Like most of Ireland’s best stories, the tale of the Murphys begins in a pub.
On 13 November 1958, a gaggle of Wexford men congregated at the Robert Peel in Kilburn, then a hub of London’s thriving Irish community. Over a few pints, they conspired to form a hurling club that would represent their county in the capital’s growing and competitive hurling championship.
An era of mass emigration from the newly established Irish Republic, half-a-million people are estimated to have left the country in the 1950s. Many of them chose London as their destination. The new club – like the pub itself, which was run by Ferns-native Larry Kehoe – would become a way of helping exiles settle in their new home.
The Wexford origins of the club were proudly on display from the outset. The county’s purple and gold colours were quickly adopted by the new committee, while a record of the first meeting noted that the club’s name came down to a choice between Fr Murphy’s – named for the leader of the 1798 Rebellion which took place almost exclusively within the county’s borders – and the Harriers, a club based in Wexford Town.
Within months the club was up and running, taking to the field for the first time in early 1959. Those early efforts were boosted by a princely war chest of £28 that members raised by raffling off a bottle of whiskey and a pair of nylons at an inaugural dance.
The band of exiles almost notched a rare double in their first season, led to a junior hurling championship by captain Thomas Ryan. It was only at the final hurdle that the junior football team finally tasted defeat.
Success bred success. 1960 saw the newly promoted intermediate hurlers capture a league and championship double, before a senior league title was won in 1961 – just two years after the club was born.
We remained competitive over the following decades. But despite claiming a deluge of silverware in cup and league competitions, a senior championship remained frustratingly elusive.
The Murphy’s have long boasted a reputation as a hard working and battling team, perhaps first evidenced in a 1971 newspaper report from an abandoned Collins Cup clash with Brian Borus where a “slight flare-up” reportedly brought “spectators running onto the field”. A mighty scrap ensued, and the game was swiftly abandoned with the Murphy’s reported to be firmly in the driving seat.
By their very nature, London hurling clubs tend to have a vast turnover of players. But one of the Murphy’s longest serving members is Josie O’Leary. He first lined out for the club in the early 1968, and he was named as the British hurler of the year in 1977. Since then, Josie has held almost every role in the Murphys – from selector to president.
But he notes – slightly sadly – that many of the rivals he came up against through the 70s and 80s have since fallen away. Some of the early rivals mentioned in newspaper reports from the time – like Borus – have long since folded, with Josie noting that the roster of 20 clubs he faced during his career has since halved.
As the new millennium dawned, the Murphy’s proved that good things come to those who wait. Victory in the 2000 senior championship final – ending a 42-year-wait for success – sparked a period of domination for the club. Co-led by Josie O’Leary, they seized four titles in six years and were only narrowly pipped for another in 2004.
Darren Howlin – still soldiering with the Murphys 25 years on, albeit now as a converted full-forward – remembers how the tightly knit panel came together to finally break the 40-year curse.
“It wasn’t a big panel, but we all trained together and socialised outside of it, we all got on well so it was a good unit. We said ‘fuck it, we’re not going to lose another one’. It was togetherness and everyone put the shift in – if you missed training there was a valid excuse.”
For the Howlins, the success was a family affair. Darren’s late father Jim left Rathnure as a 15-year-old, joining the Murphys in the 1970s. In 2003, at the age of 58 – and despite having lost an eye in a hurling related accident – he claimed a county senior medal after lining out earlier in the campaign to make-up the number for one clash.
“We were short – we were already through but we had to play Sean Traceys,” Darren recalls. “He went in and scored two goals, so we beat Sean Traceys and he got his senior medal after all that time as a player.”
The team – led by Josie O’Leary and Jim Dunne – also captured an All-Ireland sevens title in Kilmacud during that period of success.
As the years have passed, the football side of the club has stalled – though it still remains a key part of the women’s club. Their football team was founded in 1988 and still flies the flag to this day, joined by a camóige team in 1998. In 1999, the Murphy’s became the first club in London to field men and women’s sides in both codes.
The Murphys still retains its links with Wexford. Our senior team is coached by Gavin Watchorn of the Duffry Rovers club, while players from the Shelmaliers, St Mary’s Rosslare, Faythe Harriers and Ballyhogue have all lined out in 2025.
But as the years have gone by, the exclusively Wexford nature of the club has faded slightly. The current panel includes players hailing from all over Ireland and the UK, with players from less traditional counties like Armagh now sporting the purple and gold. A successful underage structure has seen an increasing number of London-born players lining out too.
The 2024 season saw the men’s team win an All-Britain title after a dominant run to an intermediate championship in the capital. The surge came to an end in Derry, after the team were finally bested by St Colm’s, Ballinascreen in the Ulster Championship.
The 2025 season has seen a revival of the club’s second team – led by Darren and Sean Howlin – which will compete in the intermediate championship, while our first team will be in the hunt for success at senior level again. They will be hoping to replicate 2021’s run to a county semi-final at the very least.