38 Facts About Dervla Murphy

Dervla Murphy was an Irish touring cyclist and author of adventure travel books, writing for more than 50 years.

Dervla Murphy followed this with volunteer work helping Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal and trekking with a mule through Ethiopia.

Dervla 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.

Dervla Murphy later wrote about her solo trips through Romania, Africa, Laos, the states of the former Yugoslavia and Siberia.

Dervla Murphy normally travelled alone without luxuries and depending on the hospitality of local people.

Dervla Murphy 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.

Dervla Murphy was born and brought up in Lismore, County Waterford.

Dervla Murphy's parents were from Dublin and had moved to Lismore when her father was appointed county librarian.

When Dervla Murphy was one year old, her mother developed rheumatoid arthritis, from which she suffered for the rest of her life.

Dervla Murphy attended secondary school at the Ursuline Convent in Waterford but left at age 14 to take care of her disabled mother.

Dervla Murphy published a number of travel articles in the Hibernia journal and the Irish Independent newspaper, but her Spanish travel book was rejected by publishers.

Dervla Murphy's first lover, Godfrey, died abroad in 1958 and her father became ill with nephritis, a complication of influenza, and died in February 1961.

Dervla Murphy published an autobiography Wheels Within Wheels in 1979, describing her life before the journey described in Full Tilt.

In 1963, Dervla Murphy set off on her first long-distance bicycle tour, a self-supported trip from Ireland to India.

In Yugoslavia, Dervla Murphy began to write a journal instead of mailing letters.

Dervla Murphy received her worst injury of the journey on a bus in the Kingdom of Afghanistan, when a rifle butt hit her and fractured three ribs; however, this only delayed her for a short while.

Dervla Murphy wrote appreciatively about the landscape and people of Afghanistan, calling herself "Afghanatical" and claiming that the Afghan "is a man after my own heart".

Dervla Murphy's journal was later published by John Murray as her first book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle.

Dervla Murphy had sent it to John Murray at the suggestion of Penelope Betjeman whom she had met in Delhi during her journey, although initially too modest to contact such an illustrious publisher of travel books; she had a happy publishing relationship with Jock Murray until his death in 1993.

Dervla Murphy spent five months in a refugee camp in Dharamsala run by Tsering Dolma, sister of the 14th Dalai Lama.

Dervla Murphy then cycled through the Kullu Valley, spending Christmas in Malana.

On returning to Europe, Dervla Murphy took part in a fundraising campaign for Save the Children, and in 1965, she worked with another group of Tibetan refugees in Pokhara, Kingdom of Nepal.

Dervla Murphy 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.

Dervla Murphy surmised that this misgendering occurred not only because of her physique but because the idea of women travelling so far without a man was inconceivable.

Dervla Murphy tried different ways to correct the understanding, the most successful being unbuttoning her shirt.

In 1978, Dervla Murphy wrote A Place Apart about her travels in Northern Ireland and encounters with members of the Protestant and Catholic religious communities.

Dervla Murphy was anti-globalization and critical of NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.

Dervla Murphy spoke out against nuclear power and climate change.

In 2002, aged 71, Dervla Murphy planned to cycle in the Ussuriland region of eastern Russia.

Dervla Murphy broke her knee while on the Baikal Amur Mainline railway, then tore a calf muscle while recuperating at Lake Baikal, and her plans changed to a journey around Siberia by train, boat and bus, documented in Through Siberia by Accident.

Dervla Murphy revisited Siberia and wrote a companion book, Silverland.

Dervla Murphy described her stay in a book published in 2013: A Month by the Sea.

Dervla Murphy wrote about further encounters with Israelis and Palestinians in her 2015 book, Between River and Sea.

Dervla Murphy lived in Lismore with five dogs and three cats.

Dervla Murphy was a patron of Sustrans, a British charity for sustainable travel, and of the Lismore Immrama Festival of Travel Writing.

In 2009, Dervla 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.

Dervla Murphy died at her home in Lismore on 22 May 2022, aged 90.

Dervla Murphy was survived by her daughter Rachel and her three grand-daughters.