OUR MURPHYS

 

Essay By Robert Harold Murphy

 

 

Murphy is the most numerous of Irish names, both in Ireland and around the world. Tradition holds that the name means SEA WARRIOR or FROM THE SEA, and that the first Murphy arrived from the sea (probably from Scandinavia) between the 5th and 8th centuries. However like many Gaelic beliefs proof is lacking.

 

Several unrelated families share the relatively modern name of Murphy. Earlier versions include O Morchoe, Murchada and MacMurchadha. There are those who still hold a grudge against Diarmait MacMurchadha[1] the king of Leinster who in the 12th century invited the Anglo-Normans into Ireland.

 

Our Murphys are thought to have lived in Ulster as early as the 9th century and were probably first called Murchadha. One report says these Murphys were a branch of the early O’Neills. They are associated with Muintir Birn (now Minterburn) in today’s parish of Aghaloo in Tyrone. Aghaloo adjoins County Armagh and is only a few miles from Dungannon. Later they were driven out by the O’Neills and settled in southern Armagh.  

 

All Murphys were of course Gaelic speaking and Catholic until the 16th century. A very few subsequently became Protestants, most notably in the early 18th century.  

 

Ancestor research is particularly difficult in Ireland as a result of the burning of the central records building in Dublin in 1922. Many records of marriages and births perished along with most census data.

 

The first known member of our branch of the Murphys, John (1), born in Ireland in the early 1800s, married Anne Storey in (probably) Portadown in 1843. The Storeys, originally an English family of Norse extraction, were Protestant. The religion of John (1) before marriage is open to conjecture. The marriage itself may have been Church of Ireland or Methodist. Efforts to trace the parents of John and Anne have to date been unsuccessful: a further effort is clearly indicated. The couple had four daughters and two sons, all baptised and raised as Methodists.

 

Located one mile northeast of Dungannon's market square, the family farm was unusual in that it and the small townland in which it was located had identical boundaries. Thus the name of the house, the farm and the townland were all Drumharrif (sometimes Drumherrif). Its location: the civil parish of Drumglass, County Tyrone, in what is today Northern Ireland. John and Anne are believed to have taken over the farm from a Reverend David Bennett during the 1840s. The Murphys kept cows and horses. The farmhouse was a two-storey, stone building. Other farm buildings, a milk house and barn, were also of stone. The original house, modified, and the original barn were still standing and in use in 1996.

 

John died in (apparently) 1857. As her children were still young, his wife managed the family farm herself until the boys grew up. An entry in the Griffith Valuation of 1858 shows Anna Murphy leasing 33 acres “in chancery” from a Robert Smith. She in turn sublet two acres to a James O’Neil.

 

The eldest son, William, who was presumably meant to run the farm, immigrated to the United States as a young man where he achieved success as a mining promoter/mine operator. Son John (2) accordingly gave up his planned career as a draper to manage the farm, which he did until 1911, at which time he followed his son Robert Thompson Murphy to Canada. Two of the four girls emigrated to the USA, the remaining two married in Ireland; however as their descendants eventually moved to England, there are today none of our Murphys still living in Ireland. The widowed grandmother, Anne, lived until about 1893. 

           

John (2) Murphy married Anne Thompson in 1883. Of her six children, three died while young. Anne herself died at the age of 33 in 1898, as the result of a lingering knee infection, an ailment readily cured nowadays with antibiotics. The 1901 census -- one that survived destruction -- records John Murphy, daughter Edith, sons Robert T and Gerald, and a servant Bridgit Sloan, aged 26, living on the farm at that time. The census calls the three children "scholars" and says that they could "read and write." The three children would have attended a local primary school. A report by Heritage World indicates that both Robert T and Gerald subsequently attended the prestigious Royal School, Dungannnon for some five years each.[2] No record was found of any other member of the family attending this school. Edith is thought to have attended an equivalent secondary school for girls but its name and location are unknown.

