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

The artist's autobiography is to be launched as the One City, One Book choice at Cork World Book Fest 

Cork sculptor Seamus Murphy in 1972. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

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.