Dervla Murphy

Dervla Murphy (28 November 1931 – 22 May 2022) was an Irish touring cyclist and author of adventure travel books, writing for more than 50 years.

Murphy is best known for her 1965 book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, about an overland cycling trip through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. She followed this with volunteer work helping Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal and trekking with a mule through Ethiopia. Murphy took a break from travel writing following the birth of her daughter, and then wrote about her travels with Rachel in India, Pakistan, South America, Madagascar and Cameroon. She later wrote about her solo trips through Romania, Africa, Laos, the states of the former Yugoslavia and Siberia. In 2005, she visited Cuba with her daughter and three granddaughters.

Murphy normally travelled alone without luxuries and depending on the hospitality of local people. She was in some dangerous situations; for example, she was attacked by wolves in the former Yugoslavia, threatened by soldiers in Ethiopia, and robbed in Siberia. However, she described her worst incident as tripping over cats at home and shattering her left arm.

Early life

Dervla Murphy was born and brought up in Lismore, County Waterford. Her parents were from Dublin and had moved to Lismore when her father was appointed county librarian. When Murphy was one year old, her mother developed rheumatoid arthritis, from which she suffered for the rest of her life. They were advised not to have any more children and Dervla grew up as an only child. From a young age, Murphy planned to travel:

For my tenth birthday my parents gave me a second-hand bicycle and Pappa [her grandfather] sent me a second-hand atlas. Already I was an enthusiastic cyclist, though I had never before owned a bicycle, and soon after my birthday I resolved to cycle to India one day. I have never forgotten the exact spot, on a steep hill near Lismore, where this decision was made. Half-way up I rather proudly looked at my legs, slowly pushing the pedals around, and the thought came "If I went on doing this for long enough I could get to India."

After arriving in Delhi, Murphy worked as a volunteer helping Tibetan refugees under the auspices of Save the Children. She spent five months in a refugee camp in Dharamsala run by Tsering Dolma, sister of the 14th Dalai Lama. She then cycled through the Kullu Valley, spending Christmas in Malana. Her journals from this period were published in her second book, Tibetan Foothold.

On returning to Europe, Murphy took part in a fundraising campaign for Save the Children,

In 1966, Murphy made her first trip to Africa. She travelled to the Empire of Ethiopia and walked with a pack mule from Asmara to Addis Ababa, confronted by Kalashnikov-carrying soldiers on the way. This journey was described in her fourth book, In Ethiopia with a Mule.

Travels with Rachel

Murphy's daughter Rachel accompanied her on a trip to India at the age of five; they flew into Bombay and travelled to Goa and Coorg (described in On a Shoestring to Coorg). The pair later journeyed to Baltistan (Where the Indus is Young), Peru (Eight Feet in the Andes) and Madagascar (Muddling through in Madagascar). Their last trip was through Cameroon on a horse, where Dervla was frequently mistaken for Rachel's husband (Cameroon with Egbert). She surmised that this misgendering occurred not only because of her physique but also because the idea of women travelling so far without a man was inconceivable. She tried different ways to correct the understanding, the most successful being unbuttoning her shirt. "It was, like her literary voice, frank and persuasive," wrote Jori Finkel in her Washington Post obituary.

On travelling with a child, Murphy wrote: A child's presence emphasises your trust in the community's goodwill. And because children pay little attention to racial or cultural differences, junior companions rapidly demolish barriers of shyness or apprehension often raised when foreigners unexpectedly approach a remote village.

Politicisation

In 1978, Murphy wrote A Place Apart about her travels in Northern Ireland and encounters with members of the Protestant and Catholic religious communities. It won the 1979 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. She credits her 1982 book Race to the Finish? The Nuclear Stakes as a turning point that led her to write more about political issues. In 1985 she lived for several months in Bradford and Birmingham, talking to members of the Asian, Afro-Caribbean and White communities and witnessing first-hand one of the Handsworth riots (described in Tales From Two Cities). In 1992, she cycled from Kenya to Zimbabwe, where she witnessed the impact of AIDS; when describing this journey in The Ukimwi Road, she criticised the role of non-governmental organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. Her other writings include discussions about the aftermath of apartheid (South from the Limpopo) and the Rwandan genocide (Visiting Rwanda), the displacement of tribal peoples (One Foot in Laos), and post-war reconstruction of the Balkans (Through the Embers of Chaos).

