The mystery of Éamon de Valera’s father….

I was very tempted to go with the headline ‘Was Éamon de Valera a b@stard?’ but I thought it best to keep it civil.

A story by Rory Carroll in the Guardian questions the narrative around Éamon de Valera’s father. From the story:

Éamon de Valera fought in Ireland’s 1916 rebellion and, as taoiseach and president, stamped his identity on the newly independent country. Modern Ireland has since rejected much of his conservative Catholic ethos, but De Valera remains a founding father.

There is enduring mystery, however, over his paternity – gaps in the record fuelled whispers and speculation about the Spanish artist, Vivion de Valera, said to be his father. As taoiseach, Dev, as he was known, instructed Ireland’s ambassador in Madrid to investigate the Spanish side of his family tree, but the ambassador drew a blank.

Now an RTÉ documentary has found fresh evidence that suggests Vivion de Valera never existed – that he was invented and that the real father’s identity was concealed.

The first part of Dev: Rise and Rule, a two-part documentary, on 3 September, will shine a light on discrepancies in De Valera’s birth certificate and undermine the claims about a putative Spanish father.

“You might ask does it matter if his parents were really married? Does it matter who his father really was?” says David McCullagh, the documentary’s presenter. “But the point is, it mattered to him. It shaped his character.”

De Valera’s mother, Catherine Coll, from County Limerick, emigrated to the United States in 1879. She said she married Vivion de Valera in Greenville, New Jersey in 1881 and gave birth to their son in Manhattan the following year. She also said her husband died in the western US around two years later.

De Valera’s New York state birth certificate, dated 10 November 1882, names Vivion as the father, whose name is spelt De Valero. His mother’s name is spelt Kate De Valero née Coll, implying they were married. Scholars have never found a church or state record of the marriage, nor of Vivion’s entry to the US or death.

Why does it matter? Well, it would be ironic if the guy who most colluded with the catholic church to shame and banish unmarried mothers and sell their kids to Americans turned out to be the product of an unmarried mother.

Tonight RTÉ are showing a new documentary to mark the 50th anniversary of de Valera’s death. Watch part one of ‘Dev: Rise and Rule’ on Wednesday 3 September at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.

Given what we now know about neurodiversity, Dev does seem to have been autistic. From an old article in the Irish Times:

Prof Fitzgerald suggests that WB Yeats and Eamon de Valera were autistic. Yeats had reading and writing problems, did poorly at school where he was bullied and failed to get into Trinity College Dublin. Nevertheless he had a great, vivid imagination while remaining socially aloof – all classic signs of AS.

Prof Fitzgerald diagnoses Yeats’s preoccupation with Maud Gonne as autistic. Yeats remained obsessed for many years but she had no personal relationship with him. Fitzgerald suggests that Yeats was basically having an affair with himself.

Prof Fitzgerald describes Eamon de Valera as a gifted mathematician and a loner who had almost no personal relationships. He was very good in crowds, but couldn’t relate one-to-one. He was obsessed with mathematics and with power and control and he couldn’t relate to Michael Collins, who was a much more “human individual”.

Before you all jump down my throat, I am not saying there is anything wrong with that. I am likely on the aul spectrum myself, but it does give a good insight into his character.

I don’t particularly like Dev, BUT it could be argued that he was a product of his time, and the history of Ireland might not have been much better (or even worse) with someone else in charge. He did make Ireland a very conservative and stifling place, but he also brought stability.

Unrelated, but while we are on the subject of Irish dynasties, the new Netflix drama based on the Guinness family looks cool:

I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.