Council asked to approve Harris portrait

LIMERICK City Council will today be asked to give the go-ahead for a portrait of the late Richard Harris to be hung in City Hall.

A notice of motion to have the portrait done has been tabled for a meeting of the council’s cultural and sporting committee.

The move was initiated by Councillor John Gilligan. The motion will then go before the full council.

Limerick City Council has been criticised for failing to nominate the actor as a Freeman of the City when he was alive.

The portrait will be painted by Tom Ryan, RHA, the country’s most eminent portrait artist who is a native of Limerick.

Cllr Gilligan said he was anxious the city should pay some tribute to Harris.

He said: “I would love to see a lifesize statue of him erected in the city and this portrait may be a start. We have waited far too long to do anything to honour Richard Harris.”

Cllr Gilligan said the city had missed an opportunity to honour the film star when he was alive.

“That was a great pity, as Richard Harris was a man who loved his native city and who came back regularly,” he said.

Cllr Gilligan said that even though Harris was an international star, he never lost the common touch.

“When Richard Harris came to Limerick he liked nothing better than to go to pubs such as Charlie St George’s in Parnell Street to have a pint with some of his old friends from Young Munster. Kilkee was another favourite spot as he holidayed there every summer as a child,” he said.

Although the city is now preparing to honour Richard Harris, Charlie St George’s has already erected its own shrine to the actor.

During his last visit to Limerick two years ago to do an interview with a US TV network, he spent many hours with the film crew in the pub.

Shortly after his death, his friend, actor Russell Crowe, travelled to Limerick just to have a pint in Harris’s favourite Limerick pub as his own special tribute.