By the time of his death in 1934, Joseph Devlin, or Wee Joe as he was more affectionately known to his constituents, had left an indelible mark on Nationalist politics in Ireland. However, at the end of his life, also, there was a sense that, like his associate and party leader, John Redmond, Devlin had become a spent force in public life, that he had become too true to his constitutional ideals to prosper in the political climate of the time.Nevertheless, Devlin had been a significant figure in Irish life, perhaps one of the most significant, and in this long overdue biography, writer Sean McMahon attempts to piece together the career of a man whose service to both his nation and his constituents has been more often than not unfairly designated to nothing more than a footnote in Irish history.