EAMON de Valera might have been ranked with British prime minister Winston Churchill and Cuban president Fidel Castro as an aficionado of the cigar. In 1921 he acceded to a request from a Dutch manufacturer to create a "De Valera" series of first-class cigars with his image on the box.
A letter addressed to de Valera in July 1921 by an export cigar manufacturer, Jan van der Heijde of Eindhoven, requesting permission to create the "De Valera" brand, is reproduced as part of a new exhibition of documents from the National Archives commemorating the 75th anniversary of independence.
The exhibition, "A Nation and Not a Rabble - Ireland in the years July 1921 to June 1922", was opened by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, at his Department office in Dublin on Wednesday.
In the letter, addressed to "His Excellency Mr de Valera President of the First Irish Republic (sic)", van der Heijde said his firm intended to issue "a new series of our first class cigars for which we would fain to use your name and issue these brands as the `De Valera series'.
"However, before doing so we should like to know whether there is no objection on your part to such proceedings and we shall therefore esteem it a great favour if you would kindly drop us a few words to this effect."
Van der Heijde also asked for a portrait of de Valera to be sent to the firm for reproduction on the cigar boxes.
"Furthermore we should like to reproduce the tickets for the boxes as good a portrait of your Excellency as can be and should be infinitely honoured if you would instruct your secretary or your photographer to send us a specimen of your latest portrait," he wrote.
The request confirmed de Valera's status as an international celebrity at a time when the Department of Publicity and Propaganda was sending the weekly Irish Bulletin to 900 newspapers worldwide.
In the following months, according to Dr Diarmaid Ferriter, one of the exhibition researchers, de Valera ordered his favourite photograph to be sent to the cigar manufacturer, whose other "Special Brands for every market" ironically included such imperial names as Royal Seal and King Edward.
. The exhibition will run until February 28th before moving to Cork and Galway.