Tributes have been paid to former Irish Examiner journalist Johnny Murphy who has died in Waterford Regional Hospital following a short illness.
Mr Murphy (71), from Cashel, Co Tipperary, worked for the Dungarvan Observer before joining the Cork Examiner, later the Irish Examiner.
He was based in Dungarvan, and covered news and sport for the paper in Waterford, south Tipperary and east Cork for 47 years, establishing himself as one of the best-known reporters in Munster.
Among the stories that he covered were the IRA kid- napping of Lord and Lady Donoughmore from their home at Knocklofty House near Clonmel in 1974. He also broke the story of the 1973 seizure of five tonnes of IRA arms by the Irish authorities on board the freighter Claudia off Helvick Head, Co Waterford.
Another scoop was the so-called “angel of death” story in 1995, when a priest in Dungarvan claimed a woman with Aids was deliberately sleeping with young men to infect them.
A former chairman of Waterford GAA, Mr Murphy continued to write a weekly sports column for the Waterford News Star after his retirement in 2006.
He is survived by his wife, Eileen, and four daughters.