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Willy Martin Murphy | |
|---|---|
 Murphy,c. 1911 | |
| MP forDublin St Patrick's | |
| In office 1885–1892 | |
| Preceded by | New Office |
| Succeeded by | William Field |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1845-01-06)6 January 1845 Castletownbere,County Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 26 June 1919(1919-06-26) (aged 74) Dublin, Ireland |
| Party | Irish Parliamentary Party |
| Parents |
|
| Alma mater | Belvedere College |
| Occupation |
|
| Known for | Dublin Lockout of 1913 |
William Martin Murphy (6 January 1845 – 26 June 1919) was anIrish businessman, newspaper publisher and politician. A member of parliament (MP) representingDublin from 1885 to 1892, he was dubbed "WilliamMurder Murphy" among the Irish press and the striking members of theIrish Transport and General Workers' Union during theDublin Lockout of 1913. He was arguably both Ireland's first "press baron" and the leading promoter of tram development.
Murphy was born on 6 January 1845 inCastletownbere,County Cork, and educated atBelvedere College.[1] It is frequently incorrectly stated (including in the cited article) that he was an 'only child' when in fact he had two brothers who died young, and a sister Margaret Cullinane, who lived to be 93, and was buried with Murphy in Glasnevin.[2] When his father, the building contractor Denis William Murphy (1799–1863), died, he took over the family business. His enterprise and business acumen expanded the business, and he built churches, schools and bridges throughout Ireland, as well as railways and tramways in Britain, West Africa and South America.
He was elected asIrish Parliamentary Party MP forDublin St Patrick's at the1885 general election, taking his seat in theHouse of Commons of theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.[3] He was a member of the informal grouping, the "Bantry band" – a group of politicians who hailed from the Bantry Bay area. The Bantry Band was also disparagingly dubbed the "Pope's brass band". Its most famous member wasTimothy Healy MP and includedTimothy Harrington MP, sometime Lord Mayor of Dublin City – however, Harrington (unlike Murphy and, later, Healy) was a Parnellite in the 1890s. (Tim Harrington MP was not the same individual as TR Harrington, who edited the Irish Independent from 1905 to 1931, though they both came from the Bantry/Schull area in West Cork.)
When the Irish Parliamentary Party split in 1890 overCharles Stewart Parnell's leadership, Murphy sided with the majorityAnti-Parnellites. However, Dublin emerged as a Parnellite stronghold and in the bitter general election of 1892, Murphy lost his seat by over three to one to a Parnellite newcomer,William Field.
Murphy was the principal financial backer of the "Healyite" newspapers theNational Press and theDaily Nation. His support for Healy attracted the hostility of the majority anti-Parnellite faction led byJohn Dillon. He made two attempts to return to Parliament, atKerry South in 1895 andMayo North in 1900, but both were unsuccessful because of Dillonite opposition.
In 1900, he bought the insolventIrish Daily Independent from the Parnellites, merging it with theDaily Nation. In 1905 he re-launched this as a cheap mass-circulation newspaper, theIrish Independent, which rapidly displaced theFreeman's Journal as Ireland's most popular nationalist paper. In 1906, he founded theSunday Independent newspaper.
He refused a knighthood from KingEdward VII in 1907 after organising a controversialInternational Exhibition inHerbert Park, Dublin (it was opposed by many nationalists who considered it as cosmopolitan and as encouraging the purchase of imported goods). In fact, theKing-Emperor, Edward VII, was about to knight Murphy, but the honour was refused. Murphy had previously made it clear to the viceroy, Lord Aberdeen, that under no circumstances would he accept a knighthood, but Aberdeen had failed to pass on the message. Murphy appears to have been motivated by pride; he did not wish to have it said that he had angled for a title and compromised his nationalist principles.[4]
Murphy was highly critical of the Irish Parliamentary Party; from 1914 he used theIrish Independent to oppose the partition of Ireland and to advocate Dominion Home Rule involving full fiscal autonomy (which the 1914 Home Rule Act would not have granted).
Murphy took a benevolent attitude to traditional trade union activity amongst skilled workers but resisted the advance ofnew unionism.[5] Worried that theIrish Transport and General Workers' Union would destroy theDublin tramways, Murphy led Dublin employers opposition to the union led byJames Larkin, an opposition that culminated in theDublin Lockout of 1913. This made him extremely unpopular with many, being depicted as a vulture or a vampire in the pro-union press.[citation needed]
After the 1916Easter Rising, he bought ruined buildings inAbbey Street as sites for his newspaper offices. HisIrish Independent called for the executions ofSeán Mac Diarmada andJames Connolly at a point when the Irish public began to feel sympathy for their cause.[6] This incident made him even more unpopular.[citation needed] Murphy privately disavowed the editorial, claiming it had been written and published without his knowledge.[citation needed] In May 1916 he led the establishment of the Dublin Fire and Property Losses Association to exert pressure on the British government to compensate businesses which had lost property in the Rising. The pressure exerted by Murphy resulted in theProperty Losses (Ireland) Committee being established by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the following month.
He was invited in 1917 to take part in talks during theIrish Convention which was called to agree terms for the implementation of the suspended 1914Home Rule Act.[4] However he discovered thatJohn Redmond was negotiating agreeable terms with Unionists under theMidleton Plan to avoid thepartition of Ireland but at the partial loss of full Irish fiscal autonomy. This infuriated Murphy who criticised the intention in hisnewspaper, which severely damaged the Irish Parliamentary Party.[7] However, the Convention remained inconclusive, and the ensuing demise of the Irish party resulted in the rise ofSinn Féin, whose separatist policies Murphy also did not agree with.
Murphy died on 26 June 1919 and was buried inGlasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
His family controlledIndependent Newspapers until the early 1970s, when the group was sold toTony O'Reilly.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forDublin St Patrick's 1885 –1892 | Succeeded by |
