Jack Morrow

Who was Jack Morrow?

John Cassell Morrow was a political cartoonist, illustrator and landscape painter. He was the son of a painter and decorator from Clifton Street, west Belfast. Of his seven brothers, four, Albert, George, Edwin and Norman, were also cartoonists and illustrators.

His cartoons, shown through a magic lantern, were an early attraction at Bulmer Hobson's Dungannon Club in 1905, and he also contributed cartoons to Hobson's separatist magazine The Republic. His paintings appeared in many exhibitions, and were reproduced in the Irish Review. For a time he taught at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. He returned to political cartooning in 1917, but in 1919 was imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail for unauthorised possession of confidential government documents.

He was associated with The Craftworkers Ltd, a Dublin co-operative engaged in church decoration, and he and Albert Power designed the mosaic panels and the renovation of the altar and chancel walls at St. Catherine's Church. He died in Dublin.