Dervla Murphy

The country's most intrepid globetrotter preferred to travel by bicycle, bus, pony and shanks mare.

She is survived by her daughter Rachel and three granddaughters. She was attacked by wolves in the mountains of Yugoslavia on that first journey that would become her first book and a runaway success in 1965 establishing her as a major travel writing force, "Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle”. Since then, in her early 80s, a combination of emphysema and arthritis in her neck had put a stop to her travels and more recently her writing.

President Michael D Higgins has paid tribute to travel writer and touring cyclist Dervla Murphy who has passed away at the age of 90.

Eland Publishing said: “Celebrating and remembering the life-force that was Dervla Murphy, who has died at home at the age of 90. I had the honour of interviewing her for my cycling series, she absolutely beguiled me. “I am heartbroken, one of the great Irish women.

The Waterford writer wrote many books about her journeys abroad – often travelled by bicycle.

While known as Ireland’s most famous travel writer, such a description barely captures the fullness and deep understanding captured in her work. Born in County Waterford, she got her first bike at the age of 10 and became an avid cyclist. Her contribution to writing, and to travel writing in particular, had a unique commitment to the value of human experience in all its diversity.

Devra MurphyThe brave Irish travel writer died at the age of 90. Based in West Waterford, with over 25 books, the author has traveled the world from Peru to ...

At the heart of Irish literary norms, it encourages young people to go out and experience the real world, not just the virtual world, “said her friend Ethel Crawley. A master of straight reportage, she has become a travel writer’s hero, and travel writer Colin Thubron’s “unpretentious, brilliant, honest and accessible” book featuring “simple humor and charm.” I fascinated the reader with what I said. Devra MurphyThe brave Irish travel writer died at the age of 90.

The west-Waterford based author of over 25 books travelled all over the world from Peru to Pakistan, from Africa, India and Siberia to Cuba, Romania, Laos and ...

Although her physical travels stopped in the last years of her life, she continued to read voraciously – both books and online newspapers. In 2011, Murphy spent a month in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, where she met liberals and Islamists, Hamas and Fatah supporters. The uncompromisingly honest travel writing that resulted from that life belongs at the heart of the Irish literary canon, to encourage younger people to go out and experience the real world rather than merely the virtual one,”said her friend Ethel Crowley. She advised intending travellers to use guidebooks to identify the areas most frequented by foreigners and then to go in the opposite direction. In 1992, she cycled from Kenya to Zimbabwe where she witnessed the impact of AIDS (The Ukimwi Road). At one point in Bulgaria she was attacked by wolves and had to shoot them. Over the years her interest in geopolitical developments as they affected remote parts of the earth found expression in her work. In her 30s she had a daughter, Rachel with Terence de Vere White, then literary editor of The Irish Times who was married at the time. “By this time I was established as a writer and had my own home with no mortgage,” she said. In her 20s she attempted to write novels, but soon found that fiction was not her forte. In 1979, she won the Christopher Ewart-Biggs memorial prize for A Place Apart: Northern Ireland in the 1970s (1978) written after time spent with members of the Protestant and Catholic communities there. As a child she enjoyed writing, and gave her parents short stories or essays as Christmas and birthday presents.

Dervla Murphy, the only known woman to successfully cycle from Dunkirk, U.K. to Delhi, India, has died at age 90.

She returned with the story of a lifetime and permanent status as a cycling legend. But the more significant obstacle she overcame must have been the challenge of doing it as a woman in a relatively prehistoric gender rights climate. Murphy endured poor health in her final years, including osteoarthritis, hepatitis, and an immobilizing heart condition. The 32-year-old soon chronicled the adventure in Full Tilt, which became her best-known book. Soon, the 10-year-old made a connection between the two that would become her life’s work. The story goes that she got a second-hand men’s pushbike and an atlas for her 10th birthday.

PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins paid tribute to "Ireland's most famous travel writer" Dervla Murphy, who has died aged 90.

PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins has paid tribute to "Ireland's most famous travel writer" Dervla Murphy, who has died aged 90. Her daughter Rachel accompanied her on several trips, which Ms Murphy captured in books such as, On A Shoestring to Coorg and Muddling Through in Madagascar. Tributes paid to 'Ireland's most famous travel writer' Dervla Murphy

On foot, bicycle, pony and public transport, Murphy visited more than 30 countries.

