Thomas Charles Beirne was born in Ballymacurly, Ireland in 1860. After completing his schooling in 1880 he was employed as a draper with the Gallagher Brothers until he was persuaded by a friend to migrate to Australia. So, in 1884 Beirne set off for Melbourne, Australia on the ‘Lusitania’, where he was promptly employed by draper Eyre and Sheppard. In 1886 T. C. Beirne took up a partnership with a Mr Piggot in Brisbane, coming together to form a drapery store in Stanley Street. However after a fire ripped through the store in 1889 the partnership was dissolved and Beirne went on to bigger and better things.
After establishing a small store in Fortitude Valley, Beirne was once again offered the opportunity to join in a partnership this time with a Scottish gentleman by the name of James McWirther. Together they operated a business in the Valley, a major shopping precinct in the 1890s. After three years however, James McWirther decided to open a rival store prompting serious competition for Beirne, who at this point in time had just opened his first small T. C. Beirne’s store in the town of Ipswich.
In the early 1900s Ipswich was home to several large apartment stores including a now bigger and better Beirne’s store which was upsized and rebuilt in 1902 on the corner of Nicholas and Union Streets. T.C. Beirne’s department store in Ipswich sold a number of everyday items including: men’s, women’s and children’s hats, shoes, shirts, trousers and skirts as well as crockery, cooking pots and pans, books, manchester, suitcases and much more. Over time the department store became a family business after Beirne’s brother Mick set up a store in Mackay. However a cyclone destroyed the windows of the store in 1918, forcing Mick’s family to move to Ipswich where he and his four sons were able to take charge of the stores in Ipswich, renaming the business in 1919 – “Beirne’s Limited of Ipswich and Mackay – the house of the People”
T.C. Beirne building and staff – Image courtesy of Picture Ipswich
Information taken from “Ipswich in the 20th Century” by Robyn Buchanan and “Beirne, Thomas Charles” by the Australian Dictionary of Biography (online).