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Thorny Wires

Murphy and O’Sullivan: The Bitterest of Political Rivals

‘Murphy and O’Sullivan’ – it sounds a bit like a firm of Irish builders or an old-style public house in an Irish town back in the early twentieth century. In this case, though, it refers to two men from the Killarney area who were the bitterest of political rivals and whose clashes occurred not only on the hustings at both national and local elections, but also in the courts on a number of occasions. With its origins just a few years before the establishment of Dáil Éireann, theirs was a mutual antagonism almost without parallel in that parliament. It reached its peak when a petition was launched to unseat the successful candidate in the Westminster election for the constituency of East Kerry in 1910, despite John Murphy and Eugene O’Sullivan being members of the same party. They did, however, represent different approaches and attitudes to politics and their careers contribute to the body of evidence that contradicts the commonly held view that there had been no significant ideological differences between Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal (later Fine Gael) and that the Civil War alone was the point of fracture at which their paths diverged.

After the foundation of the state, Murphy became active in Fianna Fáil, whereas O’Sullivan, despite maintaining his position as an Independent, was embedded in the Cumann na nGaedheal community. O’Sullivan was a cousin of Professor John Marcus O’Sullivan (the son of Michael, a brother of Tim O’Sullivan, who was elected to parliament for the East Kerry constituency in the general election of August 1910) and Dr Billy ‘Gogo’ O’Sullivan, who won his seat in Seanad Éireann and became the leader of Fine Gael in the chamber. Professor O’Sullivan served as Minister of Education from 1926 to 1932. There was another man named John Marcus O’Sullivan involved in politics in this period – Eugene’s brother – who was elected to Kerry Council in 1926 and 1928. The Cumann na nGaedheal party did not contest local elections as a party, but members stood as Independents, ratepayers or farmers.

John Murphy was the elder by five or six years and he was the first into the political field. He stood unopposed for the East Kerry seat in parliament in 1900, as a representative of the Irish Parliamentary Party. A member of the Transport Union for many years, the bulk of Murphy’s contributions to debates in Westminster were devoted to instances of Kerry people being evicted from their lands. In 1907, he was instrumental in the re-instatement of Dan O’Shea to his farm at Cleeney, Killarney, from which he had been evicted in 1887 by Lord Kenmare. Murphy was co-opted to both Kerry County and Killarney Urban councils in the opening years of the twentieth century. He replaced Thomas Kearney (deceased) for the Scartaglin Electoral Division to the county council early in 1901 and was then selected to replace Michael O’Sullivan, the Emporium owner – and Eugene O’Sullivan’s employer – on Killarney Urban District Council, following the businessman’s death on Christmas Eve of 1902. So it seems that Murphy had the support of the O’Sullivan family at this time. He did not contest the Urban Council election in 1905 and he had no further involvement in politics for some time. Murphy was returned from the Killarney Electoral Division to Kerry County Council in the election of 1902, beating Maurice Leonard, who would, ironically, be declared disqualified from holding his seat on Killarney Urban Council in 1909. He was re-elected to the county council for Killarney in 1905 and again in 1908, unopposed in his candidacy on both occasions, but he did not contest the division in June 1911 when J.T. O’Connor (of whom more follows) took the seat, defeating James Maher-Loughnan and another candidate.

In the meantime, Eugene O’Sullivan had left his home in Firies to work in the drapery owned by a family cousin, Michael O’Sullivan of the Emporium on Main Street. Eugene was a talented footballer too, captaining Dr Croke’s to the Kerry County Championship in 1901 and winning a Munster Championship title with Kerry in 1902. From an early stage, he demonstrated a gift for leadership. He would later become part of the Kerry County Board, the Munster Council and Central Council, take the chair of his GAA club and the Fitzgerald Memorial Committee, which was responsible for the development of the football ground in Killarney. He was also a skilful snooker player and a tough rowing competitor, as well as a strong orator, a particularly beneficial talent in that age, when mass rallies and marching bands were essential ingredients of election campaigns.

