Séamus Murphy: Dog trough to De Valera - 10 of the Cork sculptor's greatest works
Cork sculptor Seamus Murphy passed away in October 1975.
Séamus Murphy, one of Ireland’s best-loved artists, died aged 68 in October 1975. Earlier this year, the fiftieth anniversary of his passing was marked by Cork City Library’s naming of his memoir as its One City One Book selection for 2025.
Murphy was one of a family of four born to James and Margaret Murphy of Mallow, Co Cork. He had a twin brother, John, and two younger siblings, Michael and Bartholomew.
Murphy’s father was a railway man, and the family soon moved to Cork city, settling on Ballyhooley Road. At St Patrick’s School on Gardiner’s Hill, he was taught by the writer Daniel Corkery, who encouraged him to study at the Crawford School of Art. He then spent seven years as an apprentice stone-cutter in John Aloysius O’Connell’s yard in Blackpool, an experience he described with great affection in Stone Mad.
Murphy enjoyed a year-long sojourn in Paris from 1932-33 on a Gibson Bequest scholarship, studying under Andrew O’Connor and Marcel Grimond.
In 1944, he married Maigread Higgins, daughter of the sculptor Joseph Higgins. They settled on Wellesley Terrace, Wellington Road, and had three children, Beibhinn, Orla and Colm.
For much of his life, Murphy worked from a studio on Watercourse Rd he called “the Skullery,” producing everything from modest headstones to monumental figurative sculptures.
Here are ten of the finest examples of his work.
Murphy produced a plaster version of the Onion Seller – modelled on a ‘shawlie’ named Mary Anne, who sold onions around Cork city centre – in 1937. It was later cast in bronze. There are two versions in the city centre, one in Bishop Lucey Park, the other on Cornmarket St. The version in Bishop Lucey Park was presented to the city by Sunbeam Wolsey in 1985, while the version on Cornmarket St was presented by McDonald’s franchisee Ray Doherty in 1995.
It originally stood on Winthrop St, before being moved to its present location in 2012. A third version, belonging to the solicitor and art collector Charlie Hennessy, was sold at auction in December 2008, and remains in private hands.
Murphy exhibited The Virgin of the Twilight at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1943. Carved from Kilkenny limestone, and standing over 6ft tall, the statue won great acclaim but sat in Murphy’s studio for 20 years until friends raised a subscription to buy it for the people of Cork. The one proviso was that it would not be placed in a church. Today it can be seen in Fitzgerald’s Park, along with his sculpture Dreamline, and busts of Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera and Tom Barry.
The Dublin sculptor Oisín Kelly considered Virgin of the Twilight to be the finest carving produced in Ireland in the 20th century.
On his return from Paris, in 1934, Murphy was commissioned to produce a statue of St Finbarr to replace the sculpture of Queen Victoria that had graced the eastern gable of the Aula Maxima at UCC since her visit to Cork in August 1849.
The commission came from the Academy of St Thomas, a college society founded by Alfred O’Rahilly, the Registrar of UCC. Murphy’s statue is 6ft 10 inches tall, and weighs 1½ tons. It depicts St Finbarr as a bearded monk, holding a crozier in his left hand, with the other raised in blessing.
On its presentation to the Governing Body in June 1934, the statue was described by the as “the first religious statue to be accepted by any of the three constituent colleges of the National University of Ireland.” The sculpture of Queen Victoria it replaced was subsequently buried in the President’s Garden.
Murphy would go on to produce any number of religious works, but his relationship with the Church was not always amicable.
Murphy’s work on the Church of the Annunciation was widely admired, and he might reasonably have expected further commissions from the Church. However, he famously fell out with Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, the all-powerful Catholic Primate of Ireland, when he delivered a bust of “the Blackrock Borgia” that was not to his liking. McQuaid not only rejected the bust, he also instructed the Bishop of Cork to pass Murphy over for any further commissions.
When a local committee in Ballyvourney, Co Cork began raising funds for a statue of St Gobnait, they showed great bravery in commissioning Murphy to create it.
Murphy’s life-sized statue of St Gobnait - perched on a beehive, around which are relief figures of the bees with which she is often associated – was unveiled in 1951, and was one of the artist’s personal favourites.
St Gobnait overlooks the cemetery where two of Murphy’s great friends, the poet Seán Ó Ríordáin and the composer Seán Ó Riada, are buried. Murphy carved both their headstones.
