Harrington, Edward (c.1852–1902), journalist and politician, was born in Castletownbere, Co. Cork, a son of Denis Harrington and Ellen O'Sullivan. In 1879, with his brother Timothy Charles Harrington (qv), he bought up the bankrupt Kerry Vindicator newspaper and founded the nationalist Kerry Sentinel. He immediately took a leading part in the Land War and was organiser for the Irish National League in Kerry. As editor of a nationalist newspaper from 1880 when his brother Timothy was elected to parliament, Edward had a number of brushes with the law. He was convicted in 1883 for posting unlawful notices, and in 1887 for publishing the proceedings of the proclaimed Tralee branch of the National League and sentenced to one month in prison. In 1888 he was again charged for publishing reports of meetings of the National League and for inciting people to take part in the Plan of Campaign, and was sentenced to serve six months with hard labour. When he was in prison, Timothy ran the newspaper. Edward Harrington was thought by Dublin Castle intelligence to be a member of the IRB and a man who ‘had come to Kerry penniless but now seems to have plenty of money and . . . spends it freely among his confrères in champagne', and they were sure that his newspaper encouraged lawbreaking. During the Special Commission hearing in 1888, the Kerry Sentinel was cited as the main means by which the Land League enforced its rule. Harrington, it was claimed, would sit in Tralee county court and intimidate small farmers who appealed against their rents.
Harrington was elected to parliament as MP for West Kerry in 1885. After the split in the Irish parliamentary party in 1890, he remained loyal to Charles Stewart Parnell (qv), a loyalty which led to the loss of his seat in 1892. He died 29 May 1902 in Tralee, Co. Kerry, and was buried there in the new cemetery. His wife had predeceased him by two years.