Richard James Mulcahy (10 May 1886 – 16 December 1971) was an Irish Fine Gael politician and army general who served as Minister for Education from 1948 to 1951 and 1954 to 1957, Minister for the Gaeltacht from June 1956 to October 1956, Leader of the Opposition from 1944 to 1948, Leader of Fine Gael from 1944 to 1959, Minister for Local Government and Public Health from 1927 to 1932 and Minister for Defence from January to April 1919 and 1922 to 1924. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1938 and from 1943 to 1961 and a Senator from March 1938 to June 1938 and 1943 to 1944. He was an army general and commander-in-chief of the Irish Republican Army. He fought in the 1916 Easter Rising, served as Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence and became commander of the pro-treaty forces in the Irish Civil War after the death of Michael Collins. He later served in the cabinets of W. T. Cosgrave and John A. Costello. Early life and 1916 Rising Richard Mulcahy was born in Manor Street, Waterford, in 1886, the son of post office clerk Patrick Mulcahy and Elizabeth Slattery. He was educated at Mount Sion Christian Brothers School and later in Thurles, County Tipperary, where his father was the postmaster. One of his grandmothers was a Quaker who was disowned by her wealthy family for marrying a Catholic. Mulcahy joined the Royal Mail (Post Office Engineering Dept.) in 1902, and worked in Thurles, Bantry, Wexford and Dublin. He was a member of the Gaelic League and joined the Irish Volunteers at the time of their formation in 1913. He was also a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was second-in-command to Thomas Ashe (who later died on hunger strike) in an encounter with the armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at Ashbourne, County Meath during the Easter Rising in 1916—one of the few stand-out victories won by republicans in that week, and generally credited to Mulcahy's grasp of tactics. In his book on the Rising, Charles Townshend principally credits Mulcahy with the defeat of the RIC at Ashbourne, for conceiving and leading a flanking movement on the RIC column that had engaged with the Irish Volunteers. Arrested after the Rising, Mulcahy was interned at Knutsford and at the Frongoch internment camp in Wales until his