto , refused to go to Westminster and instead formed the First Dáil , in which Cosgrave took his seat after he was released from prison in 1919 . On 24 June 1919 , he married Louisa Flanagan ( 28 August 1882 – 1959 ) in Dublin , daughter of Alderman Michael Flanagan , a nationalist councillor on Dublin Corporation between 1884 and 1919 . During his later years , Cosgrave was cared for by his son and daughter-in-law , Liam and Vera . Political career . Minister for local government . Although Cosgrave was one of the most politically experienced of Sinn Féins TDs , Cosgrave was not within the leadership of the party . However , when Éamon de Valera formed the Second Ministry of Dáil Éireann on 2 April 1919 , Cosgrave was named as Secretary of Local Government . His close friendship with de Valera and his long experience on Dublin Corporation , most recently as Chairman of its Finance Committee , were among the reasons he was selected . His chief task as Minister was the job of organising the non-cooperation of the people with the British authorities and establishing an alternative system of government . Cosgrave was very successful in his role at the Department of Local Government . After the 1920 local elections , elected under the new system of single transferable vote , 28 of the 33 local councils pledged loyalty to the Ministry of Local Government established by the Dáil . These councils then cut their links to the British government . Anglo-Irish Treaty . Cosgrave supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty , which had been signed on 6 December 1921 . At the cabinet meeting in Dublin held to consider the Treaty immediately after it had been signed , Cosgrave surprised de Valera by agreeing with Collins and with Arthur Griffith , de Valeras predecessor as leader of Sinn Féin and the chairman of the delegation which included Collins that had negotiated the Treaty . It was narrowly supported by the cabinet in a vote of 4 to 3 , and was supported by the Dáil in a vote of 64 to 57 . However , de Valera voted against , and resigned as president in January 1922 ( which in August 1921 had been upgraded from a prime ministerial President of Dáil Éireann to a full head of state , called President of the Irish Republic ) . Griffith succeeded de Valera as president . Collins , in accordance with the Treaty , formed a Provisional Government ; this included Cosgrave amongst its membership as Minister for Local Government . From July onward , he also became Minister for Finance . Chairman of the Provisional Government . The months following the acceptance of the Treaty saw a gradual progression to civil war . The split in Sinn Féin gradually deepened , and the majority of the IRA hardened against accepting anything less than a full republic . Collins and de Valera tried desperately to find a middle course , and formed a pact whereby Sinn Féin fought a general election in June with a common slate of candidates . Despite this pact , the electorate voted heavily in favour of pro-Treaty candidates . On the day of the election , the draft Constitution of the Irish Free State was published ; it was rejected by the Anti-Treatyites , for it was clearly not a republican document . Collins , forced to a decision , opted to maintain the Treaty position and the support of the British government , and moved to suppress the Republican opposition that had seized the Four Courts in Dublin . The Civil War began on 28 June 1922 , and the IRA was decisively defeated in the field over the following two months , being largely pinned back to Munster . In August 1922 , both Griffith and Collins died in quick succession ; the former of natural causes , the latter a few days later when ambushed by Republicans at Béal na Bláth , County Cork . With de Valera now on the fringes as the nominal leader of the anti-Treaty forces in the Civil War , the new dominion ( which was in the process of being created but which would not legally come into being until December 1922 ) had lost all its most senior figures . Though it had the option of going for General Richard Mulcahy , Collins successor as Commander-in-Chief of the National Army , the pro-Treaty leadership opted for Cosgrave , in part due to his democratic credentials as a long-time politician . Having previously held the Local Government and Finance portfolios , Cosgrave became Chairman of the Provisional Government on 30 August and President of Dáil Éirean on 9 September . He served in both offices simultaneously until on 6 December 1922 , when the Irish Free State came into being . 