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Paddy MacMonagle, the local historian, believed that while Eugene O’Sullivan did support John Murphy initially in politics, the pair fell out somewhat abruptly. This became apparent in 1905 when Murphy, then an MP, instituted a libel action against Quinnell & Sons, the publishers of the Kerry News, in relation to a letter signed by Eugene O’Sullivan alleging that funds collected on behalf of the United Irish Party (the constituency organisation of the Irish Parliamentary Party) had not been promptly transferred to the treasurer. While the piece did not name Murphy, the jury at the Four Courts in Dublin agreed that it was clear that he was the person referred to and entered a decision that a libel had been committed. However, it also held that there had been no malice on the part of the publishers and damages of one farthing, the very minimum figure, were awarded to Murphy.1 During the proceedings, the plaintiff stated that O’Sullivan had turned against him because he had used his casting vote in favour of another candidate, over O’Sullivan, when the position of clerk at the Killarney Asylum was being filled. This was just the opening skirmish in a series of many.

The next general election was set for 27 March 1906. The convention to nominate the candidate to represent the Irish Parliamentary Party in East Kerry took place on 8 January at Killarney Town Hall. It was a fractious meeting, with Murphy and O’Sullivan claiming that branches and individuals had not been accredited; it broke up in confusion after Murphy and his supporters marched out. A second convention also ended without any decision being arrived at. At the end of January, the party leader John Redmond sent a telegram declaring that, as the two conventions had ‘failed through irregularities and disorder’ to select a candidate, the party ‘must decline to further interfere in the present election’, demonstrating a certain amount of frustration with the two warring factions.2 The row must have been a considerable embarrassment for John Redmond as John Murphy served as Redmond’s secretary for a period. However, whichever candidate was elected would presumably support the Irish Party in parliament in any event. Both men contested the election and commenced extensive canvasses of the constituency. When the result of the election was declared, Murphy had polled 2,185 and O’Sullivan 2,131, giving the incumbent the seat by the close margin of fifty-four votes. The scene was already set for the dramatic rematch.

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Five years later, in 1911, Eugene O’Sullivan won his seat on Killarney Urban District Council after the outgoing member, Tim O’Sullivan – Michael’s son – decided not to put his name forward. At the first meeting the following week, O’Sullivan was nominated to take the position of chairman by Councillor Charlie Foley, the New Street publican, and seconded by James O’Shea. John Hilliard was also nominated. O’Sullivan won by 6–5, but Hilliard declared that O’Sullivan was a disqualified individual, for reasons that will be explained later. O’Sullivan certainly had a way of locating political enemies. John Hilliard was the head of a family that owned substantial businesses in Killarney and Tralee. A member of the Church of Ireland community, he also bred Kerry cattle on the extensive Hilliard lands, but despite the pre-eminence of the family name in Killarney, he never succeeded in being elected (legitimately) as chairman of the town council.

John Maher-Loughnan, the proprietor of the Royal Victoria Hotel, whom O’Sullivan replaced as chairman after a three-year spell, was another firm and constant opponent. He had also declined the opportunity to run for re-election in 1911, but he and O’Sullivan would have several encounters in courtrooms over property issues in the coming years. The Loughnan family had developed the hotel on the Kenmare Estate in the nineteenth century and the first telephone exchange in Killarney was located at the hotel in 1907, before transferring to New Street. However, the Maher-Loughnans were regarded as being fond of the good things in life and in October 1915, John was obliged to seek the protection of the Court of Bankruptcy. He obtained his discharges in July 1916, but he had to put the three farms up for auction in order to re-establish the hotel business. By October 1918, Lord Kenmare was seeking possession of the hotel premises over non-payment of rent.

In April 1920, the Master of the Rolls granted Eugene O’Sullivan the authority to sell land at Gortroe and other lands, having become the owner of the mortgage of the properties. John Maher-Loughnan’s case was that he had fought in the war and been badly wounded and this had damaged his finances. But the tide was already turning on the family. There are pitiful accounts of the remaining members of the family departing from their home at Gortroe House in January 1931. In 1960, Beatrice Grosvenor built the Castlerosse Hotel on the site where the Royal Victoria had stood.

At the meeting in 1911, O’Sullivan duly accepted the position of chairman, a position he held until 1918, when the Sinn Féin surge resulted in Sinn Féin representatives gaining control of all the local authorities for a period. O’Sullivan was re-elected to the chair in 1926 and remained in the post until his death in 1942. He won the bulk of his legal battles with the Maher-Loughnan family and fared better than Murphy in the eventual analysis.

