Éamon de Valera those deserters who had served in the Allied forces. General Richard Mulcahy also spoke against the Order, disagreeing with the way in which it applied to enlisted men and not to officers. After de Valera had spent sixteen years in power without answering the crucial questions of partition and republican status the public demanded a change from Fianna Fáil government. In the 1948 election, de Valera lost the outright majority he'd enjoyed since 1933. It initially looked like the National Labour Party would give Fianna Fáil enough support to stay in office as a minority government, but National Labour insisted
Rúaidhrí de Valera 1947, de Valera became the Archaeological Officer for Ordnance Survey Ireland which permitted him to develop the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland project. He went on to write significant papers on Irish prehistory which contributed to his doctorate, awarded in 1954. In 1957, de Valera was appointed Chair of Celtic Archaeology at University College Dublin where he worked to enlarge the department whilst continuing to publish on Irish chamber tombs, especially the Court cairns which he proposed first developed in the west of the country. De Valera later excavated at the Mound of the Hostages at Tara. He