Community & Business
7 October, 2025
The Hoey family: a story of courage and hard work
“There is no future for you in Ireland and you should emigrate to begin a new future”. These were the courageous words of matriarch Jane Hoey in 1879 speaking to her five sons as they sat in stunned silence around the kitchen table.
This was a heartbreaking and selfless decision for a mother to make but reflected the economic difficulties in Ireland and the cruel fact that the small Hoey farm of twenty acres could not support the two families, totalling twenty people, who lived on and worked the farm.
The Irish mother’s instruction led to three of the boys emigrating to Canada, with one deciding to stay on the farm but twenty-one year old Thomas Hugh Hoey and his wife Jane made the brave decision to chance their luck in Australia.
Thomas and Jane had only married a few weeks beforehand and now they committed themselves to traveling half way around the world to a land not long out of being a convict settlement.
It was 1880 when the young couple said goodbye to family and friends as they boarded the sailing vessel “Windsor Castle” for the fifteen week voyage to Queensland.
They all knew it was unlikely they would ever see each other again.
A short time after landing in Queensland they found themselves on board a train that would take them to Hendon railway station near Allora.
Thomas Hoey, or ‘T.H.’ as he became known quickly, found work for Mr John Gilmore for two years then Mr Samuel Gordon.
T.H. and Jane had in the meantime started the Australian branch of the Hoey family with the birth of a sons David, John and a daughter Agnes followed by another son Thomas.
Queensland offered the Hoeys something they could never have achieved in Ireland and that was the opportunity to buy land.
After just a few years of saving money they selected 80 acres of virgin country at Forest Springs. 11 miles north-east of Allora.
This selection was not the last T.H. would acquire over the next few years.
The young Hoey brought the family horsemanship skills with him from Ireland and was soon a successful breeder of Clydesdale horses.
He won numerous competitions at the Toowoomba and Brisbane Shows and his stallion “Sir Bola” was Champion Clydesdale at the 1899 Brisbane Exhibition.
As they became firmly established in the Spring Creek district they well and truly established the Darling Downs branch of the Hoey family with fourteen children born by 1903.
Their youngest child, Kingsley, was the only one to have been born in a hospital such was the situation facing Jane Hoey and other women as pioneers on the Downs.
In 1898 a school was built on an adjoining block of land and in that first year six Hoeys were enrolled.
T.H. eventually acquired 900 acres of land of which 600 were under cultivation.
Interestingly when, in 1980, several Hoeys made a trip back to Northern Ireland to see how the family was progressing, two Hoey brothers were still living on the small 20 acre farm.
The opportunity to acquire land in Australia was in stark contrast to Northern Ireland where very often social class determined land ownership.
Robert Hoey
The news of the success Thomas and Jane were achieving on the Downs obviously filtered back to Ireland as other Hoeys soon followed.
Robert Hoey left Northern Ireland in 1909 and like many new emigrants, he worked the cane fields of Queensland but eventually settled on the Downs and married Ethel Telford in 1917.
The young couple worked on a share farm at Forest Springs for five years then bought a property at Saddle Top in 1922 and named it Echo Dell.
Members of the Hoey family were proving to be hard working and enterprising as Robert and Ethel bought another property, Glenbank.
The couple had nine children, Jean, George, Ethel, Bruce, Alex, Maurine, William, Ivy and Logan.
Their farming activities included growing maize, wheat, lucerne, and in later years sorghum and barley.
Many branches of the Hoey clan exist on the Darling Downs today and one pursuit that a number of the Hoeys have excelled in is with horses.
It seems the equine skills originally brought from Ireland by Thomas and other Hoeys has been passed down through the generations.
The Hoeys have played an important role on the Downs in polo, polocrosse, endurance riding and any other activity where horses are involved.
Of the newer generation, young Ben Hoey of Ramsay is one who appears to have inherited the horsemanship skills of his family.
Ben has established his own horse breaking business, Paramount Equine Services, and is always in demand, not just from Downs horse owners but from owners all over South East Queensland.
He has a passion for Endurance riding and learnt his riding skills from his father, Andrew and Grandfather, Neville.
Adele Saville (née Hoey)
One member of the Hoey clan who has given great service to the community is Adele Saville.
For over forty years Adele has been a constant worker for the Clifton Show Society, taking on the role of secretary in 1984.
Adele has been a constant in the Show Society as presidents and committee members have come and gone,
She remains as the ‘go to’ person for any Clifton Show issues.
Adele has also been involved with the Darling Downs Sub-Chamber of Agricultural Societies and is active in many other community activities.
Whether through their farming endeavours, equine pursuits or community service the Hoey clan has left its mark on the Darling Downs.
Matriarch of the Irish Hoeys, Jane Hoey could surely not have contemplated in 1879 the impact her son, Thomas and all the other Hoeys who followed him to the Darling Downs would ultimately have on their community.
It is a story of courage, determination and enterprise and not just the “luck of the Irish”.
The Courier would like to thank the Clifton Historical Society and Neville Hoey for their help writing this article.
Joy King’s book Spring Creek: A look at yesteryear on the Downs was also an invaluable resource.
Next week we follow the life of a young 19 years old German immigrant who
stepped from a ship at Moreton Bay in 1858, unable to speak English, and with no relatives or friends, but he had a strong work ethic and determination to realise his ambitions.
His story is similar to that of many Clifton families and is as inspiring as it is heroic.
