Other Stories

“Neddy Murphy”

by Bob Rockett

June 2010.

[ This story of Neddy Murphy was specially written for this web site. In the story the author recalls an event of nearly eighty years ago as though it were yesterday. – Comms Team. ]

Sombre and Silent.

A parish community is an institution involving many personalities from within its confines, each one doing his or her best to personalise the portrayal of their role. The subject of my contribution is Neddy Murphy, the grave digger from about 1910 to 1935. Grave digger Neddy Murphy was a low sized man of slight build, with a pleasant disposition. He portrayed the personality of the man for the job of burying the dead − he was sombre and silent. For celebratory events where his services were required, he had the appropriate ornamentation. He also assisted his wife, Maggie, who was the sacristan. His duties also included attending to the upkeep of the cemetery, cutting the grass just once a year at hay cutting time.

They had a family of two girls and three boys, the oldest a girl, born about 1917, the youngest a boy born in 1922. Members of the family occasionally stood in for either parent as the situation warranted. All are now deceased, both girls and one boy died in England. The oldest girl, who had married a local man, had a family of a girl and a boy, still living somewhere in England. Two of the males married local girls and their families and live in the locality. The youngest male continued as official gravedigger almost up to his death some years ago.

I have noticed, when walking a little distance behind his grandson on the odd occasion, the resemblance to Neddy as he swings his right leg, just as Neddy did, as we walked behind him on our way to school in the early nineteen thirties.

Oh for the Memory.

The family resided in a thatched cottage (now gone) a short distance from the church as tenants of a seven or eight acre holding. They kept a cow and produced their own milk and butter. Neddy was a resourceful man who grew his own vegetables and feed for the cow and the two asses that were used in cultivating the crops. It was unique to have trained the asses and disciplined them as one would do with horses − it called for exemplary patience.

Neddy played a role in the fight for independence. He demonstrated his allegiance to de Valera’s policy of self sufficiency by growing a small patch of tobacco in 1933. The venture was not a success.

Going to or coming from school, we would surely meet Neddy going about his business as small farmer, grave digger and, on Sundays, bell ringer and offertory collector. His Sunday morning church duties routine began when he walked to the church (he didn’t own a bike) to ring the bell at eight o clock or thereabouts − a reminder to parishioners that it was Sunday and that Mass would begin at 9:15. Then, he went home and ate breakfast. He was back again before nine o’clock to take up duty as offertory collector, standing inside the church door with a little wooden box held in his hand or placed on a stool in front of him, and into which the pennies and halfpennies were dropped.

The cemetery, back then, differed totally from that of today. There were about a dozen trees of different varieties growing here and there in no particular order. An imposing sycamore tree stood just to the right inside the gate. In summer its leafy branches afforded much shade but, in autumn, its discarded leaves caused a problem. Following an engineer’s report in 1955 on the church buildings recommending that the trees be removed due to leaf shedding clogging the gutters, the trees were all cut down. But that is another story.

Sunday Tragedy.

The congregation assembled devotedly for Sunday Mass; seldom was there change. That is, until a warm Sunday morning in early July 1934. As my younger brother and I drew near the church there was considerable commotion. The movement of people coming and going around the area under the big sycamore tree was most unusual. Drawing nearer, one perceived a sense shock and drama in every face. Getting closer to the scene, we too were shocked on seeing Neddy Murphy laid down on the grass, divested of his shoes and socks for anointing. Some of his family, who had just come upon the scene, were crying and totally in shock.

He had performed his earlier duties as usual and taken up his stance at the door when he collapsed and was dead before he fell. There was only one elderly spinster who made it her business to be in church before Neddy took up duty and it was she who is supposed to have called the priest who was in the vicinity near the alter. The priest anointed him and summoned a few others, men and women, who were arriving − the women to console Mrs Murphy, the men to arrange to take his body to his home. This was done by procuring a door from the pub near by, placing his body on it and a relay of men carrying him to his home.

Mass was started later than usual that day. There was constant whispering as worshipers could not resist the temptation of referring to the drama that had disturbed the tranquillity of that Sunday morning. The doctor was notified and confirmed that, as he put it, he had been dying for the last week. He would have been in his early sixties and was never known to have complained of any illness but his family recalled that, for some days previously, he had been in poor humour, a bit contrary without reason. The drama of that Sunday morning is still remembered by the few survivors who were witness to the sudden passing of grave digger Neddy Murphy.