Murphy was commissioned to design the Church of the Annunciation on Great William O’Brien St, Blackpool by William Dwyer, founder of the textile manufacturer Sunbeam Wolsey. Murphy’s contributions included designs for the three altars, the baptismal and holy water fonts, the plaque above the children’s altar, the annunciation panel, and the Sacred Heart and Madonna statues on either side of the altar.
Murphy also designed the tabernacle, lamp, candlesticks and other brasses, which were made by Gunnings in Dublin. The 80 foot bell tower and its bell, dedicated to Dwyer’s late daughter, Maeve, were also made to Murphy’s specifications.
On the church’s completion in 1945, it was known locally as “Dwyer’s fire escape (from hell).” The nickname seems unfair; Dwyer was a generous employer, and one of Murphy’s biggest supporters.
The Gaol Cross Memorial at UCC is a prime example of Murphy’s exquisite skill as a letterer. The relief plaque, carved in limestone with a bronze frame, lists the names in Irish of 18 men who died during the War of Independence, 13 of whom were buried in the gaol itself. Of those, five were executed on February 28 1921 for their role in the Dripsey ambush the previous month.
The plaque was commissioned by the Cork Gaol Memorial Committee, chaired by P Crofts, and was unveiled by Éamon de Valera TD on Sunday July 11 1948. By then, Alfred O’Rahilly had been elevated to president of UCC, and the college had assumed ownership of the gaol site. O’Rahilly, an ardent Republican, recalled that he had himself been a prisoner at Cork Gaol when some of those listed on the memorial faced the firing squad.
St Brigid’s Church, on the corner of Van Ness and Broadway, San Francisco, was built by Irish immigrants in 1864, and later underwent various refurbishments. Murphy’s statues of St Brigid and the Twelve Apostles were commissioned by Monsignor James P Cantwell and installed in the 13 niches on its façade in 1948.
Murphy is reputed to have based the faces of the apostles on those of the leaders of the Easter Rising – Doubting Thomas, for instance, is said to be based on Éamon de Valera – though others claim his models included his friends in Cork, such as Timothy “the Tailor” Buckley.
St Brigid’s was closed in 1994, and sold to the Academy of Art University in 2005. The church was slated for demolition, but a local committee succeeded in having it listed as a historic building. It has since been converted for use as the university’s School of Design. Murphy’s statues remain in place on its façade.
One could easily walk past Murphy’s dog trough at 124 Patrick St and not know it was there. The trough is at street level, at the northern end of the street, and was commissioned by Knolly Stokes, proprietor of the Old Bridge Restaurant, in the 1950s. Stokes’s business attracted the most prominent of the city’s “ladies who lunch,” many of whom had toy dogs they tied to the railings outside.
Stokes commissioned Murphy to produce a trough, which his staff would fill with water each morning so the dogs could replenish their thirst. When Murphy duly delivered the trough, with the single word Madraí – the Irish for dogs – carved on it, Stokes worried that some of his clientele might not understand what it meant. Murphy assured him: “I’m quite sure the dogs can.” The bowl was stolen in 2019, but was soon recovered by gardaí.
Murphy made bronze busts of the first five presidents of Ireland - Douglas Hyde, Seán T Ó Ceallaigh, Éamon de Valera, Erskine Childers and Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh – all of which are in the collection at Áras an Uachtaráin. de Valera sat for Murphy at the Áras, sending the presidential Rolls Royce to collect the artist from his lodgings each morning. In the evenings, however, de Valera’s chauffeur would only drop him to the bus stop.
In 2016, the former TD and Senator Máirín Quill donated another Murphy bust of de Valera to the people of Cork; it is now in Fitzgerald’s Park.
Murphy made a large part of his living carving headstones, treating them as reverentially as he did his commissions for sculptures. His headstones include those for Ó Riordán and Ó Riada at Ballyvourney; the composer Arnold Bax in St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork; the Blasket Island storytellers Tomás O’Crohan and Peig Sayers in Dunquin; Timothy and Anastasia Buckley, or the Tailor and Ansty, as they were more often known, in Gougane Barra; and his own, at Rathcooney Cemetery.
After Murphy’s passing, on October 2 1975, the Cork-based sculptor Ken Thompson inherited his tools. He observed that Murphy’s headstones have “a characteristic simplicity, and are finely proportioned and sympathetically worked… many of his finest works went into our churchyards.”