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But this is all running ahead of events as they happened, for, fresh from their battles during the 1906 general election, Murphy and O’Sullivan again fought for the parliamentary seat in East Kerry at the general election of 1910. Before this could occur, however, there was another contest to win the party nomination. The party convention was scheduled for 5 January and the two protagonists held a series of political meetings around the constituency in preparation. The Kerry People, operated by the Ryle family, was one of the newspapers circulating in the county and it covered the events of the time in great detail. In December 1909, Eugene O’Sullivan sought to address the ordinary meeting of the Tralee Board of Guardians and Rural District Council and was afforded the opportunity to make what was an extraordinary contribution. It was an unusual forum and an unlikely vehicle for his comments.3 He had developed his nationalism, he said, ‘not in the bye-ways in Killarney’, although in the following edition of the Kerry People he insisted that he had actually said was ‘the byways of a Solicitor’s office in Killarney’. Either way, two of the members of the board asked him to withdraw, but O’Sullivan continued: ‘I have stated a bold fact. I got my patriotism among the moonlighters of Firies (hear, hear). I am proud of the fact. I have the blood, the bone and the sinew of moonlighters, and if any individual man here wishes to test the material of that blood, and bone and sinew, I am here (hear, hear).’

This clearly referred to one of the most controversial incidents of the Land War in Kerry, which occurred in Molahiffe, Firies, in November 1885. The practice of paying late-night visits to individuals regarded as having taken possession of land from which others had been evicted had developed in the nineteenth century, initially through organisations such as the Whiteboys, but by this time, the use of the term ‘moonlighter’ had become more prevalent. On the night in question, twenty-five years earlier, a group of moonlighters entered the home of a vice-president of the local Land League, John O’Connell Curtin, in search of guns. Castle Farm was a substantial holding of around 250 acres and Curtin was a man in his sixties. Two of his daughters were also in the house. The entire family responded with fury to this invasion of their home. In the dark, shots were discharged and the elderly farmer and one of the raiders were shot dead. Two men convicted of taking part in the attack on the house were sentenced to penal servitude for life and the matter caused a huge division in the mid-Kerry area, which lingered for a considerable time. The two young Curtin women were boycotted – when they arrived to attend Mass, people got up and left – and the farm was eventually sold in February 1887. The 1909 report in the Kerry People demonstrates O’Sullivan’s dramatic attempts to outdo Murphy’s record of supporting tenants.

On a more humorous note, O’Sullivan’s capacity to declare the breadth and extent of his kin in Kerry (the Emporium O’Sullivans, Dr Billy O’Sullivan from Batterfield and the nationalist figure and first Leas Cheann Comhairle of the Dáil, J.J. O’Kelly (Sceilg) were definitely relatives) afforded Murphy a chance to create mirth at his opponent’s expense. At some point O’Sullivan claimed that the poet Eoghan Rua Ó Suilleabháin was among his forebears. John Murphy’s riposte was that it was well known that the eighteenth-century Sliabh Luachra man had never married. But O’Sullivan’s claim regarding his connection to the Firies incident that had occurred a quarter of a century earlier certainly contributed to raising the stakes in the electoral contest.

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It was clear that the 1910 general election convention was going to be a fraught affair and so 150 policemen were rostered for duty in the environs of the town hall. Despite this, several ‘little skirmishes’ broke out. At midday, a prominent member of the United Irish Party (the parliamentary wing of the organisation), James Timothy O’Connor, approached O’Sullivan and asked him if he was prepared to abide by the decision of the convention. Not if Mr O’Connor was involved, O’Sullivan replied, since he was a Murphy supporter. O’Connor then convened the election in the yard at the back of the town hall and J.K. O’Connor, the Castleisland businessman and county councillor, proposed John Murphy. James J. O’Shea, also a county councillor, seconded and Murphy was ratified unanimously and commenced his speech of acceptance. J.K. O’Connor also suffered the ignominy of being disqualified from his seat in the Castleisland Electoral Division. Following the county council elections in 1908, he was found guilty of providing drink and other inducements to voters, a matter that earned him mention in debates in Westminster (see Chapter 3).

