Origin of O'Hearn's - Chapter V

serving the British Crown. Some of these found their way to the American

colonies, as did Maurice O’Hearn who is listed in an article by Terrence

Punch as one of the Irish who arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the year

1750. In colonial America at about this time, Morris O’Hearn who was married

to Phibbe _________, petitioned the Council of Orangeburgh, South Carolina in

1749 for 250 acres of agricultural land. He had come to South Carolina from

Virginia with his wife and three children. Another child John O’Hearn was

born on March 17, 1752. This information is from the Orangeburgh

German-Swiss Genealogial Society records.

The American historian O’Brien lists Timothy Ahern as an Irishman who

was recruited with a certain McCarthy from Cork to serve in the Colonial Army

under George Washington after 1776. McCarthy was killed during the

Revolutionary War, and Ahern was captured by the British and held in Montreal

until the end of the conflict. He then lived as a free man in the state of

Connecticut. Thus the descendants of the Ua hEchtigern sept appear in

history both on the side of the Hanoverian dynasty in Canada, and on the

opposite side of the patriots in America.

Immigration to the United States of America and Canada began to

grow early in the 19th Century. In 1812, John O’Hearn arrived in Allegany

County, Pennsylvania. In the U.S. census of 1830 for South Carolina, Elias

is listed as a resident of Orangeburgh. Perhaps he was a direct descendant

of Morris and Phibbe O’Hearn of Orangeburgh. Subsequently, Cath O’Hearn

arived in New Brunswick, Canada in 1843. Several O’Hearns including another

named John are listed on passenger lists bound from British or Irish Ports

and arriving in New York Harbor in the years 1848 and 1849, during the Irish

Potato Famine. Daniel O’Hearn of Kilkenny, his wife Johanna and their

children arrived and settled in Erin Township, Wellington County, Ontario,

Canada circa 1850. In Erie County, Pennsylvania, Michael O’Hearn arrived in

1852, John O’Hearn arrived in 1855, and James O’Hearn arrived in 1864. The

County records in the State of Wisconsin indicate that several families of

O’Hearn arrived in the mid-19th Century, mostly from Canada. John O’Hearn of

Maple Grove, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin apparently arrived around 1850 and

was originally from County Kilkenny, Ireland, the son of Daniel O’Hearn. He

and James O’Hearn, perhaps a brother, acquired eighty acres of farmland by

grant deed from the U.S. government in 1852, in which deed they are listed as

James O. Haran and John O. Haran. During the American Civil War, at least

two soldiers named O’Hearn served in Wisconsin Regiments of the Union Army.

The most celebrated of the name may have been Captain John D. Hearn who

served in one of the Regiments of Corcoran’s Irish Legion from the State of

New York, and was discharged in 1863. Thomas Francis Meagher mentioned

above, who had been tried and convicted of treason with eight other Irishmen

who were all pardoned by Queen Victoria, also served as Brigadier General of

the U.S. Army, became Governor of Montana, and was a well-known author and

lawyer. Also, Maurice O’Hearn arrived in Colorado in 1881.

At the turn of the century, Edward L. Hearn of Boston was Supreme

Knight of the Knights of Columbus. John Ambrose O’Hearn, born in Lawrence,

Massachusetts in 1886, was a newspaper reporter and editor of the Lawrence

Evening Tribune beginning in 1919. In more recent times, the well-known

movie actor Brian Aherne was of Irish descent, originally from England, and

lived in California. In Canada, during the 19th and 20th Centuries several

individuals of the O’Hearns have been outstanding in the fields of

publishing, education, law and government. At the present time, the most

populous state for O’Hearn familes is Massachusetts, indicating probable

heavy immigration. In Canada, the most populous province for O’Hearn

families is Ontario.

In the ecclesiastical realm, several of the sept were of note in

the United States. John Francis O’Hern (1874-1933), born in Olean, New York,

was ordained in 1901 and was appointed bishop of Rochester in 1929. Charles

Aloysius O’Hern (1881-1925), born in Lawrence, Kansas, was ordained

in 1906, was appointed vice-rector of the North American College in Rome

in 1907, became rector in 1917, and retained that position until his death.

Rev. Woulfe indicates that the surname O’Hern was also an anglicization of

the Irish sept of of Ua hEearain originating in Armagh. O’Hart lists the

name as among the familes of Irish landed gentry in County Tipperary,

in the territory in which the Ua hEchtigern sept had migrated in the 14th

Century. Michael Joseph Ahern (1877-1951), born in New York City, joined the

Jesuits in 1896, was a lay brother who taught chemistry, and was director of

and commentator on the "Catholic Truth Period" radio program from 1929 to

1950.

