David McCullagh is a journalist with Ireland's public service broadcaster, RTÉ, and author of a history of the first Inter-Party government, A makeshift majority (Institute of Public Administration, 1998), a biography of John A. Costello, The reluctant Taoiseach (Gill Books, 2010), and a recent two-volume biography of Éamon de Valera, Volume 1: Rise, 1882-1932 and Volume 2: Rule, 1932-1975 (Gill, 2017, 2018).