Murphy


Select Murphy Surname Genealogy

A Gaelic raider took the title of "sea raider" in 1070 for his maritime explioits while king of Leinster.  Sea raider in Gaelic is Murchadh, composed of muir meaning "sea" and cath meaning "battle."  Grandchildren and subsequent generations took on the name O'Murchadha.  The spelling of the name eventually evolved to the more phonetic O'Murchu. 

The hard "ch" sound could be pronounced in some dialects as an "h" or an "f." These regional variations gave rise to the modern English-type McMorrough and Murphy surnames that arrived in the 17th century.    

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Ireland.  Not all Murphys share the same ancestors, as there were several distinct Murphy septs that emerged in each of the four Irish provinces, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connacht:
  • Ulster.  A MacMurchadhas clan held sway in Inishowen (Donegal) until they were displaced by the O'Donnells.  They moved to south Tyrone and later to parts of Monaghan and Fermanagh.
  • Leinster.   Murchadh was the forebear in the 11th century of the Murphys in Leinster.  His grandson, known today as Dermot McMorrough, had the dubious distinction of inviting the Normans into Ireland. They did later, however, contend the English presence.  These Leinster McMorroughs were concentrated in Wexford but later lost their lands and scattered.  The majority chose to anglicize their name to Murphy (although their chief holds to the older O'Morchoe name today). 
  • Munster.  The largest group of Munster Murphys traced their origins to the Muscraighe who inhabited a large area of western Cork.  There were other Murphys in Cork, Clare, and Limerick.
  • Connacht.  There was less of a Murphy presence in Connacht.  Even so, there have been some Murphy clusters in Sligo. 
Murphy is most common in Wexford and Cork but is found all over Ireland. 

Elsewhere.  Today, with the Irish emigration, there are more than four times as many Murphys outside Ireland than within.

Murphys
 Numbers (000's)
 Percent
Ireland
    75
   20                
UK
   106
   28
America
   100
   27
Elsewhere (1)    
   93
   25
Total
   374
  100
(1) Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The largest number of Murphys outside Ireland today are in Britain.   The main cities they are to be found in there are Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham, and Manachester.  There is also a significant Murphy concentration in the Canadian maritime provinces.

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Murchadh, the sea raider, was the forebear of the Murphy septs.
Dermot MacMorrough was the Irish leader who invited the Normans into Ireland in the 12th century.
Father John Murphy was one of the leaders of the 1798 Irish Rebellion.
Patrick Murphy, born in county Down in 1832, rose to be eight feet one inch tall and was the tallest man in Europe at that time.
William Martin Murphy founded the Irish Independent newspaper in 1905.
Edward Murphy, an American aerospace engineer, was the one who invented Murphy's Law: "if there is more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way."
Eddie Murphy is the African American comedian and actor.

Select Murphys Today
  • 106,000 in the UK (most numerous in Lancashire)
  • 100,000 in America (most numerous in New York)
  • 168,000 elsewhere (most numerous in Ireland)
Murphy is the #1 ranked surname in Ireland.

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For other surnames check the companion selectsurname.com site where there are to be found the history and genealogy for more than 500 surnames.

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