“It’s a vice of mine never to think of danger until it is well past,” wrote Kathleen M Murphy, as she followed an “irresistible” path into the Peruvian jungle. The year was 1939 and her curiosity was ebullient. During the previous decade she had wandered through the deserted temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, drunk an infusion of cocaine prepared by her landlady in Bolivia, and been tossed around “like the ball in a game of rugby” when sailing north of the Arctic Circle.
Her adventurous spirit remained with her throughout her life. Standing on a quayside in Ostend, Belgium, aged 80, she describes asking to be directed to the bus for Moscow as “a distinctively thrilling moment”.
These stories are among 12 travelogues featured in Unaccompanied Traveler, The Writings of Kathleen M Murphy, a first collection of her work, edited by Patrick Bixby. Born in Tulla, Co Clare, in 1879, Murphy was educated in Laurel Hill convent, Limerick and in University College Dublin, where she started studying for a degree in the same term as James Joyce. During the years that followed she wrote poetry and later settled in Birr, Co Offaly, her base until her death in 1962.
Murphy’s travels appear to have started in earnest in 1928, following the death of her mother. In 1948 she started publishing her travel articles in the Irish periodical, The Capuchin Annual, continuing until 1963 when her final article, an account of a journey through the Balkan states, was published posthumously. Her travel writing encompassed her lifelong interest in the arts, archaeology and history.
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Her Catholic faith was also a constant touchstone and she sought out familiar rituals wherever she went. In Memorable Masses in Many Lands, Murphy mentions 60 places where she felt at home, “enfolded in the tender arms of ... the Church”. These range from Aleppo, Syria and Manaus in the Amazon rainforest to the restaurant compartment of a train from Shanghai to Beijing.
Prefaced with a comprehensive biography of Murphy and a contextualisation of her work, Bixby is to be commended for reminding us that adventurous women have long been part of Irish history. One hopes there is more to come about this remarkable woman.
