DE VALERA, Sinead. Fairy Tales of Ireland. SIGNED BY SINÉAD AND ÉAMON DE VALERA

London: Four Square, 1970. Second Paperback edition. Foolscap octavo. pp. 159. Pictorial wrappers. Signed on half-title by Sinead and Éamon de Valera. A very good copy. Extremely rare signed.
Sinéad de Valera (née Ní Fhlannagáin (1878-1975) author of a number of children’s books in both Irish and English. She was married to Taoiseach and third president of Ireland, Éamon de Valera.
She was born Jane O’Flanagan in Balbriggan. Her father, Laurence, was a carpenter and was a native of Kildare who moved to Balbriggan and married a local girl, Margaret Byrne. The couple emigrated to New York City, where their daughter Mary was born in 1871. The family returned to Balbriggan in 1873, and Sinéad was born there in 1878. She trained as a teacher and worked first in Edenderry, before taking up a post at a national school in Dorset Street, Dublin, in around 1901. In her spare time, she taught Irish at the Leinster College of the Gaelic League in Parnell Square. One of her Irish students was Éamon de Valera, then a teacher of mathematics. They were married in 1910. Together they had five sons, Vivion, Éamon, Brian, Rúaidhrí and Terence (Terry), and two daughters, Máirín and Emer. Due to a combination of his imprisonment, political activities, and fundraising tours of the United States, the family saw relatively little of Éamon de Valera in the 1916 to 1923 period. He was also away from home frequently during the early years of his political career.
Sinéad de Valera wrote thirty-one books for children, in both English and Irish.

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