If eamon de Valera were an ordinary politician, the question of to what extent his behavior conformed to any given principle would be insignificant, for we expect all ordinary politicians to clothe their actions with high principled rhetoric. But Eamon de Valera is more than a politician. He has become a nearly mythic figure in Irish political history. Quite consciously, he has contrived to present himself as the premier statesman of post-British Ireland. De Valera is different from any politician presently on the North American or British political stage, for he has projected his actions not on the silver screen of the possible, but against the hard wall of principle.