“She retained a strong interest in those who were suffering throughout the world even up to recent weeks and brought an insightful perspective to matters of politics, environmentalism and the crucial importance of peace. “While known as Ireland’s most famous travel writer, such a description barely captures the fullness and deep understanding captured in her work,” the President said. She was interested in everyone, and boundaries of class and race seemed invisible to her,” said Rose Baring from Eland. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else than my own little bit of west Waterford,” she said. Dervla Murphy, the intrepid Irish travel writer who has died aged 90, said that she was never one for looking ahead. Though supremely well read, she really believed in understanding a place through the words of its inhabitants.

Dervla Murphy died today. She took her first cycling holiday abroad when she was 20, travelling through Wales and the south of England.

While known as Ireland’s most famous travel writer, such a description barely captures the fullness and deep understanding captured in her work. He saluted her 'vital social conscience': "From her 1965 book— which documented her remarkable journey on her bike through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India — to her many works detailing her experiences in locations as varied as Northern Ireland, England, the United States, Russia, Cuba, the Himalayas, the Middle East and across Africa, always an ethical visitor she brought a vital social conscience and respect for those she wrote about. She documented her journery on her bike across Europe and the East in her 1965 book.

She fought off wolves and bandits as she toured the world's remotest and most inhospitable regions by bicycle.

A book on Jordan – to complete the trilogy begun with A Month by the Sea in 2013 – had to be postponed after she fractured her pelvis, and then shelved entirely as other health problems made work impractical. A Place Apart (1978), the book arising from her time speaking to people on both sides of the sectarian divide, arose out of a “sort of guilty feeling” that she had never truly confronted the high emotions and political difficulties evoked by Irish nationalism. The experience put her firmly on the side of the Palestinians; however, she recognised that both sides would have to yield in order to achieve a lasting accord. The summer of 2011 found her in the Gaza Strip, where she spent time in Jewish settlements and in a Palestinian refugee camp. To protect herself on that first overland trip she carried a .25 pistol – which she had cause to fire when she was set upon by a pack of wolves in Romania. On later journeys she left the pistol behind, relying on a penknife and emotional intelligence to get her through sticky situations. She was pelted with rocks in Iran, got “dead drunk” with the head of an Afghan village, and was struck by acute gout, several broken ribs and Hepatitis A while in Madagascar.

The late writer was 'a unit of one', fearless and singular, I learned in our two interviews.

She told me she had no idea how many books she had sold, and I believed her, because she was authentic to her core, and one of the least materialistic people I have met. Afterwards, I bitterly regretted that I hadn’t abandoned my schedule, checked in to the local hotel for the night, and spent the rest of the day drinking with Dervla Murphy and hearing more of her stories. As the afternoon wore on, she replenished her silver torches of beer, and expressed disappointment that I was not joining her. It was experience she craved, and discovering more about people who lived in other countries, and cultures. But she was in fact tremendously brave, and if her life had taken a different direction, she could have been a magnificent foreign correspondent. At some point, I was summoned through the rain to the building that was a kitchen, where she ladled stew into a bowl for me, but ate nothing herself.

Dervla Murphy, Ireland's most famous travel writer, was remembered yesterday for bringing a “vital social conscience” wherever she went after her death at ...

Tributes paid to Irish author whose 1965 work Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle is widely regarded as one of the best travel books ever written.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. Celebrating and remembering the life-force that was Dervla Murphy, who has died at home at the age of 90. Dervla Murphy listened with a super human curiosity and challenged any whisper of inequality with razor sharp wit and well informed arguments.

Dervla Murphy, who has died at the age of 90, was a renowned travel writer who in 1963 left her home in Lismore, Co Waterford, and cycled across Europe and ...

She took travelling across remote areas of the world in her stride, often alone and in the early days armed with a pistol. Dervla was born in Co Waterford in 1931, where her father, Fergus, was the county librarian. In 1968 she became a single mother. In her book On a Shoestring to Coorg, she brought her four-year-old daughter Rachel along for the ride. I never did anything very daring.” “I never did anything that any ordinary person couldn’t do,” she told an interviewer from the Financial Times, earlier this year.