Tributes paid to Cork artist Willie Harrington following death at 84

Irish Examiner

16-07-2025

William 'Willie' Harrington, who has died aged 84, was a well-known character and artist around Cork city. Fiercely independent, he flirted briefly with teaching as a career, but chose instead to dedicate himself full time to his work as an artist.
Harrington was born in Coppinger's Lane off Shandon St in 1941. His father Jack, a baker, died of TB when Harrington was four, and he contracted the disease himself around the same time.
'The doctors were going to amputate his fingers,' his friend Patrick Dunne recalls. 'But his mother went down to the priests at St Francis's on Liberty St, and they wrote to Padre Pio to ask his advice. Padre Pio wrote back, saying she should take him out of hospital and care for him herself. Later in life, he said, Willie would make great use of his hands.'
Harrington's mother Ellen did as Padre Pio suggested, and his prophecy was proved to be correct. Harrington drew avidly throughout his childhood, and he went on to attend the Crawford Municipal School of Art on a scholarship from 1955.
Willie Harrington's illustration of Séamus Murphy appeared on the cover of the Cork sculptor's memoir, Stone Mad.
He continued his studies at the National College of Art in Dublin before returning to settle in Cork. He specialised in pen and ink drawings of the city's people and buildings, many of which feature as illustrations in Seán Beecher's Dictionary of Cork Slang, published in 1983.
Today, Harrington is remembered with great fondness by his fellow artist Billy Griffin. 'I knew Willie forever,' he says. 'I grew up on Blarney St, so we were neighbours. We both went to school at the North Mon, though he was years ahead of me there.
'I remember one time, when I was a young fellow, I was on my way down to the Crawford with a few pounds to sign on for an evening course in drawing. I bumped into Willie, and he persuaded me to go along to the Palace Bar to meet Séamus Murphy instead. We drank the few pounds, of course. Willie promised he'd teach me drawing, and he did teach me about the invisible line, I'll give him that. It's where you start a line but don't necessarily finish it; you let the viewer to fill it in in their imagination.'
Harrington famously illustrated Séamus Murphy's memoir of his life as a sculptor, Stone Mad. His lively drawings are preserved in the latest edition of the book, published by Mercier this year to coincide with its selection by Cork City Library for the One City One Book initiative as part of Cork World Book Fest.
Another image of Willie Harrington by his friend Patrick Dunne.
'Willie was a family friend,' says Murphy's son, Colm. 'My father taught him art, and my mother Máighréad helped set up the Cork Arts Society gallery on Lavit's Quay ,so people like Willie would have some place to exhibit their work. He even had a studio above the gallery for a while.
'One of the breweries, I think it was Murphy's, got Willie to design the signs above their bars. There's still a few of those around; the Vicarstown Inn on North Main St, and the Constellation Bar in Blackpool. The Constellation has a number of his drawings on the walls as well.'
The pubs of Cork, and those who frequented them, were undoubtedly the greatest inspiration for Harrington's drawings. He was, Griffin observes, the last of a bohemian circle that included the late Maurice Desmond and John Behan.
'Maurice, John, Willie and myself used drink in Kealy's Bar in Faulkner's Lane,' he says. 'We were the Four Musketeers; I was D'Artagnan, the youngest. But they're all gone now, and so is Kealy's.'
Harrington was predeceased by his partner Toni, and his brother George. Visitation open at O'Connor Bros. Funeral Home, North Gate Bridge on Thursday, July 17, from 5pm-6pm. Requiem Mass takes place on Friday, July 18, at 10am in the North Cathedral in Cork, with the funeral afterwards to St Joseph's Cemetery, Tory Top Road.