1st President of the Executive Council ( 1922–1932 ) . On 6 December 1922 , Cosgrave was elected by the Dáil as President of the Executive Council . He formed the First Executive Council of the Irish Free State . Cosgrave was a small , quiet man , and at 42 was the oldest member of the Cabinet . He had not sought the leadership of the new country , but once it was his he made good use of it . One of his chief priorities was to hold the new country together and to prove that the Irish could govern themselves . Some historians have claimed that he lacked vision as a leader and was surrounded by men who were more capable than himself . However , during his ten years as president he proved an able leader of the emerging Irish state who had a sound judgement on the matters of state that the new country was facing . Domestic policy . As head of the Free State government during the Civil War , he was ruthless in what he saw as defence of the state against his Republican former comrades . Although he disagreed with the use of the death penalty in principle , in October 1922 , he enacted a Public Safety Bill , after difficult debates , and following the offer of an amnesty , that allowed for the execution of anyone who was captured bearing arms against the state , or aiding armed attacks on state forces . He told the Dáil on 27 September 1922 : although I have always objected to the death penalty , there is no other way that I know of in which ordered conditions can be restored in this country , or any security obtained for our troops , or to give our troops any confidence in us as a government . His view was that if harsh action were not taken , a guerrilla war could drag on indefinitely , making the achievement of law and order and establishing the Free State impossible . His army ordered courts martial on the rebels , 77 of whom were executed by firing squads by May 1923 , including Erskine Childers , Liam Mellowes and Rory OConnor , far more than the 14 IRA volunteers the British executed in the War of Independence . The Republican side , for their part , attacked pro-Treaty politicians and their homes and families . Cosgraves family home was burned down by Anti-Treaty fighters , and one of his uncles was shot dead . ( see also Destruction of country houses in the Irish revolutionary period and Executions during the Irish Civil War ) . Cosgrave said I am not going to hesitate if the country is to live , and if we have to exterminate ten thousand Republicans , the three million of our people is greater than this ten thousand . In April 1923 , the pro-Treaty Sinn Féin members organised a new political party called Cumann na nGaedheal with Cosgrave as leader . The following month the Civil War was brought to an end , when the remaining anti-Treaty IRA guerrillas announced a ceasefire and dumped their arms . His first act as a statesman was to pass a Bill for the Constitution of the Irish Free State , that some TDs felt did not need to be in writing . This was done by October 1922 , in good time for the formal establishment of the Free State in December . In the first few years in power Cosgraves new government faced a number of problems . The government attempted to reduce the size of the National Army . During the Civil War it had grown to over 55,000 men which , now that the war was over , was far too large and costly to maintain . Some army officers challenged the authority of the government to cut the size of the Army . The officers , mostly Pro-Treaty IRA men , were angry that the government was not doing enough to help to create a republic and predicted massive unemployment . When he and his position were challenged by the disgruntled Army officers of the Irish Republican Army Organisation , other politicians and soldiers took the important decisions . In March 1924 , more layoffs were expected , and army officers Major-General Liam Tobin and Colonel Charles Dalton sent an ultimatum to the government demanding an end to the demobilisation . Minister for Justice Kevin OHiggins , who was also acting president for Cosgrave while the latter was in hospital , moved to resolve the so-called Army Mutiny . Richard Mulcahy , the Minister for Defence , resigned , and OHiggins was victorious in a very public power struggle within Cumann na nGaedheal . The crisis within the army was solved but the government was divided . In 1924 , the British and Irish governments agreed to attend a Boundary Commission to redraw the border which partitioned Ireland between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland . The Free States representative was Minister for Education Eoin MacNeill , a respected scholar . The Free State expected to gain much territory in heavily Catholic and republican parts of Counties Londonderry , Fermanagh , Tyrone , and Armagh , for the British government had indicated during the Treaty negotiations that the wishes of the nationalist inhabitants along the border would be taken into account . However , after months of secret negotiations a newspaper reported that there would be little change to the border , and the Free State would actually lose territory in County Donegal . MacNeill resigned