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CHAPTER 3

A Pearse Family Project

What would you think if later on I were to take all these things and in a bigger house start a school of my own?1

Patrick Pearse

At the time of James Pearse’s death, the family were living at 5 George’s Villa, Sandymount. Over the next few years, they moved frequently, initially to 363 Sandymount Avenue and later to ‘Liosán’ Lisreaghan Terrace, Sandymount, and 39 Marlborough Road, Donnybrook. During this period, various relations lived with them, including their cousins, Mary Kate and John Kelly who were orphaned after the deaths of their parents, John and Catherine (Margaret Pearse’s sister). John junior’s untimely death at the age of sixteen years on 14 November 1902 from injuries sustained after he was knocked off his bicycle by a bread van shocked the family. His death, coupled with the loss of their father, James, their mother’s sister Catherine (d.1887), their maternal grandmother (d.1888) and grandfather (d.1894), and their beloved auntie Margaret (d.1892) deeply affected the Pearse family, in particular, Mary Brigid, who struggled to come to terms with the loss of anyone from her close-knit circle of family and friends. However, the strain of running the family business absorbed much of their time and energy and provided a temporary distraction from their grief.

James Pearse died intestate, leaving an estate valued at £1,470.17s.6d. Pearse and Sons was then a thriving business with premises at 27 Great Brunswick Street, and a number of properties on Townsend Street. After her husband’s death, Mrs Pearse helped in the running of the business, together with James Vincent and Willie. Patrick also worked at the family business in between periods training as a barrister at the King’s Inns. Patrick was called to the Bar in 1901 but, apart from representing the Gaelic League in a case against the Post Office in 1905 for its refusal to deliver post addressed in the Irish language, he did not pursue a legal career.