Sinéad de Valera

Sinéad de Valera was born Jane O'Flanagan in Balbriggan, County Dublin, in 1878, the daughter of a carpenter from Kildare and a local girl. She trained as a teacher, worked in Dublin, and taught Irish at the Leinster College before marrying Éamon de Valera in 1910. While he faced imprisonment and political tours, she raised their children and wrote thirty-one children's books in English and Irish. She lived beside a man who occupied the centre of national life, yet she kept her own voice through stories for young people.