Sir, - Kevin Myers (December 2nd) tells us that the child de Valera was abandoned by his mother and that she came back to Ireland in 1887 when he was five years old but only to abandon him again. "She looked him over, and despite his pleas to take him with her, then departed to her new husband in the US." If there was no other evidence to hand, one would think that she must have been a particularly hard-hearted mother.
That is not the picture painted by the de Valera papers. There was no abrupt ending in that or any other year; their warm feelings towards each other continued until her death in Rochester, New York State in 1932.
Mother and son met for long visits on five occasions between her 1887 journey home and her death, despite the difficulties of transatlantic travel in those years. They corresponded at significant times in de Valera's life - such as his marriage in 1910 and the ordination of his half-brother Thomas Wheelwright. She was active in striving to get her son released when he was under sentence of death in 1916 and again when he was imprisoned by our own government in 1923-24. The half-brothers also corresponded and met in the States and in Ireland until the death of Fr Wheelwright in 1946. More than a score of the letters are still extant among these papers and there were many others from the extended Coll family. The letters are warm, loving, caring and patently sincere.
Biographical studies will certainly benefit from the use of de Valera's papers and many old pictures like that of the uncaring mother will happily fade away. - Yours, etc., Brendan Mac Giolla Choille
Archivist, Fearann Broc, Baile Atha Cliath 4.