In 1893, at the age of twenty-four, he moved to Belfast, where he opened a music store, but the venture failed, and he became the organist of a small parish in the city, the Holy Family Church, Wellington Place. He entered an anthem, "O God of My Salvation" for contralto and chorus, for the 1897 Dublin Feis Ceoil and won; on this occasion he heard folk song arrangements of Charles Villiers Stanford and others for the first time. At the 1901 Feis Ceoil, he again won a prize, this time for a large cantata, "The Red Hand of Ulster". In 1914 Mary Reavy, Hardeback's wife died.