John A. Murphy

Murphy was born in Macroom, County Cork,{{cite web|url=http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/this-much-i-know-john-a-murphy-183249.html|title=This Much I Know]|work=Irish Examiner|date=11 February 2012|access-date=5 November 2016}} and has said he was very bookish as a boy. He won a Cork County Council scholarship in 1945 to study history at UCC, and graduated in 1948 with a first-class honours degree and first place in both History and Latin. He was a founding member of UCC History Society (UCC Historical Society, as it was then) in his final year of university.{{Cite web |last=Doherty |first=Gabriel |date=20 March 2022 |title=John A Murphy: One of Ireland's foremost public intellectuals |url=https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40831934.html |url-status=live |access-date=1 January 2025 |website=The Irish Examiner}} He took an MA in Cork before taking up a teaching post at the diocesan seminary at Farranferris in Cork city.

After eleven years in Farranferris (1949–1960), he became an assistant lecturer at UCC. He was appointed Professor of Irish History in 1971, holding that chair until his retirement in 1990. His 1975 book Ireland in the Twentieth Century was one of the first surveys of contemporary Irish history.{{cite web|url=http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/John-A-Murphy-p/9781859183922.htm|title=Essays in Honour of John A Murphy|work=Cork University Press|access-date=6 November 2016|archive-date=7 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161107011536/http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/John-A-Murphy-p/9781859183922.htm|url-status=dead}}

From 1977 to 1982, and between 1987 and 1993, Murphy represented the National University constituency as an independent member of Seanad Éireann.{{Cite web |url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/John-A-Murphy.S.1980-04-16/|title=John A. Murphy |work=Oireachtas Members Database |access-date=3 February 2008}}{{cite web|url=http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/John-A-Murphy-p/9781859183922.htm|title=History and the Public Sphere: Essays in Honour of John A Murphy|work=Cork University Press|date=2005|access-date=6 November 2016|archive-date=7 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161107011536/http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/John-A-Murphy-p/9781859183922.htm|url-status=dead}} As a senator, he was noted for his advocacy of political and cultural pluralism. Earlier he had been a supporter of Noël Browne's Mother and Child Scheme. Murphy, a socialist often linked to the Worker's Party and the Labour Party,{{cite news |last= |first= |date=5 March 2022 |title=John A Murphy obituary: Eminent historian and thorn in side of republicans |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/john-a-murphy-obituary-eminent-historian-and-thorn-in-side-of-republicans-1.4817648 |work=Irish Times |location= |access-date=19 April 2022}} was also noted as a sharp critic of Sinn Féin and the Provisional Irish Republican Army, to the point that Murphy was often cited as an "Anti-Republican".{{cite news |last=Doherty |first=Gabriel |date=20 March 2022 |title=John A Murphy: One of Ireland's foremost public intellectuals |url=https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40831934.html |work=Irish Examiner |location=Cork City |access-date=19 April 2022}} Originally advocating for Irish reunification in the 1960s, and protesting the introduction of internment of Republican prisoners in 1971 as well as the Emergency Powers Act of 1976, by the 1980s Murphy's position had switched to the view that "the national question" around Northern Ireland was little more than a border dispute. Murphy dismissed the Provisional IRA as nothing more than "armed Hiberianism" as well as "unworthy" of the term "Republicans", and aroused fury amongst the provisional movement when he publicly criticised the 1981 Irish hunger strike. In 1982, Murphy delivered a speech at Béal na mBláth to mark the 60th anniversary of Michael Collins’ death, and declared Irish reunification "was not worth the shedding of a single drop of blood".{{cite news |last=John |first=Dolan |date=5 March 2022 |title=A tribute to John A: A truly great Corkman |url=https://www.echolive.ie/corkviews/arid-40820862.html |work= |location= |access-date=19 April 2022}} In the 1990s Murphy condemned John Hume, for being willing to make overtures to Gerry Adams in seeking to end the Troubles peacefully.

An atheist and a secularist, Murphy criticised the role of the Catholic Church's clergy in Irish politics, and opposed their influence on the 1979 Family Planning Act (relating to the sale of contraceptives in Ireland) and the 1986 Divorce referendum. Despite his earlier progressive tendencies, on 13 May 2015, in the run up to the Irish marriage equality referendum, he wrote to The Irish Times, describing the proposed constitutional amendment to permit same-sex marriage as "grotesque nonsense".{{cite news|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/marriage-referendum-1.2209712|newspaper=The Irish Times|title=Marriage referendum|date=13 May 2015}}

Murphy died in Cork on 28 February 2022, at the age of 95.{{cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/historian-and-former-senator-john-a-murphy-dies-aged-95-1.4814516|title=Historian and former senator John A Murphy dies aged 95|newspaper=The Irish Times |date=28 February 2022}} His father Thade was a Gaelic footballer, who represented the Cork county team.

• {{cite book |last1=Murphy |first1=John A. |title=Justin MacCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, Commander of the First Irish Brigade in France |date=1959 |publisher=Cork University Press |location=Cork |isbn=0-7171-0568-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hDVIAAAAMAAJ}}
• {{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=John A. |title=Ireland in the Twentieth Century |year=1975 |publisher=Gill and Macmillan |location=Dublin |isbn=0-7171-0568-7 }}
• Murphy, John A.; O'Carroll, J. P. (eds), De Valera and his times, Cork University Press, 1983. {{ISBN|0-7171-0568-7}}
• {{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=John A. |title=The College : A history of Queen's/University College Cork, 1845-1995 |year=1995 |publisher=Cork University Press |location=Cork |isbn=1-85918-056-6 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=John A. |title=Cuimhne dhá laoch : MacCurtain and MacSwiney |year=1995 |publisher=Cork Public Museum, 1995 |location=Cork |isbn=978-1-898168-13-3}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite web |url=http://www.ucc.ie/en/mandc/news/newsarchive/2006PressReleases/Headline,12152,en.html |title=John A. Murphy is Cork Person of Year |date=30 January 2006 |publisher=University College Cork |access-date=3 February 2008 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• {{Cite web |url=http://www.ucc.ie/en/mandc/news/newsarchive/2006PressReleases/Headline,12152,en.html |author=Seán Ó Coileáin |title=Introductory Address delivered on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Literature honoris causa on Professor John A. Murphy |date=11 May 2001 |publisher=University College Cork |access-date=3 February 2008 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

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Category:1927 births

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Category:People from Macroom

Category:Politicians from County Cork