The Hearne family’s middle-class status was due to the business success enjoyed by Richard Hearne, John’s father. He was born in 1850, at Drumrusk, near Passage East, a village just over thirteen kilometres from Waterford.14 As a young man he began working in the city as an apprentice at Messrs Walsh, a leather store situated in Broad Street. On the death of Edward Walsh, Richard Hearne and James Cahill took over the business. Under the new name of Hearne and Cahill, it soon became one of the city’s best known industries, manufacturing boots. In a book published in 1894, Patrick Egan gave a detailed account of it:
Entering the cutting room we counted twelve hands cutting out … Passing on to the machine room we counted in one room twenty-two girls employed working sixteen machines … Those machines include all the newest designs which the art of invention has developed up to the present time, they having replaced within the present year older ones, now obsolete. We also witnessed the machine for sole sewing, ‘Keats Fortuna’, at work, which is the only one of its kind in Ireland, and the fifth made; and which is capable of sewing five hundred pairs daily. There are several finishing rooms, all filled by busy workmen, and the leather stores, in a factory where upwards of ninety hands are constantly going, with all the machines at their disposal, are of necessity well stocked by large quantities of the different leathers required.
Reflecting his admiration for the factory, Egan proclaimed: ‘Waterford may feel justly proud of having one of the very few boot factories in Ireland.’ Inspired by its example, he made a political point: ‘If Waterford had many industrial resources such as this, it might look forward to the day when it would be able to recover all the native industries which have been filched from the country during ages of misdealing, through inimical laws and other grooves, by which the lifeblood of the Irish nation has well-nigh been exhausted.’15
On the death of Richard Hearne in 1929, the business was inherited by his son, also called Richard. In 1933, the factory was extended and new machines acquired with the potential to increase production by almost 50 per cent. By this time, the company was also producing light and more fashionable footwear, including ladies’ shoes, in addition to boots.16 Its importance as a source of employment in Waterford was highlighted in April 1948, when its closure, for a number of weeks, was raised at a meeting of the city’s Corporation. It appears that this was due to overproduction but it did reopen.17 However, manufacture ceased in 1951, dealing a major blow to the local economy.
Richard Hearne: public man
Like many successful businessmen in an era of a very restricted local franchise, Richard Hearne was elected a member of Waterford Corporation, representing the Custom House Ward.18 He was a supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party led by Charles Stewart Parnell, which was campaigning for Home Rule for Ireland. In 1889, members of the Corporation elected him High Sheriff of Waterford.19 However, in 1890, when the Irish Parliamentary Party split over the issue of Parnell’s affair with Catherine O’Shea, Hearne opposed Parnell. He was one of the founders of the National Commercial Club which met at Paul’s Square in the city. It became the focus of anti-Parnellism20 in a city that continued to be one of Parnell’s strongest areas of support and which, in 1891, returned a Parnellite, John Redmond, to parliament in a by-election.
Notwithstanding this fact, Hearne continued to oppose the Parnellite majority locally – not a popular position to espouse in a decade of intense political bitterness and division. His obituarist commented: ‘Into that movement [anti-Parnellism], despite fierce opposition and threats of harm, with all his moral consciousness, he threw the full weight of his great energy and enthusiasm.’ The obituary continued: ‘Then, when the blessed reconciliation came, and the leaders joined hands again as united Irishmen, Ald. Hearne became as devoted to Parnell’s successor, the late Mr John Redmond, as he had been strenuously opposed to the policy Mr Redmond championed during the split.’21 On Sunday, 22 April 1900, when John Redmond returned to Waterford as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Hearne was among those present at a public meeting to welcome and congratulate him.22
In 1901, Hearne was elected Mayor of Waterford.23 The Waterford News welcomed his election, despite the fact that it had ‘disagreed very materially’ with the position he held on the issue of Parnell’s leadership. The newspaper described the Corporation’s choice ‘as wise and judicious from every point of view’, the new mayor being ‘a sound businessman and large employer, experienced in corporate affairs’.24 Hearne recognised the significance of his election in the context of a reunited Irish Parliamentary Party, declaring at his installation: ‘I am proud to be the first mayor after unity has been restored.’25 He was re-elected the following year for a second term.26 As the first citizen of the city, he proposed that the freedom of Waterford be conferred on John Redmond,27 which happened on 12 September 1902.28
Arguably, the most important event, in political terms, during his tenure as mayor was the setting up of a branch of the United Ireland League in the city in December 1901. This was the constituency and fund-raising organisation of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The invitations to the public meeting to discuss the branch’s establishment were issued by Hearne, in his capacity as mayor.29 He was to play an active role in its affairs.
In addition to membership of the Corporation and two terms as mayor, Hearne also served in a number of other public and semi-public offices. He was a borough magistrate,30 poor law guardian and Master of the Holy Ghost Hospital, a charity tracing its origins back to the reign of King Henry VIII.31 In January 1920, when Sinn Féin secured control of the Corporation in the local elections, Hearne retained his seat,32 suggesting that he was a figure who commanded a degree of regard. His funeral in May 1929 was, in the words of the Munster Express, ‘one of the largest demonstrations of sympathy and respect seen in Waterford for years’ with ‘every section of the community in the city and county’ represented.33 A motion of sympathy passed by the Corporation noted the loss of a person ‘who was close on half a century so honourably associated with [Waterford’s] public and commercial life’.34 Clearly, Richard Hearne was a man of some substance in the economic and political life of the city for many years.
Education
John Hearne attended Waterpark College, run by the Irish Christian Brothers, which was approximately 300 metres from his home. According to Christian Brother and historian, Barry Coldrey, this school and Christian Brothers’ College Cork ‘were intended for the type of middle-class clientèle who would be unlikely to send their children to an ordinary school’ conducted by the order.35 A description of the school, published in 1914, suggests that it would appeal to parents ambitious for their children’s educational and professional prospects:
Waterpark College … was established in 1892. It is pleasantly situated on the river bank in the suburb of Newtown … The Christian Brothers have built a large study hall and recreation rooms and have enlarged the recreation grounds. Pupils are prepared in this excellent educational establishment for commercial life or for the legal, medical or engineering professions. The highest distinctions possible in all departments of public life have been won by Waterpark students.36
For a prominent family such as the Hearnes, the character of the school was probably the deciding factor rather than simply its proximity.
Christian Brothers’ schools were noted for their nationalist ethos and an extraordinary bond was forged between them and Irish nationalism.37 In 1901, on the occasion of the order’s centenary, the Gaelic League congratulated the Brothers on the work they were doing for the Gaelic cause.38 John Hearne is recorded in the 1901 census as being able to speak Irish,39 though in his career in the civil service there is no evidence of his having any great degree of proficiency in the language.40 While Christian Brothers’ schools were often credited with inculcating an ethos of robustly anti-British values and endorsing radical nationalism,41 this was probably not as pronounced in a more middle-class school such as Waterpark, the parents of whose pupils were not always as sympathetic to such tendencies. This may explain why, when reminiscing to an American audience in 1957,
