Manhattan Mystery: Notes on the paternity of Éamon de Valera
- Historyeye
- Jul 2, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 11
It is extraordinary the lengths people were made to go to in centuries past to conceal the paternal ancestry of a child born out of wedlock. The name of a favourite pastry shop, a popular entertainer, a character in a play, or a name plucked from the newspapers - all could serve as rich sources of inspiration for the surname of a child with no official father.
Yet even with the most creative narratives, clues could be dropped accidentally or even intentionally. Few narratives are ever made up from scratch. But which parts are true and which are not ? To quote David Lloyd George in another related context, extracting the facts from this particular mystery is a bit ‘like trying to pick up mercury with a fork’.
Most of Éamon de Valera’s biographers, most recently David McCullagh, have dealt with the puzzle of the Irish statesman’s paternity with varying degrees of detail and scepticism. They have then moved quickly on to concentrate on more important issues like his long and far-reaching political career.
When it comes to this genealogical mystery, there are a number of unusual obstacles to overcome, not least the unreliability of its lead character, de Valera's mother Catherine Coll (for good reasons of her own no doubt). For a start, its keenest researchers are unlikely to be native New Yorkers, armed with an effortless familiarity regarding the city’s geography and neighbourhoods. Another factor muddying the waters is the stubborn and romantic assumption that the father of a great man must also have been great in some way, or at least distinguished.
But nobody alive in the 19th century, including the astute Kate Coll, could have predicted the need to outsmart the swathes of genealogical records and powerful search engines available at the click of a mouse in the 21st. So after all the years of research by so many on the mystery of de Valera's father, Vivion (Juan) de Valera, can any more insights be squeezed from the relevant sources, such as they are? Or has too much time elapsed and have too many secrets gone to the grave ?
Historyeye looks at the possibilities in the following essay.......
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