John A Murphy Born: August 23rd, 1941 Died: February 13th, 2013John A (Johnny) Murphy, who has died aged 71, was so passionate about Gaelic games that he became chairman of the Waterford county board of the GAA, a rare distinction for a Tipperary man and even more so for a journalist who spent half a century writing about hurling and football.
The term “legend”, much abused in sport reportage, has rightly been applied to him by players, journalists and GAA supporters. As tributes poured in from Lismore, Tramore, Mount Sion and other clubs, former Waterford hurling star Dan Shanahan recalled a story in which he was quoted by Murphy: “I didn’t say the half of it, but it was beautiful.” Kilkenny-based sports reporter John Knox observed: “Johnny Murphy has died, but the great stories will live on. One of the finest journalists I had the pleasure of working with. A character.”
Next to Gaelic games he loved racing and his annual pilgrimages to Cheltenham are fabled. Like other journalists of his era, Murphy saw the gamut of Irish life as news correspondent for the Examiner group in west Waterford and east Cork. He brought the same high degree of professionalism to GAA matches, the courts, council meetings and current events.
No news editor could forget the call from Murphy on a slack Sunday afternoon about a sermon delivered from the pulpit at 10 o’clock Mass in Dungarvan. As a stunned congregation heard the details, he whispered to his wife: “Eileen, have you got a pencil?” “No, Johnny, why?” “Because this is a blockbuster.” A local curate sensationally claimed, wrongly as it turned out, that a London-Irish woman, subsequently dubbed the “angel of death” by tabloid media, had deliberately infected up to 80 men with the Aids virus. Though he was on a rare day off, Murphy filed the story to the then Cork Examiner and the global media descended on the town.
He covered many other memorable stories with distinction. Reporting on the IRA kidnapping of the Earl of Donoughmore and his wife Dorothy, from Knocklofty House, near Clonmel, in 1974, his GAA connections gave him an inside track with gardaí at the scene.
Tipped off when gun runners on the Claudia were foiled, he was the first reporter on the pier at Helvick and knew most of those involved.
Born in Cashel, Co Tipperary, he was educated at St Augustine’s College, Dungarvan, and started his career in journalism at the local Observer newspaper in 1959 before joining the then Cork Examiner and Waterford News and Star.
A loyal friend and colleague, so many people wished to attend his 70th birthday celebration, it had to held at Dungarvan Town Hall.
The Gaelic Writers’ Association honoured him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, a fitting accolade for someone who wanted to be a journalist ever since the day a Brother Dowling stopped him on his way home from national school in Cashel.
He recalled the episode as follows: “‘Murphy,’ he said, ‘when you grow up, you are going to be a journalist.’ When I got home, I asked my mother what a journalist was and she told me it was people who reported for the newspaper. I made up my mind there and then.” The week he died, his final column appeared in the Waterford News and Star.
He is survived by his wife Eileen and daughters Jackie, Sharon, Deirdre and Claire.