Cosgrave, William Thomas

b. 1880; d. 1965

Irish statesman, president of the executive council of the Irish Free State, 1922-32, son of Thomas Cosgrave, town councillor of Dublin. He was educated at the Christian Brothers' School, and became a member of the Dublin Corporation in 1909. In 1913 he joined the Irish Volunteers, and sided with the rebellious section in August 1914. He was in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and was afterwards held in Frongoch Camp, Merioneth, until Christmas. In 1917 he was elected Sinn Fein MP for Kilkenny city; and from December 1918 until 1922 he was MP for the Northern division of Kilkenny County. He was elected in 1922 to the first legalised Dáil Éireann for counties Carlow and Kilkenny, which he represented until 1927; but in 1919 he joined those members of parliament who constituted themselves the revolutionary Dáil and held the post of minister for local government in the revolutionary Cabinet. From January 1922 he was minister for local government in the Irish Free State set up by the treaty. He acted as deputy for President Griffith during the absence of the latter in London in 1922; and after Griffith's death in August and the assassination of his successor, Michael Collins, the same month, Cosgrave was chosen president. He became member for Cork in the Dáil elected in 1927, and in 1928 he signed the Kellogg Pact and visited USA and Canada. After de Valera's party, Fianna Fáil, came into power in 1932, he led the Fine Gael opposition until 1944.

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