Hibernian Hall is a heritage-listed community hall at 38–44 Hawthorne Street, Roma, Maranoa Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Cavanagh & Cavanagh and built from 1931 to 1932 by George Power Williams. It is also known as HACBS Hall. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 27 April 2001.
History
The Hibernian Hall in Roma is a large, timber-framed hall-cum-picture theatre erected in 1932 for the Roma branch of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society. It was designed by Perth and Brisbane architects Cavanagh & Cavanagh.
Roma was the principal town of the Mount Abundance district, which was developed as a pastoral and agricultural region following exploration by Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor General of New South Wales in 1846. The township of Roma was proclaimed in September 1862, one of the earliest towns established in Queensland after separation from New South Wales in 1859, and was surveyed in 1863. It was named after Lady Bowen (the Countess Diamantina Georgina di Roma), daughter of a Governor of the Ionian Islands, and wife of the first Governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. The town of Roma was declared a municipality in 1867 and grew slowly as a pastoral service centre and government administrative centre until the opening of the Western railway line in the 1880s, connecting the Maranoa to the coastal ports, after which the town flourished. In addition, the vast Great Artesian Basin was tapped in the late 1880s and early 1890s, securing an alternative water supply for cattle and sheep.
With the expansion of Roma's population in the 1880s, a branch of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society was established in the town in April 1886. At its peak, the society attracted nearly 180 members. "Hibernian" is defined as of or belonging to Ireland, or Irish. From the 1860s Irish immigration to Queensland was encouraged by the Catholic Church in Queensland. Thousands of Catholic Irish working class emigrants were attracted to the colony, and although they settled widely, they tended to form enclaves within towns and districts, defined by their religion and their societies. Hibernian Associations flourished in late 19th/early 20th century Queensland, strongly supported by the Catholic Church, and attracted widespread Irish Catholic membership. They could be considered the voluntary social welfare extension of official Catholicism.
Benefit societies were popular in 19th century Australia, where self-help was the dominant philosophy and liberalism a principal ideology, and where colonial governments made little provision for public welfare benefits. Modelled on similar mutual benefit societies established in Britain, the Australian societies provided contributing members with access to financial assistance such as sickness benefits, life insurance, provision of funeral costs, and benefits to members' widows and families. Some societies lent money to their members to finance home construction. Benefit societies also operated as social clubs, organising events such as dances and sports days which played an important role in the social life of the community, particularly in country districts. Roma Hibernians organised sports days, campdrafts and rodeos until 1946.
The Roma HACBS acquired the site of the present hall late in 1899, and erected their first hall on this property in 1900. Later an open-air cinema was established beside the Hibernian Hall, on the south side, which was the venue for the first moving picture show exhibited at Roma.
This first hall was enlarged in the mid-1920s, to plans prepared by popular Perth and Brisbane architects Cavanagh & Cavanagh, who had designed a number of churches, convents, schools and presbyteries for the Catholic Church in Queensland. The extensions had been completed by May 1926, at which time the hall was described as a two-storeyed timber building with a gallery; it could seat 750, and could be used for a variety of public entertainments. This building was destroyed by fire on 22 July 1931, but almost immediately the HACBS commissioned Cavanagh & Cavanagh to prepare plans for a replacement hall-cum-picture theatre (the present building) by GP Williams. The architects called tenders in October–November 1931, with the contract let to Roma contractor GP Williams. The building was erected at a cost of , and was officially opened on 28 June 1932.