Pedro Albizu Campos y Eamon de Valera?
Originally published 2024. Updated with newly incorporated archival findings.
On December 2, 2022, I had the opportunity to speak to author, scholar, researcher, and journalist Tim Pat Coogan. Tim is the author of many in-depth scholarly works and is recognized in Ireland, where he lives, as being quite knowledgeable on the life of Eamon de Valera. I was placed in contact with Tim Pat Coogan through the assistance of Deirdre Brennan, an Irish photographer located in Ireland.
I had contacted Deirdre Brennan on August 24, 2022, through a direct message on Instagram. She had appeared in my newsfeed, and as I looked at her site, I saw she had done photography for an article related to Tim Pat Coogan. I contacted her and explained that I would like to speak to Tim Pat Coogan about Pedro Albizu Campos and would appreciate it if she had contact information for him. She responded on August 25, 2022, informing me that she had contact information for Tim Pat Coogan, and the information she provided placed me in touch with him. Deirdre mentioned that she spoke to Tim Pat Coogan and that he would speak to me, but that she did not believe Eamon de Valera ever met with Pedro Albizu Campos.
I was interested in speaking to Tim Pat Coogan because I had read his book, "Eamon de Valera," and was impressed with the scholarly research and detail provided across its more than 700 pages. I appreciated the years that went into researching and writing it. I also wanted to speak to Tim Pat Coogan because intensive research demonstrated that: (1) Eamon de Valera never visited Harvard University and thus never spoke at Harvard University; (2) there is no proof whatsoever that Pedro Albizu Campos had any part in drafting Ireland's Constitution; (3) Albizu was involved in a sedition trial in the years 1936–1937, along with six other Nationalist Party members and under the watchful eye of the U.S. government; (4) he was imprisoned and sent to federal prison in Atlanta, GA on June 7, 1937, and the Irish Constitution was drafted that same year; and (5) Albizu's documented involvement with the Irish independence cause was between January 1921 and April 1921.
In our conversation, Tim Pat Coogan informed me that he had never heard of Pedro Albizu Campos, and that this was the first time he had ever heard of the person. He further informed me that the Irish Constitution was drafted in Gaelic and English, and that the lead figure in drafting it was John Hearne. I then asked Tim Pat Coogan if he knew whether Eamon de Valera ever met Pedro Albizu Campos when de Valera visited Massachusetts in 1919 and 1920. Tim was gentlemanly enough to say, "Everything is possible. He could have approached him on the street and shook his hand maybe. But if he had any meaningful meeting or relationship with Eamon, it would have been noted in the meticulous notes kept by Kathleen, Eamon's secretary, and I'm sure there's nothing there. The name does not ring a bell."
At this point, I did not want to ask Tim Pat Coogan if it's true that there is a bust of Pedro Albizu Campos somewhere in Ireland. As a Harvard University alumnus, it is very doubtful that Don Pedro Albizu Campos had any part at all in drafting the Irish Constitution. He was fighting for dear life from the trials and prison term he was facing during 1936–1937.
What the Archival Record Actually Shows: 1913–1921
Since first publishing this post, further archival research has clarified the actual scope and timing of Albizu's involvement with the Irish independence cause, and it is far narrower than popular retellings suggest.
Albizu's studies at the University of Vermont (1912–1913) and Harvard College (1913–1916) were funded by a Puerto Rico government-sponsored study abroad scholarship under the School Laws of Porto Rico. That scholarship came with conditions: character and academic reporting requirements, including reports sent to the Commissioner of Education. It is most likely that Albizu self-regulated his activities during these years so as not to jeopardize the scholarship. Consistent with that, there is no documented involvement by Albizu in the Irish independence cause during his Vermont or Harvard College years.
That scholarship reporting obligation ended when Albizu graduated from Harvard College. No longer constrained by the scholarship's monitoring requirements, Albizu became visibly active in the Irish cause, but only during his last several months in Cambridge, MA, at Harvard Law School, not throughout it. The contemporaneous newspaper record documents this activity within a narrow window:
• January 26, 1921 — At a meeting at the home of Mary Sheehan in Cambridge, students from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Boston College formed an intercollegiate council of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. Albizu was elected director of the organization. (The Boston Globe, "Students Start Branch of Irish Recognition Society," Jan. 27, 1921, p. 6.)
• February 7, 1921 — Continued organizing activity reported under "Irish Recognition Urged in Cambridge." (The Boston Globe, Feb. 7, 1921, p. 7.)
• April 8, 1921 — Albizu debated the recognition of the Irish republic before an audience of more than 700 students, alongside Harvard professors, arguing that seven centuries of misrule entitled Ireland to immediate recognition as an independent republic. (The Boston Globe, "Harvard Students Hear Irish Debate," April 8, 1921, p. 15.)
A Parallel Timeline: Laura Meneses del Carpio
Laura Meneses del Carpio, who would become Albizu's wife, recounts her own first encounters with Albizu in her book Albizu Campos y la independencia de Puerto Rico. Her account traces a separate timeline that overlaps chronologically with the Irish-cause activity documented above:
• September 1920 — Laura and Albizu crossed paths briefly, in passing, at a speaker event at Harvard.
• (undated, following) — She saw him a second time as Albizu came out of the music department.
• December 1920 — She was formally introduced to Albizu at the home of María Teresa Llosa.
• Late January 1921 — Laura and Albizu met again at the home of Ms. Moulton — the same window in which the Irish Recognition Society was being organized — and this time they engaged in meaningful conversation. They began dating shortly thereafter.
The convergence is worth noting for chronology alone: Albizu's Irish-cause activism and the start of his relationship with Laura both emerge in the same narrow window at the very end of his Harvard years, after the scholarship's oversight had lapsed, and not before.
Laura also recalled that on some Saturdays during this same period, Albizu would go speak to Irish factory workers in Cambridge about Ireland's independence, accompanied by a woman who carried a sack to collect donations for the cause. Laura places this activity within the January–May 1921 window.
Taken together, the documented record spans January 26, 1921, through roughly May 1921, Albizu's final semester at Harvard Law School. There is no documented Irish independence cause activity across the preceding eight years, from his arrival at the University of Vermont in 1912 through the close of 1920. That is a striking silence across two-thirds of his entire Harvard-era residence in Cambridge.
On June 23, 1921, Albizu left Harvard Law School and returned to Puerto Rico without completing his law degree. At that point, he had yet to pass his corporations and evidence exams. He would later pass both exams in June 1922, and Harvard officially conferred his LL.B. on February 26, 1923.
Conclusion
None of this changes the core finding regarding de Valera: he did not visit Harvard, and there is no credible evidence of any meeting between de Valera and Albizu, or of Albizu having any role in drafting the 1937 Irish Constitution. What the fuller record adds is precision about the Irish-cause activism itself — it was real, but it was confined to a window of roughly four to six months in early 1921, at the close of Albizu's law school career, not a sustained engagement running back through his Vermont, Harvard College, or even his earlier Harvard Law School years. Simply stated, it is very unlikely that Albizu engaged in the Irish independence cause during his Harvard College years (1913–1916), and highly unlikely that he had any meaningful engagement with Eamon de Valera at any point between 1916 and 1920.