Juan Vivion de Valera
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Juan Vivion de Valera was the man Éamon de Valera maintained was his father.
According to Eamon's account, Juan Vivion was a Spaniard who emigrated to America. There, he met Éamon's mother Kate Coll, who had immigrated from Knockmore in County Limerick, and married her in 1881, a year before Éamon's birth. Juan Vivion died in 1885 leaving his widow and child in poor circumstances.[1]
Biographers of Éamon de Valera have failed to find any church or state record of the marriage. Furthermore, no birth, baptismal or death certificate has ever been found for an individual named Juan Vivion de Valera (or the alternative spelling de Valeros). Yet, it was not uncommon for 19th century immigrants to change names or be subject to poor documentation. Yet, this led some modern scholars, including Éamon's biographer Tim Pat Coogan, to conclude that Kate Coll actually bore her son out of wedlock and that Éamon then invented Juan Vivion de Valera to disguise his illegitimate birth.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Proinsias Mac Aonghusa Quotations from Éamon de Valera page 89 (1983) ISBN 0-85342-684-8.
