Éamon de Valera, letter to the National Gallery of Victoria, Dublin, 1933

With fellow Rising survivor Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera steered republican Ireland through the Irish War of Independence (1919–21). Their paths diverged over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which de Valera opposed. A three-time leader of the Irish state during his long career (he retired aged 90), he redrafted the constitution in 1937 to emphasise both Irish culture and conservative Catholic social policy.