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But he was more than successful. His tour was timed perfectly to cash in on the mounting antipathy to the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations. The suppression of the Dail Eireann by the British shocked Americans who thought they had fought the war for the self-determination of peoples. The hunger strike and eventual death of Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, brought pro-Irish feeling to white heat and overshadowed for a time the U. S. Presidential contest of 1920.
De Valera raised money for a "national loan" to the Irish Republic; late in 1920 he returned in disguise to find Ireland in full revolt. The "Black-and-Tans," the khaki-coated, black-trousered special English police, tried to "stamp out rebellion with a strong hand."
By mid-1921 the rebellion had got so out of hand that the British either had to clear out of Ireland, dispatch a considerable military force or negotiate. They chose negotiation. A truce was called and de Valera sent five men to London to talk peace. They signed late that year a treaty establishing dominion status for Ireland, but permitting the six predominantly Protestant northern counties to withdraw.
De Valera promptly denounced the treaty his own men had signed, but the Dail Eireann approved it. Losing his immense popularity overnight, the onetime hero went, with the irreconcilable I. R. A., once again into armed revolt. Ireland counted more dead, among them Rory O'Connor, executed by the Irish Provisional Government and Michael Collins, mainstay for years of the rebellion movement, ambushed and shot by the I. R. A. For two years de Valera hid from not British but Irish forces. Die-hards stood by him through thick & thin, continuing to consider him the genuine President of the Irish Republic.
"Traitor!" For five years the man who now controls the destiny of Ireland stood pat in his demand for a simon-pure, all-Ireland Republic. Then in 1926 he suddenly proposed to his party of Sinn Feiners that they enter the Irish Free State Legislature on condition that they would not have to swear to the oath of allegiance to George V. His proposal was promptly rejected, and he walked out of the Party to form the Fianna Fail (Militia of Destiny). Later he took the oath and entered the Dail. Old Republican "incorruptibles" shouted "Traitor!" They still do. It took six years for de Valera to complete his political comeback. When he did so, he began once more to lead the still-unfinished Irish march to complete independence.
In 1932 he succeeded William T. Cosgrave as Prime Minister. He abolished the oath of allegiance, scared the British Governor away from the Viceregal Lodge in Dublin. He gave Ireland its new name, Eire. He got into a fierce economic war with Great Britain over the land annuities. Since some 90% of all Irish farm produce was sold in England, this action cost Irish farmers plenty; but they considered the sacrifice cheap at the price.