 

Robert Thompson Murphy (who was sometimes called RT but more usually Bert) lost both his twin brother and his mother as a boy. His mother's sister Emily helped Bert's father raise the remaining children. Bert wrote and passed university entrance exams in Dublin, however the family found the cost of university prohibitive. Accordingly in 1909, aged 19, Bert followed his uncles and aunts who had already moved to North America. He sailed on the SS Champlain to Montreal, where he stayed briefly with cousins (the Venables) and bought a pistol to protect himself against the Indians. Bert crossed Canada to see a friend, found work as an electrician and settled in Victoria. Bert's letters prompted John Murphy to abandon the farm in Ireland and also move (1911) with his remaining children, Edith and Gerald, to Victoria. They settled on Robertson Street not far from the sea[3]. John, a Methodist lay preacher, would be active in the church in Victoria, and in the 1920's be a founder of Fairfield United Church.

           

Robert Thompson Murphy served as a mechanic in the Flying Corps during the First World War. He was a 50-year member of the Victoria Rotary Club, a member of the Britannia Lodge AF & AM No7, and member of Fairfield United (where he was a long-time treasurer) and, later, Oak Bay United Churches. Ironically, in his later years he accepted the lead of his children who had already abandoned organized religion.

 

His business took much of his energy and time, yet many times he and his wife took their children camping and particularly fishing. He enjoyed gardening, occasional golf and, two or three times a year, shooting wild pheasant and grouse on Vancouver Island.

 

Bert and his brother Gerald founded the Murphy Electric Company in Victoria prior to the First World War. The company ceased to operate while both served in the air force, but reopened in 1919. The company prospered in the 1920s, came close to foundering during the Great Depression, flourished again during World War Two and for some years thereafter, and then, as its proprietors aged, gradually declined. At peak it comprised a busy retail store located at different times on Cook, Yates, View, and Fort Streets which specialized for many years in quality electric light fixtures and decorative table lamps, and an electrical contracting business employing as many as 20 electricians. While students, the Murphy sons worked at the store in their spare time. Two who apprenticed as electricians at the Murphy Electric moved on eventually to other companies and broader careers. When his brother Gerald died, Bert continued the business alone, winding up his company's remaining affairs in the 1960s. In retirement he could take pride in having contributed to the construction and/or renovation of most of Victoria's major buildings.

 

Robert Thompson Murphy married Norma Merriel Jackson in Victoria in 1925. They raised five sons, two of whom now live in the USA, and one daughter and are remembered today by some 36 Canadian and American descendants.

 

Bert Murphy's remains are interred along with those of his father John, brother Gerald, and sister Edith in Victoria's Royal Oak Cemetery.

 

 

Interestingly, because our Murphys have for generations preferred non-Irish spouses, those in the family who still bear the name Murphy are but for the name hardly Irish at all.

           

Sources: Papers and pictures of Robert Thompson Murphy; recollections of his children; papers from the investigation (1973/74) into the estate of Norah Venables conducted by Anthony T Kinghorn Limited (investigations and private enquiries) London, UK; census of Ireland 1901; letter of Marian Kelly, Belfast, 13 June 1996; reports (1996) from Heritage World, Dungannon, N. Ireland; Cindy Wood lookup in Griffith Valuation; visit to Counties Tyrone and Armagh,

Northern Ireland by Robert Harold and Gloria Catherine Murphy.

 


[1] King MacMurchada is thought to be an ancestor of Pilgrim George Morton who died in Plymouth Colony in 1624. Gloria Catherine (Dewar) Murphy and her Murphy offspring are in turn proven descendants of George Morton.

[2] Although no evidence remains, the author remembers his father receiving mail from The Royal School from time to time. A book given B Murphy by the school in 1902 as an award for mathematics is in the author’s library.

[3] The house number was probably 166, even though a letter of 1912 exists which gives the number as 67 or 69.