British monarchs’. He knew the dates on which all the kings of England died and the name of the diseases which killed some of them.42 Though he was to express robust nationalist views when older, these were, very definitely, in the Home Rule and Redmondite traditions. His education may have influenced his political views; time spent in a Christian Brothers’ school should not be equated simply with the espousal of Sinn Féin nationalism.
Having completed his education at Waterpark College, Hearne entered St John’s College, Waterford, in September 1910, to commence study for the Roman Catholic priesthood.43 Opened in 1871, this establishment trained students for Waterford and other dioceses.44 On 12 September 1911, he began studies at Maynooth College, the national seminary. The course of training for clerical students involved three years’ study for a BA degree in philosophy and arts, followed by a four-year theology degree. For some reason, Hearne studied four years for a BA and was awarded one in 1915, his subjects being Latin, English literature, logic and psychology, and metaphysics and ethics. He commenced studies in the Faculty of Theology in the academic year 1915–16, but left the seminary sometime during the academic year 1916–17.45
The timetables at the seminaries Hearne attended show a heavy schedule of lectures and classes which demanded a great deal of intellectual vigour. The young Hearne studied philosophy, morality, Church law, ethics, logic and politics. He also studied languages such as Latin, Greek and Hebrew.46 According to Chief Justice Susan Denham, ‘this experience undoubtedly enriched his work as lawyer, public servant and diplomat … The formative years spent at the seminaries in Waterford and Maynooth clearly influenced John Hearne’s understanding of the world and human nature, and graced the stylishly written drafts he wrote, which ultimately became part of our Constitution.’47
The decision to leave Maynooth cannot have been an easy one for Hearne. He was a very religious person throughout his life, as will be seen later. The fact that he spent a total of seven years preparing for the priesthood suggests a strong personal belief in his having a vocation. His son, Maurice, in his contents for a ‘proposed biography’ of his father, made a note which highlighted some of the difficulties Hearne faced: ‘Left Maynooth a short time before due to be ordained. His family disappointed and [include] a short discussion on the trauma associated with such a decision at the time in provincial Ireland.’48 When he wrote of ‘trauma’, what Maurice had in mind was that his father would have been regarded as a ‘spoiled priest’.
Having a priest, nun, or brother in the family was not merely socially acceptable, it conferred a unique respectability, as well as presumed advantages in the order of grace. The social attitude towards the priesthood carried the further assumption that any young man who commenced a clerical career was, ipso facto, ‘called’ to the priesthood; he had a ‘vocation’. Therefore, a clerical student who failed, for whatever reason, to proceed all the way to ordination was called a ‘spoiled priest’. The particular Irish Catholic usage carried a certain social stigma.49
This social stigma was explored in a play written in 1912 by Thomas C. Murray (1873–1959). Entitled Maurice Harte, the eponymous protagonist decides to quit his clerical studies at Maynooth, to the deep shock of his parents and brother.50 His mother proclaims: ‘If you don’t return [to Maynooth] how can I ever face outside this door, or lift up my head again? … How could I ever face again into the town of Macroom? … I tell you, Maurice, I’d rather be lying dead a thousand times in the graveyard over at Kilnamartra.’51
While it is not being suggested that the Hearne family reacted with such melodramatic intensity, the play does give a valuable insight into contemporary attitudes. Maurice Hearne was aware of the Hearne family’s ‘disappointment’ and the social attitudes then prevalent. His source of information for both was almost certainly John Hearne himself. This reinforces the sense that, for personal, family and social reasons, it was probably an anxious and difficult time in his life. The fact that he had an older brother, Maurice, who had been trained in St John’s College and ordained on 17 June 1906,52 could have either exacerbated or mitigated this anxiety. Whatever the case, significantly for John Hearne, he had the support of his father.53 This made things somewhat easier for him, but the distress the decision might have caused him should not be underestimated in the Ireland and Waterford of 1916.
Hearne was a committed Catholic throughout his life. He was known to his contemporaries as a devout man,54 a view confirmed by his niece, Alice Bowen, who knew him well and remembers him as being very religious.55 A letter he sent her in acknowledgement of her expression of sympathy on the death of his son, Justin, aged twenty, as result of a shooting accident in September 1957,56 suggests a person with a deep sense of personal faith.57 The influence of his clerical training revealed itself in particular ways. While acknowledging a letter of sympathy from a nephew, Fr Ignatius Fennessy, again on the occasion of his son’s death, he observed that a Catholic priest would be able to appreciate what he felt at that time.58 This was a remark respectful of the Catholic priesthood and informed by his association with clerics, especially at the seminaries he attended. While serving as Irish Ambassador to the United States (1950–60), his younger son, David, was involved in a motor accident in which an elderly woman was killed. Hearne insisted on going to the woman’s funeral in South Carolina and preaching the sermon at the funeral service.59 During his tenure as ambassador, he was invited to speak at Catholic universities and his addresses were inspired by deeply-held religious beliefs. He delivered a speech on the occasion of the commencement exercises at the University of Notre Dame on 4 June 1950 and included the following:
It will depend on you [the graduates] whether or not this country can weather the maelstrom [of challenges facing it]. Be prepared for that. Be prepared by being practical, day to day, men of faith; not believers merely, but doers also. Let the excellence of your lives shine for all to see in the community in which you live, in your professional relations and your social surroundings. Be intellectually honest and intellectually humble. Teach your friends and neighbours, aye, and your enemies, how to distinguish money from wealth, interference from influence, notoriety from fame, pride from self-respect, speed from progress, luxury from elegance, glamour from distinction, fashion from taste, respectability from worthiness – I mean the spurious from the genuine and the temporal from the eternal.
He continued with an exhortation founded on Christian principles:
Never before has mankind been so much in need of the true pattern as well as the true tradition of human life formed in the mind of the Designer and spun from the hand of its Author. The world needs teachers much, but it needs models more. And if we be not the models there will be none. On us and our example will depend the issue of whether or not the image of God is written upon the character of this and the next generation.60
Throughout his life he retained a deep interest in philosophy and theology, interests which served him well during the drafting of the Constitution.
In 1916, Hearne entered University College Dublin, graduating with a LLB degree in 1919.61 He was also admitted to the King’s Inns as a student in the Michaelmas term, 1916, and was called to the Bar in 1919.62 His career at the King’s Inns was an illustrious one. He received three gold medals for his achievements in the year 1917–18: for oratory, legal debate and the Lord Chancellor’s Prize for oratory and legal debate combined.63 For 1919–20, he served as auditor of the Law Students’ Debating Society of Ireland.64 In that capacity he delivered the inaugural lecture, entitled ‘University Culture and the Rule of Law’, at the opening meeting of the society’s nineteenth session. Some of the sentiments he expressed, as reported in the Freeman’s Journal, are of interest in light of the future part he was to play in the making of the state’s new basic law in 1937 and as a diplomat at the League of Nations:
[the] … upshot from all their [the audience’s] knowledge of the world war was that international law as a governing force in the world had signally failed. He believed that the power and permanence of their legislative and executive establishments in the state, and of progressive international polity in the world, would depend increasingly in the future upon the degree of advancement
