Eamon de Valera denied a popular myth that he was spared execution after the Easter Rising because he was an American, a new book on the iconic leader reveals.
The famous republican privately confessed at the height of the Civil War that he was more naturally inclined to being a British Conser-vative than a revolutionary.
The revelations were discovered among the first taoiseach, former president and IRA leader's recently-released personal papers by leading historian Diarmaid Ferriter.
In his book Judging Dev the academic argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere, cold and even backward figure was largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided.
"One of things things that struck me is that there is a certain sense of vulnerability and sensitivity there in him as a man," Mr Ferriter said.
In a previously unpublished document, written by de Valera on Aras an Uachtarain-headed paper, the then president debunks the common perception that he was spared the British firing squad because he was born in New York. Although representations were made on his behalf to the US.
"I have not the slightest doubt that my reprieve in 1916 was due to the fact that my court martial and sentence came late," he wrote on July 3, 1969.
The politician insisted he was sentenced as British prime minister Herbert Asquith ordered no more executions other than the known ringleaders.
In another remarkable letter de Valera confides in Republican activist Mary McSwiney, as he led the anti-Treaty forces in the bloody Civil War, that he believed he wasn't cut out for his historical role.
"Nature never fashioned me to be a partisan leader... I allowed myself to be put into a position, which it is impossible for one of my outlook and personal bias to fill with effect for the (republican) party," he wrote on September 11, 1922.
"I must be the heir to generations of conservatism. Every instinct of mine would indicate that I was meant to be a dyed-in-the-wool Tory or even a bishop, rather than the leader of a revolution.
"As soon as I can do it without injuring the cause, I intend to claim my own personal freedom again."
Of course, he never did, but went on to found Fianna Fail four years later and helped forge the fledgling Republic from high office until his death in 1975.
Ferriter said it was time to bring de Valera in from the cold and reappraise the country's view on one of its founding fathers.