from the Commission and , shortly afterwards , from the government for not reporting to Cosgrave on the details of the commission . Cosgrave immediately went to London for a meeting with the British Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland , where they agreed to let the border remain as it was , and in return the Free State did not have to pay its pro-rata share of the Imperial debt . In the Dáil debate on 7 December , Cosgrave stated : I had only one figure in my mind and that was a huge nought . That was the figure I strove to get , and I got it . Cosgrave turned down a plea for asylum in Ireland for Leon Trotsky while in exile . The request was made by the trade union leader William OBrien in 1930 . Cosgrave recorded that he : In June 1927 , a general election was held in which de Valeras new party , Fianna Fáil , won many seats on an abstentionist platform . In July the Minister for Justice , Kevin OHiggins , was assassinated on his way home from Sunday Mass by the IRA . The government passed to force Fianna Fáil to take their seats in the Dáil and this proved successful with de Valera and his party entering the Dáil . Previously , without de Valera , Cosgrave faced very little opposition , giving him considerable freedom of action . However , de Valeras arrival significantly altered the situation . Foreign policy . Although Cosgrave and his government accepted dominion status for the Irish Free State , they did not trust the British to respect this new independence . The government embarked on fairly radical foreign initiatives . In 1923 the Irish Free State became a member of the League of Nations . The new state also became the first British Commonwealth country to have a separate or non-British representative in Washington , D.C. , and exchanged diplomats with many other European nations . The Anglo-Irish Treaty itself also gave the Irish much more independence than many other dominions . The Oath of Allegiance in the Irish Free State was much less monarchist than its equivalent in Canada or Australia . The kings representative in Ireland was Irish , unlike the other dominions , and although the head of state was the king , power was derived from the Irish people and not him . There were also questions raised about the word treaty . The British claimed it was an internal affair while the Irish saw it as an international agreement between two independent states , a point which was accepted by the League of Nations , when that body registered the Treaty as an international agreement in 1924 . Even with these advances , the Irish Free State legally remained part of the United Kingdom until 1931 , when the Statute of Westminster removed virtually all of Londons remaining authority over the Free State and the other dominions . This step effectively made the Free State the internationally recognised independent Irish state , fulfilling Collins vision of the Treaty giving the Irish people the freedom to achieve freedom . Economic policy . During the ten years that Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedheal were in power they adopted a conservative economic policy . Taxation was kept as low as possible and the budget was balanced to avoid borrowing . The Irish currency remained linked to the British currency , resulting in the overvaluation of the Irish pound . Free trade was advocated as opposed to protection , but moderate tariffs were introduced on some items . The new government decided to concentrate on developing agriculture , while doing little to help the industrial sector . Agriculture responded well with stricter quality-control being introduced and the passing of a Land Act to help farmers buy their farms . Also , the Irish Sugar Company and the Agricultural Credit Corporation were established to encourage growth . However , the economic depression that hit in the 1930s soon undid the good work of Cosgrave and his ministers . Industry was seen as secondary to agriculture and little was done to improve it . The loss of the industrialised north-east of Ireland had a bad effect on the country as a whole . However , the Electricity Supply Board , with the first national grid in Europe , was established to provide employment and electricity to the new state . General election 1932 . A general election was not required by law until the end of 1932 . However , Cosgrave called one for February of that year . There was growing unrest in the country and a fresh mandate was needed for an important Commonwealth meeting in the summer . Another reason for calling the election early was the Eucharistic Congress to be held in June , a major national and international event . Cosgrave , like most of his cabinet a devout Catholic , had invested much time in the build-up to it and wished it to proceed without any tension from a pending general election . In the event , Éamon de Valera