In the late twenties and early thirties, Waterford was a hotbed of republican and working class agitation in which Edwards played a leading role. The Unemployed Association in the city was so strong that it succeeded in having two of its members, David Nash and Thomas Purdue, elected to the city council on the platform 'Bread, Blood and Work.' For the next few years the local scene was enlivened by numerous and often boisterous marches and meetings in City Hall and in the People's Park. An example of the type of rhetoric that was used can be gained from a speech made by councillor Purdue when he said, 'If we [the unemployed] are not going to get what we want, we will leave this city like the Temple of Jerusalem—we won't leave a stone upon a stone.’[3]

  The first recorded speech by Edwards was in 1932 and the context is indicative of the type of political action in which he was engaged at the time. On Sunday 4 September 1932, a public meeting of Cumann na nGaedheal, to which admission was by ticket only, was scheduled for the Large Room at City Hall. Mayor Matthew Cassin presided, the Marquis and Marchioness of Waterford were guests and Mr. Paddy McGilligan, ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce was the principal speaker. At the same time, a counter demonstration was staged on the Mall outside. The 'Soldier's Song' was sung with much enthusiasm by the gathering on the roadway, and as its strains came through one of the open windows of the Large Room, someone on the Cumann na nGaedheal platform left his place and closed the window. A number of the Mall protesters then tried to gain admittance to the Large Room. They got a little more than halfway up the stairs when they were charged by the Cumann na nGaedheal supporters and a general melee ensued. Two of the protesters were injured in the clash, Robert Walsh, Carrigeen Lane, a member of the St. Declan’s Pipe Band receiving a kick in the stomach (for which he was detained in the Infirmary) and Joseph Tobin a kick in the shins. At the close of the meeting a vote of thanks to the ex Minister was proposed by Mr. John Hearne, builder.[4] His name will come up again.

  On the following night, another demonstration, timed for eight o'clock, was held on the Mall, presided over by Edwards. However, the owner of the lorry that was to be used as a platform was visited at his home shortly before the meeting and threatened with dire consequences if he permitted his vehicle to be used for the purpose for which it was hired. The owner declined to proceed to the meeting venue and a second lorry had to be procured from Mr. T. Power, garage proprietor, the Quay. When this lorry arrived at the scene the meeting had already begun, with Edwards addressing the large attendance from a jarvey car. The Waterford News reported

  Edwards' speech is interesting for the various groups that he attacked—bosses, solicitors, rent collectors, landlords and the Ballybricken Redmondites. It is quite certain that he was a marked man after that speech—if he had not already been noted as an agitator and as one who was stirring up revolutionary ideas among the masses. Two of the people who were attacked by Edwards were the newly elected Mayor Cassin and John Hearne. The latter was the leader of the master builders federation in the city and was a prominent member of many of the city's Catholic organisations. He was, also, a personal friend of Archdeacon Byrne.

ARCHDEACON BYRNE
Archdeacon William Byrne was parish priest of Ballybricken and, therefore, the manager of Mount Sion schools where Edwards was a teacher. He was, in effect, Edwards' employer.[6] Intellectually, Byrne was a heavyweight. During the first World War, before his presidency of St. John's College, he was editor of The Catholic Record of the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore and under his editorship the circulation of the Record reached the figure of six thousand copies a month.[7] While he was president of St. John's College his sermons at the Cathedral drew large congregations from every parish in the city. He was particularly keen on education and educational facilities throughout the whole diocese and he was not regarded in Waterford as a parish priest in the strict parochial sense, rather was he looked on as one whose assistance could be relied on in any movement for the spiritual or temporal advancement of the citizens. He was regularly called upon to arbitrate in industrial disputes and, although he was thought of in some quarters as a friend of the employers, his arbitrations in such disputes were generally well received. He was ever on the alert for any infiltration of Waterford workers by socialists and communists and he regarded the latter as followers of Satan.[8] He congratulated the unemployed and the Worker's Council, in a public statement, for their stance against communism, saying

  Byrne, in his crusade against communist infiltration, found a ready ally in the new bishop, Canon Kinane, who was elevated to the diocese of Waterford and Lismore in May 1933.

BISHOP KINANE[10]
Dr. Jeremiah Kinane DD, DCL, was created Bishop of Waterford & Lismore on 29 June 1933. On his arrival in Waterford, he gave a free dinner at the courthouse to five hundred poor men of the city. At his official reception in the council chamber at City Hall and in response to addresses of welcome from the Corporation, the Harbour Commissioners, the Waterford Workers Council, the De La Salle Brothers, the Waterford Branch of INTO etc., the bishop said (rather ominously for future relations with Edwards and his friends

  Bishop Kinane in his first address in the Cathedral since his consecration as bishop articulated the communist threat as being one of the major difficulties, as he perceived it, of his coming tenure as bishop.

  Warnings about the dangers of communism and irreligion were not confined to priests. At the blessing of the colours of the Mount Sion and De La Salle scouts by Archdeacon Byrne, Mayor Cassin spoke of 'the great danger to their faith, their manhood, their womanhood and their nationality ... Irreligion and materialism were sweeping all over the world.'[13]