Pat Murphy, Cheekpoint, has died aged 87. He passed away on Friday January 3 2025. I don’t normally record such events on the blog, but in Pat’s case, I had to.
You see Pat was a character who played a major role in my work. Pat was a community activist (to coin the modern phrase for someone who plays a leading role in his community). But he was also a local historian, folklorist, photographer and genealogist. Pat could go back generations, recall the minutest detail, and knew where everyone was buried in Faithlegg Graveyard.

Pat outside his home on the Green, Cheekpoint
Early Years
Pat was born in Cheekpoint. I never knew his dad, but his mother was one of those beautiful human beings who radiated goodness through her very being. His father was a fisherman and Pat had some fine tales of the river. He was fishing with the late Jimmy Hanlon one evening at the Yellow Rock in the NW gale. The nets held there for over an hour after high water and bunched together. When they hauled them back there were 18 fish in the nets. Another was aboard the family yawl the Bonny Maggie and the gent out shooting duck with a blunderbuss. He discharged the gun at the first sight of a duck and almost went over the stern with the recoil.
One of my favourites was a time he was pooching salmon with Andy Lannen Doherty. T’was a foggy Saturday in the early 1950s. You couldn’t driftnet for salmon on a Saturday. But as you couldn’t see your hand in front of you, Andy decided that the Baliff, Bobby Doherty of Kearns Weir, couldn’t see them either. They set off in an oul black prong and were drifting away.
All of a shot the fog lifted and the bailiff was bearing down on the boys. Andy ordered him to row hard for the shore, grabbed fistfuls of mud to blacken their faces and the licence number painted on the bow. They rowed away ahead of Willie, who screamed after them that he knew who they were. But Andy knew he couldn’t swear to it in court and they made good their escape. He caught up with them later in the season though. Andy got a large fine in court. Pat was ok – he couldn’t be prosecuted as he was only fourteen!

The Thursday Club away on an outing in the 1990s. Pat is at the rear, taxi man no doubt and takes a break to stand in for a photo before finding another job to do. Bridgid Power RIP beside him and Alice Duffin. Front row L-R Margaret Cassin RIP, Peggy Sullivan RIP, Margaret Murphy and Lizzie Kavanagh RIP. Image from the Bridgid Power Collection.
Tall Tales
Anytime I met the man, there was a story usually followed by peels of laughter, many times at his own expense. I recorded one of my favourites – Bob Dohertys Tropical Clock – in the introduction to my second book Waterford Harbour Tides and Tales. In fact I have many of his stories and his anecdotes written down. One of his great projects was a record the family history of the Doherty’s, completed in association with my Godmother Elsie Murphy. I believe he did the Murphy family too.
Pat told me many times about his grandfather around the Fisherstown/Whitechurch area. We spent an interesting afternoon several years back driving up the lanes and boreens of the area as Pat told me of fields he had ploughed, harrowed and topped as a young man on leaving school. He worked his fingers to the bone in many of the fields he showed me. His understanding was that he would eventually get the farm, but it was not to be.
Emigration
Like so many others he emigrated to the cities of England, and he worked with Andy Joe Doherty (#1 the Cottages, Cheekpoint) in the Good Year Tyre factory, Wolverhampton. Pat said the wages were incredible when compared to a factory in Ireland, let alone for the farm. The wage was £10 per week in Ireland and Pat used to post home £17 pw on behalf of Andy Joe.
He worked hard and saved hard. As long as I knew him he had a pioneer pin, and I never remember him smoking – so I guess his wages went further. Of course, he was no saint, Pat Murphy was a social animal – to borrow a phrase. He loved the dances, the music (and the girls I’m sure – not that he told me). I do recall one incident, however.
Christmas 1962/63
It was the infamous Christmas of 1962/3—the year of the terrible snow. Pat wanted to come back to Cheekpoint for Christmas. So some of the prime boys in the digs coached him on the symptoms of enteritis. Pat didn’t even know what it was, but he presented to the doctor and was duly certified, and home he came. Even before he left England the snow was starting to fall, and rather than let up over Christmas it only got worse. “And here was me brave Pat, supposedly sick in bed in Wolverhampton and due back in work on the 2nd of January”.
Do or die he had to get back, and I asked my mother about it again recently. For she was with him. Pat, Mam, her uncle Christy Moran and their cousin Patsy Moran. Jim Duffin did have a taxi, but was too light for the conditions. They went from Cheekpoint to the train station in a van driven by Bill dips Doherty or Phil Doherty. The men might have been better to walk, as they spent most of it pushing the van back onto the road. When they boarded the ship at Rosslare there was a storm of force 11 wind for the north. The ship had to be warpped out against the gale, and not a man, woman or child wasn’t sick on the journey across.
Twas only then the hardship started! The snow was much worse in Wales and the journey to Cardiff was a nightmare. Pat and Patsy left them there to make their way to Wolverhampton. Mam and Christy spent another 24 hours in a snow-bound, unheated carriage somewhere on the south English coast. Pat made it to work by the skin of his teeth. His foreman said “You still look weak Pat” – If only he knew thought Pat!!
Back on Home Soil
When he returned from England he got a job in the National Board and Paper Mills at Grannagh and he had saved enough for a car. We (myself and my siblings) knew Pat so very well, because my father got a job there too, and he traveled with Pat as they shared the same shift. It was a two-shift system, 8 to 4 pm and 4 to midnight. They worked there until their part of the factory closed in 1978. There was a prolonged dispute and they spent a long time on a picket there as I recall. It was a difficult time at home and for all the workers. Pat later got a job in the Waterford Crytal while my dad went back to sea and to fish.
His friendship with my father was hard to grasp, as they were two very different characters. Pat Murphy was steady and dependable, my father was an “out and outer”. Up for anything and always for the craic. But they got on like a house on fire and we always had a soft spot for Pat in the Doherty household.