She was anti-globalization and critical of NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. She spoke out against nuclear power and climate change.

In 2005, she visited Cuba with her daughter and three granddaughters, and made two return trips in 2006 and 2007 (described in The Island that Dared). Her Havana experiences are also featured in a collection of traveller's tales.

Over the summer of 2011, Murphy spent a month in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, where she met liberals and Islamists, Hamas and Fatah supporters. She described her stay in a book published in 2013: A Month by the Sea. She wrote about further encounters with Israelis and Palestinians in her 2015 book, Between River and Sea.

Personal life and interests

Murphy never married. In 1968, she gave birth to her only child, Rachel, fathered by Irish Times journalist Terence de Vere White. Her decision to bring up her daughter alone was described as "a brave choice in 1960s Ireland" by The Sunday Business Post, although she said she felt safe from criticism because she was in her thirties and was financially and professionally secure.

In 2009, Murphy appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Great Lives, nominating Dame Freya Stark as a Great Life, supported by expert John Murray VII of the publishing family. She was herself chosen as the subject of the programme by Hilary Bradt in 2025.

In April 2022, she spoke at her home to an interviewer from the Financial Times, who was "instructed by her publisher to bring along some 'really good cheddar'. And beer." During the conversation Murphy "claim[ed] to have no time to dwell on the past because she finds so much in current events to worry about, following the news on the BBC World Service radio and Al Jazeera on her computer because she has no desire for — indeed, has never owned — a television." and said that "There are so many books to be read. The problem is, at 90, there isn’t enough time to read them all".

Death

Murphy died at her home in Lismore on 22 May 2022, aged 90. She was survived by her daughter Rachel and her three granddaughters. The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, said "Her contribution to writing, and to travel writing in particular, had a unique commitment to the value of human experience in all its diversity."

Recognition

In 2019, she was presented with the inaugural Inspiring Cyclist of the Year award by Dublin-based advocacy group I BIKE Dublin. The same year, she received the Royal Geographical Society's Ness Award "for the popularisation of geography through travel literature".

Publications

Title Year Publisher ISBN Pages Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle 1965 John Murray 235 Tibetan Foothold 1966 John Murray 206 The Waiting Land: A Spell in Nepal 1967 John Murray 216 In Ethiopia with a Mule 1968 John Murray 281 On a Shoestring to Coorg: An Experience of South India 1976 John Murray 261 Where the Indus Is Young: A Winter in Baltistan 1977 John Murray 266 A Place Apart: Northern Ireland in the 1970s 1978 John Murray 290 Wheels Within Wheels: Autobiography 1979 John Murray 236 Race to the Finish? The Nuclear Stakes 1982 John Murray 264 Eight Feet in the Andes 1983 John Murray 276 Muddling through in Madagascar 1985 John Murray 288 Changing the Problem: Post-forum Reflections 1984 The Lilliput Press 36 Ireland (text by Dervla Murphy and photography by Klaus Francke) 1985 Orbis 208 Tales from Two Cities: Travel of Another Sort 1987 John Murray 314 Cameroon with Egbert 1990 John Murray 282 Transylvania and Beyond 1992 John Murray 239 The Ukimwi Road: From Kenya to Zimbabwe 1993 John Murray 276 South from the Limpopo: Travels through South Africa 1997 John Murray 432 Visiting Rwanda 1998 The Lilliput Press 246 One Foot in Laos 1999 John Murray 284 Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys 2002 John Murray 388 Through Siberia by Accident: A Small Slice of Autobiography 2005 John Murray 302 Silverland: A Winter Journey Beyond the Urals 2006 John Murray 288 The Island that Dared: Journeys in Cuba 2008 Eland 421 A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza 2013 Eland 258 Between River and Sea: Encounters in Israel and Palestine 2015 Eland 442

Murphy's books from 1965 to 1979 have all been republished in new editions by Eland, as travel classics.