DE VALERA DEPARTS

De Valera's last cabinet had some new faces. Death, disability and calculation were at last beginning to take their toll of the old faithfuls. Tom Derrig died in 1956. Seán Moylan lost his seat. De Valera immediately nominated him to the Senate, and appointed him Minister for Agriculture, but he died in November 1957. De Valera eased Gerry Boland out, perhaps under pressure from Lemass, by the characteristic ploy of appointing his son Kevin as Minister for Defence on his first day in the Dáil. The new Department of the Gaeltacht, established by the Costello government in 1956, was first held, jointly with Education, by Jack Lynch, but was then tranferred to Micheál Ó Mórain within a few months. Another new face was Neil Blaney, first at Posts and Telegraphs, then at Local Government after the reshuffle following Moylan's death. In a move that ‘created surprise’ de Valera signalled a crucial change of direction by switching Jim Ryan and Seáan MacEntee, Ryan going to Finance and MacEntee to Health and Social Welfare. This suggested, as events confirmed, that Lemass had at long last established his ascendancy. He had always found Ryan easier to work with than MacEntee. But de Valera might have made the change even without the presumed pressure from Lemass. He would have wanted no repeat of the electoral consequences of a MacEntee performance of 1951–4 vintage.