Éamon de Valera's inspiring leadership sustained the State in lean and difficult times, but his biggest failure was the inability to end emigration, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said.
Launching a new book on de Valera, Judging Dev, by historian Diarmuid Ferriter, Mr Ahern said it would help "to restore some balance" to the debate surrounding the former taoiseach and president's legacy.
"How could anyone be a leader and be around from 1914 until 1973 without attracting controversy? I have tried it in half of the time and it is very hard to do," he said, jokingly.
Mr Ferriter, he said, was "enormously good at bringing history to a wider audience without over-simplifying complex facts and events.
"This is more than ever necessary as history is studied less and less in schools. That is, unfortunately, a fact of life. I see it in my travels up and down the country in first and second, and in third level for that matter."
Provoking laughter from the audience, the Taoiseach said: "There is lot of new material. As you go through history, it is important for people to understand that new material does surface. It is good that people then use that new material. It is a very good way of looking back."
The book, published by the Royal Irish Academy, will be followed by a nine-part RTÉ Radio 1 documentary presented by Mr Ferriter, beginning on Sunday, October 28th, while a major online exhibition, including radio interviews with de Valera and news footage, is available at rte.ie/libraries
The publications and broadcasts have been timed to mark the 125th anniversary of de Valera's birth, and the 70th anniversary of the Constitution.
The new focus on de Valera, said Mr Ahern, will mark the start of a new appraisal of the events that led to the foundation of the State, as the Easter Rising's 100th anniversary approaches.
The well-attended launch in the Royal Irish Academy was attended by former president, Patrick Hillery, and the last surviving of de Valera's children, Eimear.
Mr Ferriter said: "I wrote this book because I did feel that it was time to bring de Valera in from the cold. I do think that a lot of the portraits over the last 20 years have been unduly hostile and often have been inaccurate as well.
"The general conclusion drawn during those years was that de Valera had done little that was useful and much that was harmful. That was a very damning, and a very inaccurate judgment in my view," he said.
Addressing Mr Ahern, the historian said he was the longest-serving taoiseach since de Valera. "I am really looking forward to your own archive. It is very important that politicians do keep their own personal papers and ensure, as the de Valera family has done, that they end up in a respected repository so that they can be consulted by historians after a fair time has elapsed, so that they won't dovetail with contemporary politics."
RTÉ director general Cathal Goan said the anniversary offered the chance to re-examine de Valera's life and actions. "There is a sense of standing in history, a sense of breathing in the same air as the participants who have shaped the Ireland of today," he told guests.
