Although Sinéad de Valera, who died 50 years ago on January 7th, is probably mainly remembered as the wife of Eamon de Valera, she was an Irish-language activist for many years, a highly respected teacher for the Gaelic League, and proved a prolific author of children’s books in later life. She was also an actor and even considered a career on the stage at one time.
She was born Jane (usually called Jennie) Flanagan on June 1st, 1878, in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, one of four children of Laurence Flanagan, a carpenter, and Margaret Byrne. The family moved to Phibsborough in Dublin when she was seven as her father was made clerk of works for the building of St Peter’s Church there. Following local schooling, she attended Baggot Street Teacher Training College from where she graduated as a national-school teacher. Her teaching career began in Edenderry, Co Offaly, and continued at Francis Xavier School, Lower Dorset Street, which she had herself attended.
She developed a great interest in the Irish language, joining the Gaelic League, adopting Sinéad Ní Fhlannagáin as her name and frequently visiting the Mayo Gaeltacht. As a member of the Gaelic League and of Maud Gonne’s Inghinidhe na hÉireann, she became involved in amateur dramatics. A play she performed in was The Tinker and the Fairy by Douglas Hyde. According to Frances Clarke, who wrote the entry on her in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, she asked George Moore, in whose garden on Ely Place the play had been performed, if she should consider a career in acting but he advised her against it.
Becoming fluent in Irish, she gave language classes at the Gaelic League college on Parnell Square. One of her pupils was Eamon de Valera, then a teacher of maths. In the summer of 1909, they attended the Irish college at Tourmakeady, Co Mayo, and were married the following January in St Paul’s Church on Arran Quay; he was 28 and she 32. She gave up her career to look after their family of five sons and two daughters.
In February 1936, their son Brian, then aged 20, was killed in a riding accident in the Phoenix Park.
After the Easter Rising, with her husband jailed and with no financial income, she moved back to her family home with some of her children (the others were sent to her sister in Balbriggan) and cared for her invalid sister, who died in August, and her mother, who died the following January. When circumstances improved, the de Valera family settled in Greystones, Co Wicklow, but she saw little of her husband in the 1917-23 period as he was on the run, in prison or fundraising in America. Michael Collins frequently visited her in Greystones and provided money and support for her and her family.
Although she wanted to avoid public life, she was persuaded by Harry Boland to join de Valera in America in 1920, travelling there on a false passport provided by Collins. She spent six weeks there but saw little of her husband because of his busy schedule and was relieved to return home.
She was rumoured to be pro-Treaty, according to Frances Clarke, but never spoke publicly about political events. The break with Collins was said to have aggrieved her particularly, as he had been so good to her during her husband’s absences.
When her family were reared, she turned to writing and produced no fewer than 31 books in Irish and in English. She adapted old stories and folktales from Irish, translated European fairytales into Irish and wrote plays and poems for children. Among her works were Coinneal na Nodlag agus Sgéalta Eile (1944), Áilleacht agus an Beithideach (1946), The Emerald Ring and Other Irish Fairy Stories (1951), The Stolen Child and Other Stories (1961), The Four-Leafed Shamrock (1964) and The Miser’s Gold (1970). She maintained her interest in Irish and attended Gaelic League functions and children’s drama competitions.
A quiet, shy and retiring person, she shunned the limelight and during the years of her husband’s presidency (1959-73), she made few public appearances and her youngest son, Terry, who wrote a memoir, said she did not enjoy living in Áras an Uachtaráin. After the end of the presidency, they both moved into Linden Convalescent Home in Blackrock, where she died aged 96 on the day before what would have been their 65th wedding anniversary.
Her husband died a little under eight months later and they are buried with their son Brian in Glasnevin Cemetery.