and Fianna Fáil were the ones to derive all the kudos from that event . Cumann na nGaedheal fought the election on its record of providing ten years of honest government and political and economic stability . Instead of developing new policies , the party played the red card by portraying the new party , Fianna Fáil , as communists . Fianna Fáil offered the electorate a fresh and popular manifesto of social reform . Unable to compete with this , Cosgrave and his party lost the election , and a minority Fianna Fáil government came to power . Cosgrave in opposition . Following the general election of that year , Cosgrave assumed the role of Leader of the Opposition , as Fianna Fáil began what turned out to be a sixteen-year period of single-party government . In 1933 , three groups , Cumann na nGaedheal , the National Centre Party and the National Guard came together to form a new party , called Fine Gael . Cosgrave was named the merged partys deputy leader , with Eoin ODuffy as party leader . However , since ODuffy didnt have a seat in the Dáil , Cosgrave became Fine Gaels parliamentary leader , and thus remained Leader of the Opposition . He became party leader the following year when ODuffy stepped down . Under his leadership , Fine Gael lost elections in 1937 , 1938 and 1943 . Cosgrave retired as leader of the party at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis in the Mansion House , Dublin , on 26 January 1944 , and was succeeded by Richard Mulcahy . Legacy . An effective and good chairman rather than a colourful or charismatic leader , he led the new state during the more turbulent period of its history , when the legislation necessary for the foundation of a stable independent Irish polity needed to be pushed through . Cosgraves governments in particular played a crucial role in the evolution of the British Empire into the British Commonwealth , with fundamental changes to the concept of the role of the Crown , the governor-generalship and the British Government within the Commonwealth . In overseeing the establishment of the formal institutions of the state , his performance as its first political leader may have been undervalued . In an era when democratic governments formed in the aftermath of the First World War were moving away from democracy and towards dictatorships , the Free State , under Cosgrave , remained unambiguously democratic , a fact shown by his handing over of power to his one-time friend , then rival , Éamon de Valera , when de Valeras Fianna Fáil won the 1932 general election , in the process killing off talk within the Irish Army of staging a coup to keep Cosgrave in power and de Valera out of it . Perhaps the best endorsement made of Cosgrave came from his old rival Éamon de Valera , with whom he was reconciled before his death . De Valera , once in 1932 and later close to his own death , made two major comments . To his own son , Vivion , weeks after taking power in 1932 and reading the files on the actions of Cosgraves governments in relation to its work in the Commonwealth , he said of Cosgrave and Cosgraves ministers , [ W ] hen we got in and saw the files … they did a magnificent job , Viv . They did a magnificent job . Death . Cosgrave died on 16 November 1965 , aged 85 . The Fianna Fáil government under Seán Lemass awarded him the honour of a state funeral , which was attended by the cabinet , the leaders of all the main Irish political parties , and Éamon de Valera , then President of Ireland . He is buried in Goldenbridge Cemetery in Inchicore in Dublin . Richard Mulcahy said , It is in terms of the Nation and its needs and its potential that I praise God who gave us in our dangerous days the gentle but steel-like spirit of rectitude , courage and humble self-sacrifice , that was William T . Cosgrave . Cosgraves son , Liam , served as a TD from 1943 to 1981 and went on to become leader of Fine Gael from 1965 to 1977 and Taoiseach from 1973 to 1977 . W . T.s grandson , also called Liam , also served as a TD and as Senator and his granddaughter , Louise Cosgrave , served as a Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Councillor from 1999 to 2009 . In October 2014 , his grave was vandalised , the top of a celtic cross on the headstone being broken off . It was again vandalised in March 2016 . Governments . The following governments were led by Cosgrave : - 1st Provisional Government ( 22–30 August 1922 ) - 2nd Provisional Government ( August 1922 – December 1922 ) - 1st Executive Council of the Irish Free State ( December 1922 – September 1923 ) - 2nd Executive Council of the Irish Free State ( September 1923 – June 1927 ) - 3rd Executive Council of the Irish Free State ( June 1927 – October 1927 ) - 4th Executive Council of the Irish Free State ( October 1927 – April 1930 ) - 5th Executive Council of the Irish Free State ( April 1930 – March 1932 )