Vasyl Nahirnyi was born on 11 January 1848 in Hirne, now the Hrabovets-Duliby rural hromada of Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine.

[1] In 1871 he graduated from the Lviv Technical Academy, and in 1875 from the Fédérale Polytechnique de Lausanne.

Nahirnyi lived in Zurich, worked in design offices and government agencies in Switzerland.

[1][2] Father of architect Yevhen Nahirnyi,[1] great-grandfather of singer Kvitka Cisyk.

[1] The author of more than 200 churches (mostly brick), with forms of neo-Romantic and neo-Byzantine styles and techniques of folk wooden architecture.