ABSTRACT
He grew up in the Ireland of Eamonn de Valera. He was 21 when the Irish constitution was published in 1937 and he was deeply affected by the idealistic republicanism of post-Treaty, Fianna Fail Ireland; by its adoption of a policy of detachment from many aspects of contemporary life, and by its emphasis on moral rectitude and purity. Detachment and republicanism combined in the Irish attitude towards the Second World War. Some Irish people were sympathetic to Hitler, as England’s enemy; Ó Ríordáin, in some moods, shared this attitude, but for his own personal, discontented, reasons. Ó Ríordáin came to maturity during a time when Ireland was trying to make a human reality out of theoretical independence.
