It would be hard to point to anything in Ireland over most of this century that didn't bear the hand of Eamon De Valera. The first president of the Free Irish State served in government nearly 50 years. He was involved in virtually every major event from the turn of the century until his death in 1975 at age 97, just two years out of office. 

 To understand the turbulent formation of Ireland -- and why it is what it is today -- you have to understand Eamon De Valera. Tim Pat Coogan has written an exhaustively researched biography of the Long Fellow, who cast a huge shadow over his countrymen, the British Empire and America. 

 Coogan is the author of half a dozen books putting Ireland's formative years under the clear-eyed gaze of a former editor of The Irish Press. The Irish Press, formed with Irish-American money to counter opposition-controlled newspapers, grew into a media powerhouse, a de Valera family enterprise. A thorough, 772-page book, Eamon De Valera is meticulously annotated, with 2,101 footnotes and hundreds of bibliography entries drawn from government archives, newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, IRA publications, television documentaries and books.

 It also is a fascinating travel through the formation of a country whose independence was bought by blood and determination, right up to the issues of today.

 He draws the picture of a complex and driven man, one equally dedicated to Ireland and to the Catholic Church. The intertwining of these two loyalties led to policies with far-reaching effects still being wrestled with in Ireland today. Policies on the status of women, on economics, education, family life and many other aspects of Irish life remain problematic. Even the wording of the newly independent country's constitution, which firmly installed Catholicism as the state religion, continues to thwart improved relations with Northern Ireland. 

 De Valera -- lanky, dignified, with an other-worldly air -- accomplished much for Ireland. With his steadfast insistence on a unified country free from British rule and his excellent work with the League of Nations, he was able to rally considerable world sympathy for the upstart nation. He wrested control of the republic's ports away from the occupying British. He kept Ireland neutral during World War II, despite pressure from England, the United States -- and Germany. Through it all, he didn't tweak the tail of the British lion, he constantly tried to tie it in knots.
 This most Irish of Irishmen wasn't born in the Emerald Isle. He was an American, born in Manhattan to an Irish mother and a Spanish father. He was sent to live with his mother's family in County Clare at age six and seldom saw her after that. But it was to America he would turn time and again for moral and financial backing. 

 He manipulated words and events and people with a consummate skill worthy of the man on whom he patterned his approach to politics: Machiavelli. He was skilled at the intrigue, the take-no-prisoners approach to politics. "The Chief" would stand for no contradictions from any quarter, within his inner circle, which he dominated with an iron will, or in the larger world. 
 His resilience was amazing. The mathematics teacher turned revolutionary seemed to thrive in English jails. He was the only commandant of the Easter Rising to escape execution. He became Priomh Aire (First Minister) of the Dial, taking for himself the title of the President of the Irish Republic while on his first extended fund-raising visit to America -- a title he would not receive officially for several years. De Valera ruled by a combination of his powerful personality, masterful self-promotion and a tight hand on the reins of power.

 De Valera may have presided over the formation of the Free Irish State, but he also was in large part responsible for the civil war that followed. He nurtured and encouraged the IRA when it suited his political purposes, imprisoned and executed its leaders when it no longer did. His actions opposing his rival Michael Collins also may have exacerbated the troubles with England in the early days of the Irish Free State. 

 Whatever his triumphs and shortcomings, Eamon de Valera was the most powerful man in Ireland for 50 years. As the book's title shows, he was Ireland. And in some very real ways, he still is.