Speaker - Kevin Kenny, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Éamon de Valera (1882-1975) is the most important and divisive figure in modern Irish history. After rising to prominence in the Easter 1916 rebellion, he rejected the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, provoking civil war in Ireland, but he returned to power in the 1930s and became the architect of a new Irish state. During World War II, de Valera consolidated Ireland’s independence through a controversial policy of neutrality. For better and worse, he created modern Ireland. Kevin Kenny is Professor of History and Glucksman Professor in Irish Studies at New York University. His books include Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (1998), The American Irish (2000), Peaceable Kingdom Lost(2009), Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction (2013), and Ireland and the British Empire: The Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series (editor, 2004). He taught at the University of Texas from 1994 to 1999 and at Boston College from 1999 to 2018.