John Hearne: Architect of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland

Description

John Hearne: Architect of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland is the first-ever biography of the ‘architect in chief and draftsman’ of the constitution. In the six-year period that it took to draft the constitution, John Hearne was involved at every stage alongside Éamon de Valera; his attitudes and concerns – especially with the protection of human rights in a period which saw the rise of dictatorships throughout Europe – governed the make-up of the fundamental law. This law still stands today and reverberates through every call for referendum or repeal.

John Hearne is the biography of a man, later Irish Ambassador to Canada and the United States, who masterminded Irish policy, nationally and internationally, for decades; his essential role in the making of the constitution will result in a greater understanding and re-evaluation of one of its most defining and controversial documents.

Table of Contents

1. Family, Education and Politics, 1893-1921
2. In the Service of the Free State, 1922-1932
3. Serving de Valera, 1932-1936
4. Towards a New Constitution, 1932-1936
5. Drafting the New Constitution, August 1936 – July 1937
6. Shaping the Constitution
7. The Constitution of Ireland, 1937: Contemporary Reaction
8. Assessment of the Constitution
9. John J. Hearne: Constitution-Maker and Civil Servant

About the Author

Eugene Broderick is a modern history adviser and a volunteer assistant to the Waterford Museum of Treasures. He has contributed to various journals and is the author of The Ideological Hijacking of Fine Gael 1932–1938 (2010), The Boycott at Fethard-on-Sea 1957: A Study in Catholic-Protestant Relations in Modern Ireland (2011), and Patterns and Patrons: The Holy Wells of Waterford (2016).