Former female mayor Vera Hewitt is part of the DNA of her home town of Clonmel

Sitting among the hundreds of beautiful tokens, photos and mementos in the porch of Vera Hewitt’s home in Glenconnor Cottages in Clonmel is a plaque commemorating the historic meeting of herself and Mary Robinson on 20 February 1992.

FEMALE MAYOR
That day, Vera became the first female mayor to meet a female president of Ireland in their hometown and she was to go on to meet the second female President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, on 28 May 1999. “Truly momentous occasions for me,” she said.

The plaque is not just any memento though. For one, it was never meant to be there in the first place. Initially, the plaque adorned a wall in the Town Hall, but one day “somebody noticed that there was a spelling mistake on it. It was supposed to say ‘Uachtaran na hEireann’ but instead was spelled ‘Uachtaran na hEirann’. It was missing an ‘e’, so the entire thing had to come down and be replaced by one with the right spelling. In the end, I got the old one and I have kept it here ever since,” Vera said.

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As well as being twice mayor of Clonmel, Vera was the co-owner of Hewitt’s Bakery, and co-founder of the Mental Health Association in Clonmel, establishing a well-renowned reputation and widely respected in the community.
Although Vera’s achievements have been considerable, her love for nature has endured, from the flora that grace the footpaths, porches, shops and parks of Clonmel, stemming back to when she was a child watching people going up and down the road from behind a small gate.

“The place where the Garden Centre on Glenconnor Road is now used to belong to a businessman named Harry Cleeve who was married to an American lady called Olive Penniman. I remember seeing Mrs Penniman riding in a horse and trap full of flowers. For me, who lived a very normal life, seeing these flowers was a huge part of my childhood,” Vera said.
Vera’s grandfather worked as a gardener for Colonel Sidney John Watson at Ballingarrane House, and this personal connection with nature made the memory of Mrs Penniman’s trap full of flowers even more special.

LOVE OF NATURE
Recalling other memories of her childhood, Vera said that her “grandfather used to bring home slips of flowers, so my family always grew lots of beautiful blooms every year along with vegetables such as Brussel sprouts. Of course, this kind of vegetable wasn’t very liked or even well-known by that stage but eventually, it started becoming popular.”
“Everything we ate was organic, and everyone was much healthier. I particularly remember the market days or fair days we had every first Wednesday of each month on O’Connell Street and the produce that was sold during these days. Everything was fresh and local. Nowadays, that is not so much the case,” Vera said.
Vera became a registered mental health nurse at St Luke’s Hospital Clonmel on her 21st birthday on 15 September 1959. Less than a year later, she had to give up her work in nursing when she married her husband Billy Hewitt on 7 September 1960 due to the marriage bar in Ireland at the time. Vera and Billy went on to have five children together: Fiona, Desmond, Sarah-Jane, Conor and Emmet.

MENTAL HEALTH
Her connection with mental health didn’t stop there though. More than 30 years later, Vera was one of the co-founders of The South Tipperary Mental Health Association in 1992, helping to support people with mental health issues and to promote a positive attitude toward mental health.
In 1966, Vera and Billy opened up Hewitt’s Bakery on Mitchell Street turning their love for high-quality bread and pastries into a thriving bakery with loyal customers, many of whom still visit today. In the late 1990s, they expanded their shop to a nearby vacant space and saw an opportunity to create a cosy, kitchen-style coffee shop.

THRIVING BAKERY
“I always wanted to be my own boss but being a nurse prevented that from happening because we were always under the charge of someone else. Therefore, without the marriage bar, I would have continued nursing, and the bakery would never have opened. That, and the fact that my husband was a confectioner at Mulcahy’s on O’Connell Street (now O’Gorman’s, which has since closed), made this the perfect business opportunity,” she said.

Vera recalls how she and her husband “had a painter called Mossy Keating, who was brilliant. Every May, he would come and repaint the shop front in the colours of blue and white. Back then, there was a tradition where you wouldn’t paint during the month of May because it was Our Lady’s month. But I always painted in May, in the colours of St Mary, because I thought that it was always a lucky month.”

“We loved Mossy because he had been with us since he was an apprentice. After his father retired, Mossy took over and remained our painter for over 40 years,” she said.
While she was at the bakery, she never did the baking itself, only the talking, something that she feels helped her in her political career. She was a people person and always wanted to have a chat.
She was twice the President of the Chamber of Commerce in Clonmel. The annual Chambers of Commerce Conference brought together business leaders, entrepreneurs, and influential figures to engage in discussions about important economic topics and connect with others. She recalls how it was brought from Dublin to Ennis, then to Clonmel for the first time in 1986.

During a meeting with the President of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce in 1984, the President asked if she could support Ennis's bid to host the conference in their town.
In return, they would support Clonmel's bid to host the conference the following year. This “partnership” was a resounding success, she said.

“The fact that Clonmel held this conference for the first time was monumental and incredible for the town. We got the backing of companies such as Schiessers and Merck Sharp & Dohme, and the entire event was just great,” she said.
“As a result of this conference, chambers of commerce across the country became stronger because they could now have the autonomy to hold their own conferences instead of trekking up to Dublin. We could make our own decisions rather than relying on another city to do it for us,” Vera said.

TIDY TOWNS
She was also one of the founding members of the Clonmel Tidy Towns Committee when it was set up in 1985. As the Vice Chairperson of Tidy Towns, Vera was very active in promoting projects like the Shop Front Competition and the Tidy Towns Areas Competition, which helped considerably with the Tidy Towns efforts.

In 1991, Vera became the third female mayor of Clonmel, following Patricia Keeley in 1976 and Carrie Acheson in 1980. She served two terms: the first from 1991 to 1992 and the second from 1998 to 1999.
Recalling the visits of the two Presidents to Clonmel, Vera said that both occasions were very big and extremely exciting for both her and the town.

MARY ROBINSON
President Mary Robinson opened St Oliver’s National School in 1992, while President Mary McAleese opened Mulcahy Park on Davis Road in 1999. Vera described Mary Robinson as outgoing, down-to-earth and very friendly while she said that Mary McAleese was “ladylike and attentive”. Two quite different people, but two hugely significant moments in her career and for Clonmel, Vera said.

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RETIREMENT
In 2010, Vera retired due to health issues after a career spanning 44 years.
Just as flowers sprout up and grow in all kinds of environments, Vera has embedded herself into the very DNA of Clonmel.
From setting up a bakery, to being the mayor twice, to co-founding a mental health association, Vera’s contributions to the town have blossomed throughout her life.

TREASURE TROVE
Over the hills on the horizon, she can just about spot the field that her grandfather once worked in at Ballingarrane House. A warm reminder of her childhood.
Her home, a treasure trove of memorabilia and artifacts, among them that historic plaque - is a testament to her remarkable impact on Clonmel.