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De Valera's mother, Catherine Coll, usually known as Kate, came to the states in 1879, at the young age of twenty-three. Like so many other Irish immigrants of that time, she had suffered from poverty, and even hunger, in her native land and saw America as a place where she could go to try and get a fresh start. She first took a job with a wealthy French family that was living in Manhattan. This is where and when she met Vivion Juan de Valera. He was a Spanish sculptor who came to the home of her employers to give music lessons to the children. In 1881, the couple married.
A little over a year later, while living at 61 east 41 st Street, Kate Coll de Valera gave birth to the couple's only child. His name was Edward, called by Eddie at first, but would become known to the world by the Irish variation of that name, Eamon. Always in poor health, Vivion de Valera left his young family behind him and traveled to Colorado, hoping that perhaps the healthier air would help him out. Within a few months he died. Now a widow, Kate went back to work, leaving Eamon in the care of another woman who also had come from the tiny village of Bruree, in County Limerick. Later in his life, Eamon would remember occasional visits from, as he knew her, a woman in black, which ended up being his true mother.
Kate de Valera decided that Eamon would be better cared for by her family back in Ireland. Before long he found himself away from noise of Manhattan, living in Bruree in a one-room house with mud walls and a thatched roof. Living with him were his grandmother, his twenty-one-year-old uncle, Pat, and young Handle, his fifteen-year-old aunt. Shortly after Eamon arrived, the family moved to a cottage, built by the Irish government for farm workers, but it was only a little bit larger. It was made up of two rooms, most of which were given over to kitchen space. After a year Eamon's mother visited briefly- long enough for her to announce her new marriage to an American, Charles Wheelwright, known to Eamon as "Uncle Charley." Kate soon returned to America.
She thought it would be best that four-year-old Eamon remain in Ireland. Eamon's childhood was typically Irish. He worked at farming with the rest of his family, went to school, played rugby, and starred as a runner. At the age of fourteen, after eight 5 years of school, it was time to decide what he was going to do next.
He considered returning to America. He even wrote to his mother about it. It was just not to be. Instead, he enrolled at the Christian Brothers's chool seven miles from his home. Since the family could not afford to buy him a bicycle, he had to walk the entire distance- both ways every day- carrying a heavy load of books. Eamon proved so strong a student that after two years; he was admitted with a scholarship to Blackrock College.
That school, which was located near Dublin, was run by the Holy Ghost fathers. Eamon entered the college unsure of his future career but leaning toward either teaching or priesthood. It soon became clear to him that his greatest interest, as well as his greatest academic strength, lay in mathematics. After five years at Blackrock, he became a mathematics teacher at a school in Tipperary while completing his college degree.
In 1904 he graduated from the Royal University in Dublin. Very tall and thin with dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin, like his Spanish father, what struck people immediately was his seriousness. Just as he had been passionate about rugby and track as a youngster, now he was passionate about his devotion to the Catholic Church, to the study of mathematics, and the cause of freedom from British rule for Ireland. He remained a private person, seldom smiling, seldom revealing his emotions. Whether he was happy or unhappy was difficult to tell.
He taught Latin, French and mathematics at various secondary schools, but also at colleges, training teachers. Finally he became faculty at St. Patrick's College, an outstanding Irish seminary, responsible for preparing men for the priesthood. At St. Patrick's his involvement with Catholicism became even more intense.
As part of his concern for Irish independence, Eamon plunged into the study of Gaelic, the language of ancient Ireland. It was at a meeting of the Gaelic league that he met an extraordinarily beautiful young actress, Jane Flanagan, then only eighteen-years-old. Jane soon changed her name to the Gaelic Sinead Ni Fhlannagain. Soon, she and Eamon became fluent in the ancient language. They also fell in love.
After a courtship of two years, they were married. It was a marriage destined to last more than sixty years and to bring the couple great personal happiness, along with six children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. By 1910, the year the de Valera's were married, the struggle for Irish independence from Great Britain had grown even more bitter. This struggle was by no means new. Long before Eamon's birth, such leaders as Michael David and Charles Stewart Parnell had championed the cause of poor Irish farmers, forced to leave their homes when they could not pay rent to the British landlords. In time, many Irish leaders came to see freedom from British rule as the only answer.
At first, Eamon tried not to involve himself in politics. Instead, he devoted himself to the Gaelic League. But as the situation with England grew more intense, he joined both the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Sinn Fein (We Ourselves) - groups pressing for Irish freedom. He was even more active in the Irish Volunteers, a group that was arming itself and preparing for open rebellion. He became commander of the Third Battalion of the Volunteers, a force of about 125 men. In April 1916, the bloody Easter rebellion broke out in Dublin.
De Valera seized the railroad station there, as well as a large bakery. They defeated British reinforcements sent to recapture those positions. But after nearly a week, the British, armed with artillery and heavily outnumbering the Irish, finally forced the exhausted rebels to surrender. As the British troops closed in on them, de Valera is said to have declared to his troops, "You have but one life to live and but one death to die. See that you do both like men. " He and his battalion were the last to give in. In the weeks that followed, the British put the leaders of the rebellion on trial.
Sixteen of them were hanged. De Valera's wife, as well as his family in America, pleaded that his life be spared. They argued that to execute a person born in America would stir up anger among the American people. At the time, Britain desperately needed American help in World War I. It was decided, therefore, not to hang de Valera. Instead, he was sentenced to life in prison.
In June 1917, the British announced a general amnesty, setting free all of the Irish prisoners that they were holding. On his release from jail Eamon was greeted by the Irish people as a hero. Of all of the major...
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