British perspective: A letter from a senior official at the British embassy in Dublin reveals a very British perspective on the funeral of de Valera in September 1975. "Irish memories are long," wrote John Hickman to the Republic of Ireland department of the foreign and commonwealth in London, "but even they must now begin to put Eamon de Valera aside as a political mentor for the 1970s and consign him to the pantheon of Founding Fathers."
At the event, the level of foreign representation "was probably not as high as the Irish people might have hoped". Confident predictions of a gathering of heads of state were "not realised". Even the "anticipated crew of Irish American vote-seeking politicians did not materialise", which was "probably as much a relief to the Irish government" as it was to the British representatives.
The funeral proceedings left Hickman similarly unimpressed. "The exclusive use of Latin and Irish at the requiem Mass and burial service," he complained, "must surely have irritated not only some of the visitors but also many Irishmen who cannot speak their first 'official' language." While the ceremony was "conducted with due decorum", this only lasted so far as the gates of Glasnevin Cemetery.
At that point, enthusiastic but unofficial mourners pushed through police cordons and elbowed visiting dignitaries from the graveside, adding "an Irish touch to the proceedings".
As to what effects the passing of de Valera might have on the Irish political scene and Anglo-Irish relations, the official believed that the answer was "very few". Although he was "revered as a national monument", the former president was deemed "irrelevant to the contemporary scene". "While no one denied his personal courage and integrity, many commented on the narrow, Celtic limits" of his vision.
For one thing, the Irish language was "still a plant which requires considerable nurturing by the government". For another, even the ideal of a united Ireland was "admitted by the present government of being incapable of achievement in the foremost future (and many would now question its desirability)". Even the policy of neutrality, "which de Valera so obstinately established", was coming under question since joining the EEC.
Most significantly, therefore, even de Valera's most notable achievement, the 1937 Constitution, was "coming increasingly under attack because it reflects so obviously the authoritarian Catholic and nationalist atmosphere of the Thirties and is no longer fitted to the needs of the modern state". In particular, the resentment that Articles 2 and 3 caused among the majority in Northern Ireland was "matched only by the obduracy" with which Fianna Fáil politicians still held on to them.
While the leader of the coalition government, Liam Cosgrave, had come under attack for his ungracious response to de Valera's death, Hickman concluded that it was "equally speedily defended on the grounds that if you cannot praise it is better in such circumstances to say nothing".