Robert, Bob and Andrew Doherty, The Green, Cheekpoint circa 1973. Image from the late Pat Murphy
A Community Man
One of my favourite memories of Pat was when he was volunteering on the renovation of the local Reading Room with Tommy Sullivan. As they poured foundations, laid blocks, and pulled out and replaced panelling, there was a welcome for any of us who wanted to help. Pat was a serial helper in the community and as a member of the Residents Committee, he did more than most to improve the community. Not that he would want to be praised or noticed. As I worked alongside him, I absorbed many of the old tales that naturally flowed. I think it was Paudi Sullivan who christened him the “Clerk of Works”
It was in the late 1990s that we worked most closely together and when I got to see the real steel in Pat Murphy. The old Norman-era church at Faithlegg was falling down and Pat was determined to do something about it. He was then a member of the Graveyard Committee (a founder member in June 1980). A group of wonderful people doing tremendous work putting order on the overgrown burial place for the community. But as busy as he was, Pat was determined to do something to preserve this iconic structure.

Sharing a few yarns with another community stalwart and Graveyard Committee veteran – Pat with Tommy Sullivan at the annual Christmas Party 2018
Pat got Kevin Ryan and Damien McLellan involved in a funding application and dragged me on board (for my good looks he once told me). We got a grant of £10,000 but had to fundraise £15,000 to complete the work – a massive sum at the time and one we were awed by. But not me brave Pat. It was like a challenge to him and one he was not going to back away from. He went to all manner of businesses, persons and organisations. He spoke so convincingly and was so adamant about the importance of the work that the money emerged.

I was with him in Faithlegg graveyard on numerous occasions when a visitor joined us to complement the graveyard and how well it looked. Pat would regularly quip – “Shur people are dying to get into it!” Followed by, peels of laughter. Photo courtesy of Damien McLellan
A Family Man
Pat Murphy lived for his family. I don’t know enough about his wedding etc to Margaret, but suffice it to say that he “married a topper” as he said himself – a lady that everyone loves in the community and no one more than Pat himself. He told me once, in a rare glimpse to me of his softer side that how the boys turned out, was their proudest achievement together. He often mentioned his grandchildren, nieces and nephews and stayed up to date with all the goings on. But Pat Murphy preferred to keep it light with me.

Pat and Margaret – at the opening of the new pontoon at Cheekpoint in 2022. Photo courtesy of Damien McLellan
About Margaret he was her toy boy, “shur I’m six months younger” – he used to get a great laugh out of that. He called here in September – he wanted to “put me right” on something and wouldn’t be staying long. He put me right and stayed for over an hour telling yarns before he got up to leave- for the last time as it happened. Typically he was cutting the visit short because he had to get home for his dinner. “She’ll think I’m after finding a new wan!” followed by peels of laughter. A fitting way to remember one of the kindest, honest and hardworking men I ever knew.
This blog is a collection of memories, from conversations with Pat over the years. Much of what history he told me has been featured on the blog. A lot more of what he told me I could never put on here 🙂 Any errors are my responsibility.
AFRAID ONLY PHIL DOHERTY WAS FAMILIAR TO ME AT MY ALL TOO SHORT A TIME IN COOLBUNIA.of course I stayed at senga faitegge and got to know mary and pat and agnes.ann marie.I now have a folding kayak very fast and stable. DREAM OF PADDLING UP THE BARROW. DAVE WARD.
A great tribute Andrew…
Hi Brendan, nice to hear from you. Hope all is well. Thank You
Pat was an inspiration when I started researching my family tree. He gave me an old typed listing of all the graves in Faithlegg and explained who everyone was !! A true gentleman.
Great story Andrew – It’s characters like Pat (R.I.P)who make this Island a better place.
Reading about catching that ferry from Rosslare – it must have been St Andrew or St David and they were so tiny compared the today’s super ferries. Must have tossed about something terrible.
What a lovely memorial.
My mother wasn’t sure which vessel Kev, and although I jotted down the account from Pat, either he didn’t mention it or I never recorded it. My mother still shudders at the recollection.