Tales of wild imagination featured in Tipperary man's book

‘The Secret of Killamery and Other Tales’ is the latest book published by a Clonmel man living in Cork.

Vincent Murphy’s book comprises six unique short stories and a novella. Tales of wild imagination, blending themes of science fiction, history, myths and legends, history and karma are all featured.

The title story, ‘The Secret of Killamery’, a novella, follows the narrators Jimmy and Luke, who go on the trail of a ninth century monk, Fionán, who it seems had travelled to a parallel universe.

In ‘The Kyiv War Museum’ the narrator meets the museum attendant, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Vladimir Putin. Who is this man?

‘An Invasion is Announced’ draws on the archives of The Nationalist to determine the date when word arrived in Clonmel that the Germans were about to invade Dungarvan. The fair day had to be called off and there was consternation.

This true story was told to Vincent by his father, the late Anthony K Murphy, the former managing director of The Nationalist newspaper, who is Tony in the story.

‘The Strange Case of Timmy O’Neill’ tells the story of a teenager who ignores the legend and swims across Bay Lough in the Knockmealdown Mountains, only to be dragged down. But where? Could he really have arrived in Tír na nÓg, the land of eternal youth - or somewhere more sinister?

‘Butter’ tells the tale of two women, one in Clonmel, one in London, who during the Second World War wanted to and found a way to overcome the restrictions of butter rations. This story is also essentially true but the letters are fictitious.

‘Mikey’ was regarded as “slow” as a youngster. Then one day he stopped to dance a jig in the street to the music of a group of panpipe players. How could this chance encounter lead to a solution to his “severe communication disorder”?

Finally, the book returns to Clonmel, and the Emergency in ‘The Reluctant Informer’. A man gets more than he bargained for while doing no more than his civic duty.

Vincent Murphy was born in O’Connell Street, Clonmel, where his grandfather Raymond Murphy had a shop and grocery store. He is the son of the late Anthony K Murphy and Mary Murphy (née Hally).

The family later moved from O’Connell Street to Davis Road and Vincent attended the CBS High School and Coláiste na Rinne in Ring, Co Waterford, where he spent a year as a boarder. He received his secondary education at the Franciscan College in Gormanston, Co Meath, before studying engineering at UCD, and from where he graduated in 1971.

At that stage he wasn’t interested in taking a permanent job for life and moved to Guatemala in Central America, where he spent two months learning Spanish. He then moved to Panama, where he spent two years working as a teacher in a rural vocational school in a remote area of the country, and where there was no electricity or running water.

Returning to Ireland in 1974, he spent a short time working with Cork Corporation before moving to Mott MacDonald Pettit, where he became a partner of one of the largest engineering consultancies in Ireland, before his retirement in 2008.

In 2020 he was co-founder of a group in Cork called The Next Step, a voluntary mental health support group that provides activities including art and crafts, book groups, yoga, creative writing, mindfulness and singing. The Next Step is now part of Cork Mental Health Foundation and Vincent is on the board.

He has also produced The Wild Patagonian Way, covering three trips to Patagonia in the southern region of South America. One of these trips was taken as a lone traveller, hitchhiking in 1981, followed by a trip with his family in 2005, and in 2016 leading a group of hill walkers to El Chalten in Argentina and Torres del Paine in Chile.

He has also published 'Me and My Relations', a family history; 'Southwards', a narrative and photographic record of a trip with his wife Sarah to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the Antarctic Peninsula and Chile; and 'Picos de Europa', a narrative and photographic record of a hill walking expedition to the national park of the same name in Spain.

Before his latest publication, he wrote ‘Goodbye Kit’, a book about his granduncle, Michael C Kickham. Born and reared in Mullinahone in 1861, Michael C Kickham was a descendant of the renowned Charles J Kickham, novelist, poet, journalist and Fenian. Michael Kickham was ordained in 1884 for the New Zealand mission and also served in Australia, as well as Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he died in 1909 at the age of 48.

‘The Secret of Killamery and Other Tales’ may be purchased on the Irish site Buy the Book: https://www.buythebook.ie and there is also a link on Vincent Murphy’s own website, https://www.flaglane.ie

It is also available at Vincent’s book shop in Clonmel.

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