THE MELODY MAKER
DAVIDMEDCALF PAID A CALL TO INSTRUMENT MAKER KEVIN HARRINGTON WHO NOT ONLY MAKES AND MENDS DOUBLE BASSES IN ROUNDWOOD BUT HAS ALSO DEVISED A NEW LINE IN HARPS MADE FROM LOCAL TIMBERS
‘I’ M from Cork!’ As though anyone needed to be told. The lilting accent remains more or less as it was when the 37-year-old Kevin Harrington first left Bishopstown in his native city.
Now thoroughly at home in Roundwood, with his wife and two young children, the suspicion lingers that he might like to return some time to the banks of his own lovely Lee.
Not that he shows much enthusiasm in his description of the place where he grew up. The Bishopstown of his youth he remembers as a boring suburb with a large population who had not a lot to get excited about.
He proudly displays a brass plate at the door of his workshop in Roundwood which declares ‘Kevin Herrington - Instrument Maker’ but he might just as easily have settled down as an engineer. Inside, his work space, tucked beside a little lane off the village’s main street is surprisingly bright and airy, with plenty of work in progress.
A couple of hefty, venerable double basses lie around in varying states of repair, making the harps which are his latest project appear tiny by comparison.
When any visitor arrives, he is quick to put on the kettle, pleading caffeine dependency, though this craftsman is far from being the typical strung out coffee addict.
He comes across as a laid back man, happy to have found his niche in life, with a healthy interest in the world beyond the four walls where he creates his stringed masterpieces.
Kevin Harrington grew up playing hurling with his local club as a young boy, though he veered away from Gaelic games into basketball and martial arts as a teenager, earning a black belt in tae kwon do.
And as well as attending to his schooling, he started playing guitar, embarking on a career as a part-time performer which began with adolescent garage bands.
Pressed to recall the names of these outfits, he reveals that one the first was called Bugg in which he took centre stage as lead guitar – ‘ but not a very good one’, he stresses.
A more enduring ensemble was Oswego who performed their accessible rock repertoire – ‘no death metal’ – in various pubs around Cork.
By the time he was recruited, Kevin had moved from six-string to bass but Oswego already had a bass player. The man in possession simply moved to take a seat at the drum kit, calling instructions to his replacement to help him pick up the chords.
The music provided a distraction, a pastime, a passion away from the academic pursuit of a degree. Encouraged by his parents to go to college, he was drawn naturally to the course in civil engineering at UCC.
His late grandfather, who hailed from Donegal, had enlisted in the naval service but missed out on the opportunity to study.
The old man ensured that his daughter – Kevin’s mother – did not follow suit and it was in order to attend college that she settled in Cork.
The future instrument maker proved good in school, not only at mathematics, but also at any subject that involved making things.
Parents and teachers combined to guide him towards engineering, a consensus which Kevin had no problem with.
‘I loved college – I played a lot of music.’ Most of his university friends were pursuing arts degrees and enjoyed a flexible lifestyle.
In contrast, he had to find time for the band around the dictates of six or seven hours daily in the lecture halls.
The double act of music and study was extended as he took a master’s degree, researching the practicalities of generating electricity from wave power.
Equipped with his freshly minted qualification, he took his heard earned skill not so much under water as under ground.
With a building boom in full Celtic Tiger swing, the construction industry not only needed to build houses but also to fit out the estates popping up all over the country with essential pipework. Kevin went into sewers and he reckons that the residents of Castle Rock in Midleton, to name but one among scores of developments, should be grateful every time they flush their loos.
‘Three and a half years of sewerage and that was enough for me,’ he looks back at his imminent change of tack as the Tiger skidded to an abrupt halt. ‘It was 2008 and I remember thinking that the writing was on the wall.’
In his parallel existence as a musician, he had fallen in love with the biggest instrument of the lot – the double bass, taking classical lessons from David Whitla.
A great teacher fostered playing skills, of course, but David also encouraged his charge to take an interest in how the bass is made.
It was time for Kevin to leave Oswego, to leave the sewers and – most dramatic of all – leave Cork, in favour of a violin making course at the Metropolitan University in London.
His girlfriend Gemma – now his wife – continued in engineering as the couple moved to the UK where he attended classes at university’s Whitechapel campus close to The City. And there was a new band to play in, the Leesider teaming up with two Irish lads, both called Conor, to play club gigs around London and record an EP featuring five of their Americana songs.
The course at the Metropolitan, along with extra tuition at Newark near Nottingham, confirmed that the Irishman had a talent for making and minding precious stringed instruments.
Professional string players invest thousands of euro/ pounds/dollars in the tools of their trade and they require professional back-up to maintain them.
As a bassist himself, Kevin found himself naturally drawn to the double bass and quickly built up a reputation in England as someone who could be trusted with the big ones.
But he hankered for home as children (the Harringtons now have two) started to arrive, so they swapped Kentish Town for County Wicklow, coming back to Ireland in a rented van. Four basses, a cello and a violin, all due for repair, were mixed in amidst all their household goods.
They spent a while in rented accommodation in the hills above Glencree before finally settling in Roundwood, where he worked at first in a room at the front of their new home before the current premises became available.
The building where he has been based for a year now used to be a photo studio and a kitchen design centre.
‘Productivity has sky-rocketed. I come in here and close the door. All I have to focus on is the work,’ says the latest tenant.
Now, surrounded by his saws and his planes and his chisels and his glues, with the all other paraphernalia of his trade, the man in the brown apron lavishes his skill on beautiful basses, maybe centuries old, though he is perfectly capable of making one from scratch.
According to approved tradition, the back, sides and neck are maple while the front is spruce and the finger board must be ebony.
‘I know my way around a bass. I need special tools and lots of them,’ he points out. Strangely, in this day and age, all the tools are not backed up by computer programmes, for his is one of the last refuges of the true craftsman.
Repairs and maintenance are the bread and butter of his trade but he makes no secret of his desire to devise Harrington originals, though the process is all too easily becalmed.
That piece in the corner is recognisably a double bass though a long way from completion – ‘I started making that four years ago,’ he confesses. However, he has discovered a sideline which allows him an original outlet for his craft. ‘I started making harps about a year ago and I have already made six or seven,’ he reveals.
Most of the harps which have come off his new production line may be heard at traditional Irish music sessions in the Wicklow/ Bray area.
The enterprise began over a pint shared with the head of Bray Comhaltas Ceoltoirí who takes a particular interest in the harp.
The chat inspired Kevin to head off to the United States and a six day crash course in harp manufacture, holed up with a mentor in Washington DC.
Harp making is less constricted by tradition than applies in the violin family, particularly when it comes to the choice of wood.
Since he discovered his latest vocation, he has become a regular caller to a sawmill in Bray where he keeps an eye out for suitable local hardwoods.
The chief material in the first harp was sycamore from Annamoe and he has also experimented with local ash.
He is very much at home in Roundwood: ‘There is a great sense of community here. People stop and chat in the Centra.’ Kevin Harrington confesses that part of him still pines for Cork, but County Wicklow still ticks a lot of boxes.
PRODUCTIVITY HAS SKY-ROCKETED. I COME IN HERE INOT THE WORKSHOP AND CLOSE THE DOOR. ALL I HAVE TO FOCUS ON IS THE WORK,