EIRE: Protestant President

Into Dublin's Department of Agriculture Building last week strode a 78-year-old, tall, erect, walrus-mustached Gaelic scholar. There, flanked by Eire Ministers, high court justices and Parliament leaders, this poet, playwright and author, Dr. Douglas Hyde by name, received from Civil Servant Wilfrid Brown formal notification in Gaelic that he had been elected first President of Eire. No vote-counting was necessary for Civil Servant Brown to reach this conclusion, for Dr. Hyde had been chosen by both Eamon de Valera's Fianna Fail Party and William T. Cosgrave's Opposition Party. He had been unopposed for...

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