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."

Murphy attended secondary school at the Ursuline Convent in Waterford but left at age 14 to take care of her disabled mother. During young adulthood she took a number of short trips (between three and six weeks): to Wales and southern England in 1951; to Belgium, Germany and France in 1952; and two trips to Spain in 1954 and 1956. She published a number of travel articles in the Hibernia journal and the Irish Independent newspaper, but her Spanish travel book was rejected by publishers.

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. Her mother's health had been deteriorating for many years, and she died in August 1962. Her mother's death freed Murphy from her domestic duties and allowed her to make the extended trip for which she had long planned:

The hardships and poverty of my youth had been a good apprenticeship for this form of travel. I had been brought up to understand that material possessions and physical comfort should never be confused with success, achievement and security.

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

Travels and writing

Full Tilt and other early writings

In 1963, Murphy set off on her first long-distance bicycle tour, a self-supported trip from Ireland to India. Taking a pistol along with other equipment aboard her Armstrong Cadet men's bicycle (named Rozinante in allusion to Don Quixote's steed and always known as Roz), she passed through Europe during one of the worst winters in years. In Yugoslavia, Murphy began to write a journal instead of mailing letters. In Iran, she used her gun to frighten off a group of thieves, and "used unprintable tactics" to escape from an attempted rapist at a police station. She 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. She wrote appreciatively about the landscape and people of Afghanistan, calling herself "Afghanatical" and claiming that the Afghan "is a man after my own heart". In Pakistan, she visited Swat (where she was a guest of the last wali, Miangul Aurangzeb) and the mountain area of Gilgit. The final leg of her trip took her through the Punjab region and over the border to India towards Delhi. Her journal was later published by John Murray as her first book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle. She 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 (John Murray VI) until his death in 1993.

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, and in 1965, she worked with another group of Tibetan refugees in Pokhara, Kingdom of Nepal (described in The Waiting Land).

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.