Her father, Laurence, was a carpenter and was a native of Kildare who moved to Balbriggan and married a local girl, Margaret Byrne.

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.

[2] In her spare time, she taught Irish at the Leinster College of the Gaelic League in Parnell Square.

Together they had five sons, Vivion, Éamon, Brian, Rúaidhrí and Terence (Terry), and two daughters, Máirín and Emer.

[4] 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.