Retired Chicago art teacher spends his Saturdays painting Celtic murals at North Side center

Edward Cox’s intricate designs featuring traditional Celtic symbols on murals at the Irish American Heritage Center. | Mary Norkol / Sun-Times

Ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, many Irish Americans will be listening to bagpipes, drinking green beer and bursting with cultural pride.

Edward Cox, 85, celebrates that culture weekly. For more than 30 years, he has spent hours every Saturday painting traditional murals at Chicago’s Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox Ave.

Cox draws inspiration for the murals from the traditional Book of Kells, which contains the four Gospels in Latin and traditional artwork created around the ninth century.

Edward Cox’s murals decorate the interior of the Irish American Heritage Center in Mayfair.

It’s disputed where the book was originally created — Scotland, Britain and Ireland all are possibilities. But it’s now kept at Trinity College in Dublin.

The book includes full “decoration pages” that feature Celtic designs. Cox takes inspiration from them and incorporates many of those elements in his art.

Edward Cox spends each Saturday at the Irish American Heritage Center painting murals.

Edward Cox started painting murals at the Irish American Heritage Center more than 30 years ago.

Dozens of murals decorate the center. Some feature parts of traditional Celtic designs. Others represent the four provinces of Ireland.

Some fit neatly in corners. Others span entire walls.

A mural in the library at the Irish American Heritage Center touts the importance of books.

Cox doesn’t do it all alone. He took his granddaughter Maura Lally under his wing when she was just starting elementary school. Now 20 and a junior at Northwestern University, she still helps out when she can.

“Since before I could remember, my family has been hanging out here,” Lally, who’s studying physics, says of the center.

Edward Cox and his granddaughter Maura Lally work on a mural that takes symbols from the traditional Book of Kells.

Celtic designs from the Book of Kells are represented in Edward Cox’s murals at the Irish American Heritage Center.

Following a visit from former Ireland President Mary Robinson, the center was dubbed the country’s “fifth province,” Cox says. One piece of art represents all four provinces — Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster — and the symbolic “fifth province,” representing Chicago and the rest of the world.

Cox, a retired art teacher who was born in the United States, says he wasn’t particularly connected to his Irish roots until his daughter took up Irish dance in the 1980s.

The Irish American Heritage Center hostsl lectures, classes and other events.

That’s when he found the center, which was undergoing renovations. He offered his artistic talents, and began working on the murals.

The Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox Ave.

“And when I finished one, I just started another one without telling them,” he says.

He hasn’t stopped in more than 30 years.

Cox says he starts with a design combining elements from the Book of Kells and works his way into the center of the piece.

Cox’s murals also have been copied onto coasters and other knickknacks sold at the center’s gift shop.

Edward Cox and his granddaughter Maura Lally sit beneath one of their murals in the children’s library at the Irish American Heritage Center.

Click on the map below for a selection of Chicago-area murals