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Murphy Family Connections

KerryBrosna (Kerry)

Hello

my name is niall murphy and i am a limerick man living in london. i am trying to trace my family which hailed from brosna back in the 1800s. my great grand father was richard murphy and he was born in Ahaun in about 1866. he married 3 times after he mover to feohanagh in county limerick. richard was buried back in brosna (but i cant find his grave anywhere) while his wife was buried in feohanagh. the son from his third marriage, con, was my grandfather. i have loads of bits of information but cant seem to connect them. i believe there were 2 familys of murphys living in the Ahaun area. one was a large farmer and the other owned the post office. i have checked margaret curtains website and she names michael murphy and bridget crimmins as the parents of richard murphybut i cant see who she makes this connection.

my father and his siblings go on about 2 redemptorist priests - fr richard born in 1872 whose parents were john murphy and nora collins and fr thomas born in 1878 whose parents were micheal murphy and mary collins. one of these priests married my grandparents. i am trying to make the connection between john murphy and the 2 micheal murphys - brothers/cousins?also wondering if their is a connection between the nora collins and mary collins who both married murphys.

griffiths valuation of 1852 mentions john richard and thomas murphy all of Ahaun and i wonder who is related to who here.

my fathers cousins talk of the the 2 murphy families of Ahaum and say that of one family, 3 became nuns and 2 became redemptorists - fr jack and fr micheal. based on irishgenealogy, these could be brothers of the fr thomas murphy. and can anyone tell me where the nuns ended up?

i have also heard of a connection between the murphys of brosna and some in cork but no one can nail this down for me.

so as you can see, i have lots of snippets of info but seem to be struggling to make any worth while connections. if anyone can help me fix this jigsaw, then i would be eternally grateful

all the best

niall murphy

IrelandXO member

5 replies

Dear Niall

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

Have you searched www.irishgenealogy.ie for any record of the family? The site is free to use.

Roman Catholic records for the Parish of Brosna begin in 1866 to 1875 for baptisms and 1866 to 1900 for marriages. The issue with the Griffith?s Valuation, as you know I?m sure, is that it only lists the head of household, so it would be very difficult to ascertain who is who and link or connect them. The link below will give you an idea as to the spread of the Murphy name I Ireland in the 19th Century:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?Surname=Murphy&fuseaction=Go.

Have you considered looking at ancestry.com family trees or message boards to see if anyone else is or has been doing this research?  This avenue might be particularly useful in relation to the nuns and priests connection 

Let us know if irishgenealogy.ie turns up anything. 

Best wishes

Clare Doyle

Genealogy Support  

IrelandXO member

Hi, Niall --

My Murphys are from Brosna as well...I'm not totally sure which townland, but from what I can gather, at least some of my great-grandfather Daniel Murphy's (son of Daniel Murphy and Mary O'Connor (or I've also seen Conner) siblings were listed as residing or being born in Knockafreeghaun.  He himself was born in 1889, and all family lore states was that his father Daniel was a farmhand on the O'Connor's dairy farm and that he and Mary ended up eloping to get married in London.  I don't know if our Murphys are at all connected, but someone I believe to be a distant cousin on the Murphy side told me that there was some connection to Murphys in Knockaclarig, just over the border with Cork, and that Murphys that may have been cousins to my great-grandfather have their names on some war memorial in Charleville in Cork as well.

You mentioned not being able to find Richard Murphy's grave in Brosna...is this through a record search, or have you actually been to the burial ground there?  Over the summer I traveled to Ireland for the first time and stopped briefly in Brosna.  I looked through the small cemetery there for any Murphys or O'Connors and took pictures of all the gravestones I could find with those names.  I did not recognize anyone there, but then my research on the Murphy and O'Connor side of my family hit a brick wall early on, as only my great-grandfather Daniel and his sister Elizabeth ended up here in Chicago.  They had numerous other siblings...possibly there were fourteen or more children in all born to Daniel Murphy and Mary O'Connor, but the descendants of Elizabeth tell me that they were told those other siblings all emigrated to England or Australia and did not keep in contact with Elizabeth.  

I took so many photos in Ireland that I have yet to look at them all, but when I look through the ones in Brosna, I will see if any of the headstones I captured have the name Richard Murphy on them.

~Kimberly Murphy Wilbanks

IrelandXO member

Hi, Niall --

My Murphys are from Brosna as well...I'm not totally sure which townland, but from what I can gather, at least some of my great-grandfather Daniel Murphy's (son of Daniel Murphy and Mary O'Connor (or I've also seen Conner) siblings were listed as residing or being born in Knockafreeghaun.  He himself was born in 1889, and all family lore states was that his father Daniel was a farmhand on the O'Connor's dairy farm and that he and Mary ended up eloping to get married in London.  I don't know if our Murphys are at all connected, but someone I believe to be a distant cousin on the Murphy side told me that there was some connection to Murphys in Knockaclarig, just over the border with Cork, and that Murphys that may have been cousins to my great-grandfather have their names on some war memorial in Charleville in Cork as well.

You mentioned not being able to find Richard Murphy's grave in Brosna...is this through a record search, or have you actually been to the burial ground there?  Over the summer I traveled to Ireland for the first time and stopped briefly in Brosna.  I looked through the small cemetery there for any Murphys or O'Connors and took pictures of all the gravestones I could find with those names.  I did not recognize anyone there, but then my research on the Murphy and O'Connor side of my family hit a brick wall early on, as only my great-grandfather Daniel and his sister Elizabeth ended up here in Chicago.  They had numerous other siblings...possibly there were fourteen or more children in all born to Daniel Murphy and Mary O'Connor, but the descendants of Elizabeth tell me that they were told those other siblings all emigrated to England or Australia and did not keep in contact with Elizabeth.  

I took so many photos in Ireland that I have yet to look at them all, but when I look through the ones in Brosna, I will see if any of the headstones I captured have the name Richard Murphy on them.

~Kimberly Murphy Wilbanks

IrelandXO member

Hi Niall, my name is Yvonne Murphy and I am also tracing my Brosna family. I think your great grandfather Richard and my great great grandmother Mary were siblings. Her siblings include John, Batt, Nora, Michael, Patrick, and Thomas. Mary's father was Michael Murphy and her uncle Maurice Murphy who owned the Crown Hotel in Castleisland. Have you gotten any further with your research?

IrelandXO member

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