Stone Mad: Family welcomes use of sculptor Seamus Murphy's memoir for Cork book celebration

Irish Examiner

21-04-2025

Evidence of the sculptor Seamus Murphy's industry can be found all over Cork. This year is the 50th anniversary of his passing, and it is only fitting that Cork City Libraries should have selected his memoir, Stone Mad, as the One City, One Book choice for 2025.
Stone Mad was first published in 1950, and opens with an account of Murphy's father delivering him to O'Connell's Art Marble Works on Watercourse Road on the day he began his apprenticeship as a stone carver. The book goes on to describe the 'stonies,' men such as the Gargoyle, Blueskull and Stun, with whom he would work for the next seven years.
From the beginning, Murphy was made to feel at home; he recalls how his new colleagues got up a 'national' when they learned he was not being paid as a first year apprentice, with each donating three pence each week to make up his wage.
'What Seamus describes was a brotherhood,' says his son, artist and musician Colm Murphy. 'They were the kind of people who had worked in stone yards for hundreds of years. The same men, it was just the names that were different.'
About 30 men – including stone cutters, stone carvers and labourers – worked in O'Connell's yard, while others, the 'tramp stonies' or journeymen, would sometimes turn up looking for temporary employment. One, Black Jack, was known for his prodigious feats of walking. Another, the Goban, carried only a few lettering tools and a mouth organ in his pockets, while 'the inside of his hat was his office,' Murphy wrote, in which he kept his letters, cut-outs from newspapers and his drawings of famous Irishmen.
Colm Murphy at home with a stone cutting by his father, Seamus Murphy. Picture: David Creedon
'They'd often find a bit of work for those men in the yard,' says Colm Murphy. 'And they'd have a whip round to help tide them over till their next job.'
Seamus Murphy was encouraged to attend night classes in Cork School of Art by his primary school teacher, the writer Daniel Corkery, and his interest in sculpture went beyond toiling for a wage in the stone yard. In his early twenties, his work was accepted for exhibit at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, and he won a Gibson Bequest Scholarship that allowed him to study at the Académie Colarossi in Paris from 1932-33.
'Seamus loved art, but he never saw it as being a step up from the craft of stone carving,' says Colm Murphy. 'After his year in Paris, he could have settled somewhere else, and he might have had a much easier life. But he was always committed to living in Cork.'
On his return, Murphy opened a studio in Blackpool, and set to work earning a crust as a sculptor. In 1944, he married Maigread Higgins, daughter of the sculptor Joseph Higgins, who was considered the equal of Auguste Rodin in his day. They lived on Wellesley Terrace and had three children; Bébhinn, Orla and Colm.
One of Murphy's most memorable projects was the Church of the Annunciation in Blackpool, which opened in 1945. His designs included the three altars, the baptismal and holy water fonts, the annunciation panel, the Sacred Heart and the Madonna, and the bell tower and bell.
Sculptor Seamus Murphy working on a bust of Thomas MacDonagh in 1966. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive
The work was commissioned privately by William Dwyer, proprietor of the Sunbeam Wolsey garment factory, but it was so widely admired that Murphy might reasonably have expected to secure similar commissions from the Church. John Charles McQuaid, the Catholic Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin, did indeed order one artwork, a bust of himself. 'But there was an incident,' says Colm Murphy, 'and McQuaid never paid him for the job.
'What's more, he got onto Cornelius Lucey, the bishop of Cork, and instructed him not to give Seamus any work. Lucey was building a 'rosary bead' of churches around the county at that time, but Seamus got no work out of it whatsoever. He depended on private commissions, and very often he simply made work himself, in the hope that people would buy it.'
Murphy wrote Stone Mad on spec as well. One of his many friends in Cork was Seán Hendrick, an accountant and champion of the arts, to whom the book is dedicated. 'Seán encouraged him to finish the manuscript, and helped with the proofreading and editing.'
Murphy was still in his early 40s when Stone Mad was accepted by Golden Eagle Books, who published the first edition in 1950, with illustrations by Fergus Ryan. Later editions featured illustrations by the Cork artist Willie Harrington, preserved in the new edition by Mercier Press.
Murphy never wrote another book, choosing instead to dedicate himself entirely to his artmaking. There were some spectacular commissions, such as the monumental sculptures of St Brigid and the Twelve Apostles for St Brigid Catholic Church at 1615 Broadway, San Francisco. He also carved headstones, and memorials such as the Gaol Cross Memorial at UCC, which lists those interned during the War of Independence.
Murphy's other works around Cork include his statue of St Finbarr on the roof of the Aula Maxima at UCC, The Onion Seller in Bishop Lucey Park, busts of Lord Mayors Terence MacSwiney and Tomás MacCurtain in the foyer of City Hall, and the Madraí water trough for dogs on Patrick St. Murphy was also instrumental in founding the Sculpture Park at Fitzgerald's Park, where his contributions include Dreamline and a bust of Michael Collins. Also featured is a sculpture, Boy with a Boat, by his father-in-law Joseph Higgins.
Seán Hendrick and sculptor Séamus Murphy on Patrick's St, Cork, in 1941. Picture: Courtesy of Colm Murphy
Murphy was elected a full member of the RHA in 1954, and appointed RHA Professor of Sculpture in 1964. In 1969, the National University of Ireland awarded him an Honorary LLD, and he was appointed to the Arts Council in 1973. For all these accolades, 'Seamus struggled financially his whole life,' says Colm Murphy. 'He struggled with his health as well. He had ulcers, and one time a stone fell on his foot, and he had three toes amputated. His balance wasn't great after that, it wasn't easy when he had to move big stones around the yard and so on.'
Murphy died in 1975, and is buried in Rathcooney. Colm Murphy still lives in the family home he grew up in on Wellesley Terrace, and is keenly protective of his father's legacy; along with his drawings, his drawing board, and a selection of his busts.
'I have the original handwritten drafts of Stone Mad. They're safe in a drawer,' says colm.
He expects there will be commemorations later this year to mark both the 50th anniversary of his father's passing and the 100th anniversary of his grandfather's; Joseph Higgins was just 39 when he died of tuberculosis in 1925.
Seamus Murphy, Stone Mad.
In the meantime, the new edition of Stone Mad, and its selection as Cork City Libraries' One City One Book promotion for 2025, will bring Murphy's memoir to a new generation of readers.
The world of the stonies is long gone, of course. At one point in Stone Mad, Murphy's colleagues discuss how concrete has replaced stone in the construction of Church of Christ the King at Turner's Cross Church, a development that marked the beginning of the end for men in their trade. By the last chapter, most have been laid off by a new boss.
'Stone cutting is finished,' declares Danny Melt, one of the book's most engaging characters. 'So long, I'll see ye at the labour exchange in the morning.'
'Seamus was one of the last apprentices to stone carving in Cork,' says Colm Murphy. 'He accepted the trade was dying out, and I don't think he was really sad about it. He believed that people with talent would always find something worthwhile to do.'
Cork City Library's One City One Book -
Stone Mad by Seamus Murphy - will be launched by Eiléan Ní Chuillaeanáín and Eoghan Daltun at Cork Public Museum at 2pm Saturday, April 26. Cork World Book Fest runs April 22-27. For details, see corkworldbookfest.com