Sir, – JD Mangan (January 8th) baldly states "Eamon de Valera used the Irish Press newspaper which he'd set up himself to con shareholders investing in the company". This is totally untrue. JD Mangan is entitled to his own opinions but not to his own facts. This falsehood has been propagated by others through misrepresentation, selective use of extracts from documents, suppression of facts and bolstered by the invention of purported "facts" which can be shown to be untrue.
Eamon de Valera did set up the Irish Press and over 10,000 people subscribed funds because it was he who had set it up. There was nothing underhand in any of what he did.
For example, in February 1930, Frank P Walsh, a noted Irish American lawyer, wrote to bondholders of Republican Bonds seeking to raise funds for the Irish Press in America by the assignment of bonds to my grandfather. Within this letter he stated: "Whilst these funds are being solicited by way of donations, Mr de Valera, will, of course, not derive personally any monetary profit from them. He intends to make the necessary and proper arrangements to ensure that if any profits accrue from the enterprise, or, if there should be any distribution of assets, such profits and the amount of any such distribution will be made available for the donors, according to their respective donations."
I can vouch that such arrangement were put in place and the commitment honoured. – Yours, etc,
EAMON de VALERA
Dublin 2.