A complex character, angry and aggressive, James Murphy was not an easy husband or father. But all his children said "He made a God out of education." He had found education to be his gateway out of poverty, his way to leave a countryside still reeling from the Great Famine. Hadn't he grown up on the Irish Beara Peninsula, barefoot, speaking Irish in an earthen floor stone cottage? Wasn't he now a Minister in the Church of Ireland, and Trinity Colllege Dublin Professor of Irish, having competed against Douglas Hyde, later first President of Ireland, for the job? He drilled the learning, beating it into his children, all of whom bore the scars.

Research into this Murphy family has continued throughout the 1900s, providing James Murphy's great-granddaughter, Julia Turner, an opportunity to compile the archive of trunk-loads of papers into a cohesive, exciting read, utilizing modern computers and combining fading papers and photographs with internet research tools.

This family grew up and lived in a late Victorian and an Edwardian yesteryear. People had lots of fun together, were full of joie-de-vivre. None had much money, but they thrived in a peaceful, gentler lifestyle, in ways not often found today....