Eamon de Valera fought in the 1916 Irish Rebellion and, as Taoiseach and President, he identified himself with the newly independent nation. Modern Ireland has since rejected his conservative Catholic ethos, but de Valera remains a founding father.
However, there is a lingering mystery about his paternity – gaps in the records have sparked whispers and speculation about a Spanish artist, Vivion de Valera, who was supposedly his father. As Taoiseach, Dev, as he was known, instructed the Irish ambassador in Madrid to investigate his family tree on the Spanish side, but the ambassador found nothing.
An RTÉ documentary has discovered new evidence suggesting that Vivion de Valera never existed – that he was a fabrication and that the true identity of his father was concealed.
The first part of Dev: Rise and Rule, a two-part documentary, airing on September 3, will shed light on the discrepancies in de Valera's birth certificate and debunk the claims of a supposed Spanish father.
"One might ask, does it matter if his parents were really married or not? Does it matter who his real father was?" says David McCullagh, the presenter of the documentary. "But the point is, it mattered to him. It shaped his character."
The program is part of a renewed debate about de Valera's personality and impact on Ireland in the wake of the 50th anniversary of his death, which passed on August 29. Some historians have criticized him for Ireland's economic hardships in the 1930s, while others have praised him for keeping the country out of World War II.
The documentary traces the arc from de Valera's uncertain origins and his mother's distant nature to his complex personality. "The doubts about his paternity and his mother's rejection left him with questions about his identity that haunted him throughout his life," says McCullagh.
De Valera's mother, Catherine Coll, from County Limerick, emigrated to the United States in 1879. She claimed to have married Vivion de Valera in Greenfield, New Jersey, in 1881 and gave birth to her son in Manhattan the following year. She also claimed that her husband died in the American West after about two years.
De Valera's New York State birth certificate, dated November 10, 1882, lists Vivion as his father, with his mother's name given as Kate de Valero, born Coll, implying they were married. Scientists have never found a church or state record of the marriage, nor of Vivion's entry or death in the US.
In the documentary, McCullagh discovers a second New York State birth certificate – a copy requested by de Valera's mother in June 1916, when her son faced execution for his role in the 1916 Irish Rebellion, to prove he was a US citizen.
McCullagh points out that in the amended certificate, the surname is spelled de Valera – and that the handwriting is identical to the original certificate and matches de Valera's mother's signature. A doctor or public official would have filled out the birth certificates, not the parents.
"I've seen many, many birth certificates, and this is a special situation," Kenneth Cobb, the New York City archivist, tells the documentary.
McCullagh, who wrote a two-volume biography of de Valera, says the doubts about his paternity and his mother's decision to send him to Ireland at the age of two to be raised by his grandmother may have haunted him.
In a forthcoming book of essays about Irish leaders – The Taoiseach: A Century of Political Leadership, edited by Iain Dale – McCullagh argues that de Valera's alienated sense of identity may have influenced his reception by the institutions and causes that offered him a sense of belonging, such as his school, Blackrock College, the Irish language, and Irish nationalism.