In Australia, Elizabeth Ahern was born in 1877 at Ballarat,

Victoria, the daughter of Edward Ahern, a miner, and his wife Eliza (nee

Kiely). Known as Lizzy, she became a socialist propagandist and married a

man named Wallace of similar political views. She died in 1969. Thomas

Ahern was born in 1884 at Ballymacoda, County Cork, the son of Patrick Ahern

and his wife Mary (nee McGrath). He came to Australia in 1910 with his

fiancee Nora McGrath whom he married. He was successful in acquiring an

interest in a furniture and drapery business with the Quinlans who entered

into the partnership on the advice of Archbishop Patrick Joseph Clune of

Perth. The business became known as Ahern, Ltd., and Thomas soon bought out

the Quinlans’ interest, acquiring full ownership. Thomas Ahern died in

Perth, Australia in 1970. More recently, Michael John Ahern, MLA, was

Primier of Queensland province, Australia, from 1987 to 1989.

During the time of the Irish struggle for independence, Archbishop

Clune of Perth, himself originally from County Clare, helped to negotiate on

behalf of the Irish with Prime Minister Lloyd George and Sir Winston

Churchill, MP, and was very sympathetic to the Irish patriots of Sinn Fein

during the early decades of the 20th Century. Also supportive of

Sinn Fein was Bishop Edward O’Dwyer of Limerick. Bishop O’Dwyer was

descended from the same sept that had settled in central Tipperary from

Leinster, as mentioned in Chapter III. Several priests from his diocese

became priests in the United States and Canada in the early 1900’s, including

two brothers, Thomas O’Regan and William O’Regan, who were assigned to

minister at St. Philip's Church in Pasadena, California, in the Archdiocese

of Los Angeles. At the present time, the Most Rev. John J. Ahern, now

retired, has been Bishop of Cloyne in southeast Cork from 1957 to 1987, being

succeeded by Bishop John McGee.

From the beginnings of Sinn Fein and the Easter Rebellion of 1916,

emerged the Irish Free State in the post-World War era which did not include

six counties in Ulster, precipitating the Irish Civil War from 1921 to 1923.

Full independence was accorded the Irish Republic in 1949 after the Second

World War. The Honorable John Joseph Hearne, S.C., of Waterford, who

received his secondary education from the Christian brothers at Waterpark

College, was appointed assistant Attorney General of the Irish Free State

(Saorstat) in 1925, and took his seat in the Assembly of the League of

Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in 1926. He took part in the composition of

the Constitution of the Republic of Eire from 1935 to 1937 as legal adviser

to the Irish Department of External Affairs under President de Valera. Of

this he said that it included what he called "the most comprehensive code of

Christian democratic principles ever enacted in a national constitution." To

Mark Hatch of the Boston Post (March 19, 1950): "I shall always be proud,

sir, that I had some little part in the formation of that unique instrument."

In 1957, His Holiness Pius XII paid tribute to the Constitution, having

received de Valera on the occasion of the centenary celebrations for Luke

Wadding, O.F.M. He later became Ireland’s High Commissioner in Canada for

ten years, and became the first Irish Ambassador to the United States in

1950. He was married in 1930 to the former Monica Mary Martin, the daughter

of a sea captain. The Hearnes had four children: Maurice Isidore, John

Justin, David Anselm and Mary Elizabeth. Today, the most noteworthy of

the Ua hEchtigern sept in Ireland is Bertie Ahern (b. 1952), the former Lord

Mayor of Dublin (1986-1987), Minister of Labor, and Minister of Finance in

the government of Prime Minister Albert Reynolds, and recently himself

elected Taoiseach as leader of Fianna Fail (Party of Destiny), the Irish

political party which began with President Eamon de Valera and the Irish

patriots of 1916.

As we approach the beginning of the new millennium, several of the

Ua hEchtigern sept are of note. In Great Britain, Stephen

James Ahearne has been chief financial officer since 1990, and managing

director since 1992, of the British Petroleum Company. In the United States,

John Joseph O’Hearne, M.D. is a noted psychiatrist livng in St. Louis,

Missouri who coauthored a book on transactional analysis for management

professionals. Michael Patrick Hearn, "America’s foremost man of letters

specializing in children’s literature and its illustration", teaches at

Columbia University and has edited The Victorian Fairy Tale Book and an

edition of Frank L. Baum’s Wizard of Oz. Patrick O’Hearn is a well known

musician and recording artist. In the field of television journalism,

Catherine O’Hearn has been outstanding, most recently as executive producer

of ABC World News. James Francis O’Hearn of Fall River, Massachusetts is a

leading chemical company executive now residing in Taipei, Taiwan. There are

also several Roman Catholic priests in the U.S. with the surname of O’Hearn,

including a Jesuit father, James O’Hearn S.J., currently stationed at the

Provincial House near Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Thus it is evident that the Irish sept of Ua hEchtigern from which

the O’Hearns descend has included a great many noble individuals, confirming