Ernest Blythe (1889-1975) was a central figure in the Irish revolution and the first decade of the Irish Free State. He was a leading republican organiser before 1916, a D il minister from 1919, and a controversial member of Cosgrave's executive council, becoming vice-president after the murder of O'Higgins. He was widely regarded with interest and sometimes suspicion because of his Protestant and unionist background, a rarity in modern Irish republicanism...