Catherine (Kate) Wheelwright (née Coll; 21 December 1856 – 12 June 1932) was the mother of Irish statesman and politician Éamon de Valera, who served as President of Ireland and Taoiseach.
This is where she allegedly met Juan Vivion de Valera (born 1854), Spanish sculptor who came to the home of her employers to give music lessons to the children.
[3][4] Consequently, whilst the correction was instigated by de Valera's mother Kate, there appears to be no validity in the claims that it was for the purpose of establishing de Valera's U.S. citizenship in an attempt to save him from a firing squad following the Easter Rising in Dublin, which occurred six years later.
[2] It was alleged that Vivion de Valera, always in poor health, left his young family behind him and traveled to Colorado, hoping that perhaps the healthier air would help him out only to die within a few months.
[2] Kate later married a British coachman, Charles Wheelwright, on 7 May 1888, who converted to Roman Catholicism for her, and she gave birth to a daughter Ann, and a son, Thomas, who would later become a Catholic priest.
Coll sent her young son (later known as Éamon) back to live with his grandmother and uncle in Bruree prior to her marriage to Wheelwright.
In 1916, Mrs. Wheelwright campaigned successfully for the suspension of the death sentence imposed by a British court on her son, a U.S. citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.