73 • DAILY NEWS, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1952

Little Old New YORK

_______By ED SULLIVAN_______

Up De Valera!

"Dealing with the Irish," said a British statesman, "is like trying to catch quicksilver on a fork."

"Try a spoon," De Valera advised, from Dublin.

AJxmt 10 years ago,'the late Dr. Deno O'Connor, Chicago throat specialist, took some of his Notre Dame football players to Europe. Naturally they went to Dublin and presented the inevitable letter of' introduction to De Valera.

When they enterad his busy office, they found 11 chairs lined up.

."I've read a great deal about the Notre Dame shift," explained the

•Irish leader. "Would you young men show me how it's worked exactly?"

When De Valera escaped from Lincoln Jail, in England, in February, 1919, the London Daily Express concluded: "Ireland is full of stories of banshees, leprechauns, 'the little people' and other quaint spirits. De Valera is just a distillation of these mystic things." Actually there was little mysticism involved but quite a lot of imagination. De Valera, who served as altar boy for the prison chaplain, used wax from an altar candle to make an impression of tlie chaplain's key and smuggled it out of the prison^to Michael Collins in Ireland.

On the third try"; Collins, Michael Boland and Frank Kelly copied the key in duplicate, smuggled one into the jail in a cake for which Collins made the icing -and De Valera got free.

De Valera fits into a column on New York because the Irish leader was born here, son of a Spanish planter from Cuba and Catharine Coll De Valera from County Limerick. On the death of his father, the widowed mother sent her 3-year-old son back to Ireland to live with her brother, Patrick. A lot of water—and blood—has passed under Irish bridges since then, for Dev has just celebrated his 70th birthday. Not many of his Irish colleagues lived half that long. Michael Collins, who engineered his rescue from Lincoln Jail, died soon afterwards.

I learned about Michael Collins, first-hand, on our 1936 trip to London. Through the sister of Cardini, stage magician, who was on the ship, we met Sir John Larery, distinguished Irish painter.

In Lavery's home in London, Michael Collins met British leaders. One of them was Lord French, who had hunted Collins in Ireland and who despised him as a guerrilla warrior, entitled to none of the formal courtesies of gentleman soldiers.

"We've met before, m'lord," said Collins. French flared up: "That is impossible," he said. "We hardly travel in the same circles." Collins laughed: "My men were close enough to touch your horse, m'lord, but I was so struck by your bravery that I commanded them to let you through safely."

On that basis of gallantry, Lord French and Collins thereupon became great friends, and it was French who set up the next meeting between Collins and Winston Churchill.

As fcollins and Lavery waited in the foyer of Churchill's home, Sir John told me, Collins' eye was caught by a Boer placard which offered "Five pounds, dead or alive, for Winston Churchill."

Collins was examining this with interest when Churchill entered the- foyer. "I must apologize, Mr. Collins," said Churchill. "They only offered five pounds for me. I think we offered 500 pounds for you."

"Yes," laughed Collins, "Don't feel bad about it. Prices have gone up since your day."

In Sir John Lavery's home in London, he maintained as a shrine the room in which he brought together Collins and French. The chairs were left in the exact position. The articles on the table were just as the negotiators had left them. The room was kept locked and the key was held by Lavery.

What happened after Lavery's death, I don't know. If I judged him correctly, it can be assumed that the painter's will assigned the table, furniture and everything in that room to a Dublin museum.

Sir John Lavery' wife was an American.

Because of his labors for Ireland and also because of her beauty, Lady Lavery's likeness was at one time imprinted on all Irish banknotes.

He was an amazing gentleman, Sir John.

He attended art classes with Rodin. He and the great sculptor used to trade their creations and Lavery's home was crowded with Rodin's busts.