He died on hunger strike the same day as Terence MacSwiney, but Irish republican prisoner Joe Murphy\u2019s death in October 1920 was overshadowed by that of Cork\u2019s second martyred lord mayor.<\/p>\n
Now, in an effort to right that historical oversight, Lord Mayor Fergal Dennehy has planted a commemorative tree in the Massachusetts birthplace of Cork\u2019s forgotten hero.<\/p>\n
Joseph Murphy was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on May 10, 1895, to Irish parents, Timothy Murphy and Nora O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n
His family returned to Cork when he was still a young child.<\/p>\n
Joe Murphy attended Togher National School, played with St Finbarr\u2019s GAA club, worked for the then Cork Corporation, and helped his family run their market garden.<\/p>\n
He later became an officer in the Irish Republican Army, serving with H Company, 2nd Battalion, Cork No 1 Brigade, and in July, 1920 he was arrested and charged with possession of a bomb.<\/p>\n
Like many IRA prisoners of the period, he joined the mass hunger strike in Cork Gaol after the British authorities removed political status from republican prisoners.<\/p>\n
It was a febrile time in Cork. In March, the lord mayor, Tom\u00e1s Mac Curtain, had been murdered by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary.<\/p>\n
A month after Joe Murphy was arrested, on August 12, Mac Curtain\u2019s successor, Terence MacSwiney, was charged with possession of \u201cseditious articles and documents\u201d, and a cypher key.<\/p>\n
A month after Murphy was arrested, on August 12, MacSwiney, then the lord mayor, was charged with possession of \u201cseditious articles and documents\u201d, and a cypher key.<\/p>\n
Imprisoned initially in Cork Gaol, MacSwiney joined the hunger strike. Convicted and sentenced to two years in Brixton Prison, he continued his hunger strike there.<\/p>\n
On October 25, 1920, the lord mayor of Cork died after 74 days on hunger strike, an act of sacrifice that made headlines globally.<\/p>\n
That same day, in Cork Gaol, Joseph Murphy also died, after 76 days on hunger strike, two days longer than MacSwiney.<\/p>\n
During a recent visit to Massachusetts for a Learning Cities event, Mr Dennehy joined in a tree-planting ceremony in Murphy\u2019s memory, opposite the steps of Lynn City Hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a poignant and deeply meaningful moment to see the name of a man who paid the ultimate sacrifice for something he believed in so strongly finally recognised in the city of his birth,\u201d Mr Dennehy said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He died on hunger strike the same day as Terence MacSwiney, but Irish republican prisoner Joe Murphy\u2019s death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-482150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}