There is in the early life of Mr Joseph Murphy jnr the stuff of a Hollywood film script. The only male heir of an emigrant Irish multimillionaire, whose mother dies when he is just three months old, he is sent to Arigna, Co Roscommon, to be raised by country aunts.
Mr Murphy is then packed off to a posh boarding school, drops out of college and works as a humble Irish navvy before finding his true path by pulling the family business out of crisis.
We heard a lot about Mr Murphy's origins at the tribunal yesterday. The alleged payment to Mr Ray Burke, and Mr Murphy's role in this, if any, is unlikely to come up until today at the earliest.
A measured, assertive and frequently combative witness, Mr Murphy repeatedly sought to minimise his involvement in the Murphy companies in the leadup to the events surrounding the Burke payment and the disposal of the company lands in 1989.
But it was clear, even at this early stage, that the tribunal and the witness hold substantially differing views on the influence he and his elderly father, Mr Joseph Murphy snr, exercised in their companies at this time.
The Murphy business empire was then the scene of an amazing boardroom tussle, involving early-morning coups, lockouts and extensive litigation. On the one side stood Mr Murphy snr, aided among others by his son and Mr James Gogarty; on the other was Mr Liam Conroy, the chief executive appointed by Mr Murphy snr a few years earlier.
Mr Gogarty has given evidence of how he tipped off Mr Murphy snr about Mr Conroy's alleged mismanagement of the Irish companies in the Murphy empire. But yesterday Mr Murphy jnr revealed that he had relayed to his father similar worries expressed to him by employees in the English companies.
Mr Murphy jnr was drafted in as a director during this period of turmoil in mid-1988 and began a "steep learning curve". Even today, he is only 37 years of age.
The crucial question, which wasn't answered yesterday, is whether he could have been involved to such an extent that he knew about the payment to Mr Burke a year later. Mr Gogarty alleges he (Murphy) was present when Mr Burke was paid money, but Mr Murphy and all other participants deny this.
Just as Mr Gogarty in his evidence placed Mr Murphy at the centre of many of the controversial events such as the Burke payment Mr Murphy yesterday asserted that Mr Gogarty had complete control of the land companies owned by Murphys.
In contrast, "my involvement was very, very little," the witness said, adding on several occasions that he concentrated on the management of his father's English companies.
Mr Gogarty was an executive chairman of the Irish companies, the witness insisted, after Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, referred to him as a non-executive chairman.
There were numerous contradictions between both men about who attended what meetings. Most notably, Mr Murphy said he never knew the former Dublin assistant and county manager, Mr George Redmond, until he met him this year at hearings in Dublin Castle. Mr Gogarty has alleged he brought Mr Murphy in to see Mr Redmond in the latter's office in the 1980s.
The witness awarded Mr Gogarty a central role in the expulsion of the ousted directors, but Ms Dillon quoted affidavits from the resulting litigation to suggest that Mr Murphy was "more than just a bystander. You were a participant".
Subsequently, as Ms Dillon pointed out, Messrs Murphy snr and jnr regularly attended board meetings in Dublin, but the witness said this was only to support Mr Gogarty and help him run the Irish companies again. "It was never the intention that I would be involved in the day-to-day running of the companies in any shape or form. We were there to support Mr Gogarty."
Ms Dillon produced evidence showing that Mr Murphy snr was thinking of selling companies, both in England and Ireland, towards the end of 1988. This appears to chime with Mr Gogarty's allegation that Mr Murphy snr moved hastily to sell his lands in Ireland because Mr Conroy was making allegations of tax evasion against him in the litigation following the boardroom coup.
Mr Murphy continues his evidence this morning.