Author - Eda Sagarra (née O’Shiel), granddaughter of Prof.Smiddy.
Presented by Mícheál Martin, Politician.
Contact the Imperial Hotel, Cork for starting time.
Posted here for info only.
NEW
IPA PUBLICATION
Envoy
Extraordinary
Professor
Smiddy of Cork
Author:
Eda Sagarra
ISBN
978-1-910393-22-2
Pages:
200
Price:
€20.00
Publication
Date: 2018
What
the book is about
Professor Timothy Aloysius
Smiddy (1875–1962) – academic, economist, diplomat, public
servant and businessman – had a remarkable career spanning six
decades in both the public service and the private sphere. This is
the story of an eminent son of Cork, whose career was closely
interwoven with the early history of the Irish state. Despite his
unique role as adviser to Michael Collins, W.T. Cosgrave and Éamon
de Valera, and his many achievements, Smiddy has remained an elusive
figure in documented Irish history. This exhaustively researched
biography sets that right. Having been educated in Ireland, France
and Germany, Smiddy started and concluded his working life in the
world of commerce. Fifteen years as an academic were followed by over
twenty years as a public servant in various roles. He served on
several high-profile committees and commissions between 1923 and
1956, some of which he chaired. Following his retirement from the
public service at the age of seventy he continued to make a
significant contribution, and was a successful chairman of the board
of Arklow Pottery. Smiddy provided financial expertise to the Irish
delegation to the AngloIrish Treaty negotiations (1921) and to the
Provisional Government of the Irish Free State. He was the first
representative of a Dominion of the British Commonwealth of Nations
to the United States and Canada, from 1924 to 1929. Unusually for an
important figure in the nascent Free State, he had not been involved
in the conflicts of 1916–23. As an accomplished linguist with an
international outlook, Smiddy helped to steer the Free State away
from a narrowly insular mindset. In shedding light on his life and
times, this biography also illuminates twentieth-century Irish
history.
EDA SAGARRA (née O’Shiel),
a granddaughter of Smiddy, was educated in Ireland (UCD,
History and German), England, France, Germany and Austria. Appointed
to the chair of German at Trinity College Dublin in 1975 (to 1998),
she has published widely on modern German literature and social
history, on German and Austrian women writers and latterly on aspects
of the early history of the Irish Free State.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Late Victorian
Cork, 1875–1901
Chapter 2. University College
Cork, 1909–22
Chapter 3. Economic adviser
and government agent, 1921–4
Chapter 4. ‘Travelling
salesman for the Free State’: minister 65 plenipotentiary, 1924–9
Chapter 5. High Commissioner
in London, 1929–30
Chapter 6. ‘In the
wilderness?’ The Tariff Commission 1930–3
Chapter 7. Adviser to de
Valera, 1932–45
Chapter 8. Monetary and
banking policy
Chapter 9. Agriculture
Chapter 10. ‘Retirement’,
1945–59
Epilogue
Appendices
Bibliography
Sagarra Family Archive
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