Checking the Facts on an Old Family Story about Irish President Eamon de Valera
June 13, 2016
Eamon de Valera (1882-1975), Irish political leader and head of state, Photo taken in the 1920s, Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Eamon de Valera was the only commandant from the failed 1916 Easter Rising who wasn’t executed by the British. This was due to his late surrender as well as the timing of his sentencing and protests from the US government. De Valera had been born in New York and was a US citizen, although he had been reared by his mother’s family in Ireland from the age of two.
Released from prison in 1917, de Valera was rearrested in 1918. In December of 1918, during his imprisonment in England, he won a seat in the House of Commons in the Westminster Parliament as a Sinn Fien candidate for East Clare. Sinn Fien candidates won most of the Irish seats in Parliament that year but, instead of going to London, they formed an independent Irish government in Dublin, the Dail Eireann. After escaping from prison in February of 1919, de Valera was elected the Dail’s first president.
The conflict between the Dail and the British government quickly escalated into a military conflict between the Irish Republican Army and British security forces in Ireland. Known as the Irish War of Independence, it lasted from January of 1919 until July of 1921, although the Anglo-Irish Treaty wasn’t signed until the following December.
De Valera spent much of the war, from June of 1919 to December of 1920, on tour in the US to raise funds and gain international support for the republican government. Denounced by the American Legion as an enemy of Great Britain, America’s ally in World War I, he was nevertheless welcomed in cities and state legislatures all over the US, either as president of the Republic of Ireland or as an honored private citizen.
De Valera in Augusta
On April 28, 1920, five months into his tour, de Valera spoke to a packed crowd at the Opera House in downtown Augusta, Georgia. Due to an accident on the rail line, he arrived several hours late and didn’t start his speech until 10:30 p.m.
Local dignitaries sat on the stage behind de Valera and hosted a reception in his honor afterwards. The next morning, a breakfast was held for him at the Albion Hotel on Broad Street followed by a public reception in the hotel parlor. Then an hour before he was due to leave on the noon train, he met briefly with Mayor W.P. White.
An Old Family Story
Over the years, Marie, my cousin and research partner, has heard a story from several family members that, during his visit to Augusta, the Irish president had tea with our great-grandmother, May Armstrong Casey Morrison. However, when I tried to track down information about their meeting, I wasn’t able to confirm that May or any of her siblings had met with de Valera.
In the Augusta Chronicle, no Armstrongs were listed among the people who sat on the stage during his speech or had breakfast with him the next morning.
A few days ago, I asked my mother, Mary Van Sant Wheeler, if May, her maternal grandmother, had ever said anything about meeting Eamon de Valera. She said no. Apparently May did speak highly of de Valera, but she never said anything about having met him.
Likewise, I don’t remember hearing my grandmother, Sarah Casey Van Sant or her sisters, Frances Armstrong Casey and Nippy Morrison Breaux, say anything about the Irish president coming to their mother’s house for tea.
A Different Family Story Uncovered: Sir Thomas Esmonde’s 1888 Visit to Augusta
“The Irish members in their seats in the House of Parliament, 1886”, Sir Thomas Esmonde is seated fourth from right on bottom row, Charles Stewart Parnell – leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party – is standing, Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Last February, our cousin Mary Real emailed us some family photos, letters, and newspaper clippings she had found at the home of her late mother, Patricia Van Sant Real.
One of the newspaper articles, published in the Augusta Chronicle on July 31st, 1907, reported that Sir Thomas Esmonde, a well-known Irish member of the Westminster Parliament, had announced his withdrawal from the Irish Parliamentary Party.
Sir Esmonde’s resignation, it was noted, was due to his loss of faith in “constitutional legislative channels” to bring about change in Ireland: “Ireland is a sovereign nation…and must give up begging with bated breath and whimpering humbleness in a foreign legislature for the restoration of her stolen liberties.”
Interestingly, the article also mentioned that Sir Esmonde had been a guest of John F. Armstrong in Augusta in the 1880s. According to the Chronicle, he was remembered for remarking that the “only real cup of tea I have had since I left home” was at the Armstrong residence.
Nineteen years earlier, Sir Esmonde had toured the US to raise money and awareness for the Irish Parliamentary Party. On March 3rd, 1888, the Augusta Chronicle reported that, the previous evening, he had been introduced to a full house at St. Patrick’s hall by John F. Armstrong.
Esmonde told the crowd that Augusta was well-known to the Irish Parliamentary Party because of “the prominent identification of some of its citizens with the cause of Irish freedom”.
So, Who Had Tea with May?
If Sir Esmond did indeed have tea at the Armstrong home in Augusta, then it’s likely that May was there and possibly served it herself, since her mother had died a year earlier.
Because we have no evidence that May ever met de Valera, it appears that Sir Esmonde’s visit evolved into the story about May and the Irish president. Sir Esmonde was a prominent Irishman in his time, but de Valera dominated Irish politics in the twentieth century and is the more well-known of the two today.
And so, over the generations, the two men got mixed up and confused in our family’s oral history.
Special note: We’d like to thank cousin Mary Real for sharing the July 31st, 1907 Augusta Chronicle article, which mentioned Sir Esmonde’s comments about having tea at the Armstrong home. We had not come across it in our searches for John F. Armstrong in the Chronicle archives at genealogybank.com.
References
De Valera Gets Best Attention. (1920, April 30). Augusta Chronicle, CXXXV(120), p. 7A. Retrieved June 12, 2016, from www.genealogybank.com
Eamon de Valera (1882-1975). (n.d.). Retrieved June 12, 2016, from www.clarelibrary.ie: http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/people/eamon.htm
High Honor Shown by Augusta to Eamon de Valera. (1920, April 29). Augusta Chronicle, CXXXV(119), p. 1A and 6A. Retrieved June 11, 2016, from www.genealogybank.com.
Obituary: Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde. (1935, September 21). p. 22. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from The Tablet: The International Catholic Weekly: http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/21st-september-1935/22/obituary
Sir Thomas Esmonde: His Address at St. Patrick’s Hall Last Night. (1888, March 3). Augusta Chronicle (958), p. 8A. Retrieved June 12, 2016, from www.genealogybank.com
Talking It Over. (1907, July 31). Augusta Chronicle, CXXIII(212), p. 6A. Retrieved June 12, 2016, from www.genealogybank.com
The Cabinet Papers, 1915-1988: Irish Nationalism and the War of Independence. (n.d.). Retrieved June 9, 2016, from The National Archives of the United Kingdom: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/nationalism-war-independence.htm
Wheeler, M. V. (2016, June 10). Phone interview: Memories of May Armstrong Casey Morrison. (T. W. Taylor, Interviewer)