In the meantime, another meeting had commenced in front of the town hall, where Jeremiah Crowley, a rural district councillor from Scartaglin, proposed Florence O’Sullivan from Ballyfinane to chair the meeting; he had chaired Killarney Rural Council for many years. This also afforded Crowley a seat on the county council to supervise proceedings and another county councillor, Cornelius Kelliher from Headford, proposed Eugene O’Sullivan as the candidate. At the national level, the party appears to have decided again to simply let the two men fight it out in their own theatre, so both men went on the ballot paper again for the right to represent East Kerry. At the conclusion of the count, O’Sullivan was declared the victor by 489 votes, 2,643 to 2,154. Murphy, whose wife had been unwell during the campaign, now submitted his petition to unseat the winning candidate because of alleged vote rigging and intimidation. This was not an unusual step for defeated candidates, but it cost £1,000 to lodge a petition, a substantial sum of money at the time. Murphy alleged thirty-nine instances of voter personation, including one in which O’Sullivan had persuaded a young man named O’Shea to vote in place of his late father and one in which O’Sullivan had actually personated another man. All of these charges were dismissed.

However, Judges Madden and Kenny both referred to the expression ‘the blood, bone and sinew of the moonlighters’ in the respondent’s address to the Tralee Board of Guardians in determining that Patrick Daly, one of O’Sullivan’s supporters, had subjected people to intimidation. Evidence of stone-throwing, kicking voters and the discharge of a revolver were not considered to have been proven and the judges found against any corrupt practice by either O’Sullivan or his supporters on the majority of the charges.. They did, however, hold that O’Sullivan and his agents had engaged in the corrupt practice of intimidation and undue influence in one instance. The election was thus declared void and the result was set aside. Seven men were named along with O’Sullivan as having been involved in the affair and all of them were disqualified from holding public office for seven years. This obviously meant that Eugene O’Sullivan was barred from public office (although he was subsequently able to defeat this sanction and was elected to Killarney Urban Council and became chairman in 1911).

At the Killarney Petty Sessions in August 1910, Eugene O’Sullivan, John Ulick O’Sullivan and Patrick Daly were charged with using excessive influence upon eleven men in the election. The magistrates directed that they were unable to agree on the case against O’Sullivan and they refused to send any of the cases forward for trial. However, Headford farmer Cornelius Kelliher was convicted of corrupt practice in September and disqualified from holding the seat he had won on the county council. Murphy subsequently took the matter further and attempted to have O’Sullivan’s name removed from the register of electors. In October 1910, at Killarney courthouse, Judge Browne held against the appellant and allowed O’Sullivan to remain on the list of voters.

With O’Sullivan disqualified, the East Kerry seat at Westminster remained empty and the writ to conduct the poll again had not been moved by the time a second election of the year was called for 8 December 1910. Eugene’s cousin, Tim M. O’Sullivan, standing as an Independent nationalist, won the seat, defeating Patrick Guiney from Kanturk, who represented the All-For-Ireland League. Tim and his brother Professor John Marcus (later a government minister) married two Crotty sisters, Luisa and Agnes respectively, from Lismore in Waterford. Tim was a director of R. Hilliard & Sons and played a part in the first Irish full-length film, The Dawn, made in Killarney by Tom Cooper in 1936.

But the sparring between Murphy and O’Sullivan continued. The Killarney Echo and South Kerry Chronicle, owned by the Quinnell family, gave John Murphy a column on the front page of the paper in September 1913 and continued to run it until 1919. In January 1914, following the Urban Council election, the opinion piece entitled ‘Murphy on Places, Persons and Public Affairs’ stated:

People in Killarney are surprised how Messrs James T. O’Connor, Eugene O’Sullivan, Cornelius Collins and Cornelius Counihan got at the head of the list. Of course, these elections, it is to be regretted, are never a test of anything, as there is practically no opposition, and certainly in Killarney there never was less public interest manifested in them. The strange thing, however, is that four gentlemen who in all matters were supposed to be as far apart as North, South, East and West, came out on top.4

Later in the piece, there is a more direct reference to O’Sullivan: ‘There are already rumours about the qualifications of Urban Councillors being tested in Killarney. I think I will test Mr Eugene O’Sullivan’s right to remain in the Urban Council myself.’ He goes on to suggest that his erstwhile opponent should have been disqualified as he had been a paid officer of the county council and as recently as early January 1914 had acted as a member of the County Kerry Technical Committee, ‘which of course he was disqualified from doing’. Whether he did test this or not, O’Sullivan remained in situ. The Cork Constitution newspaper made a mischevious comment on the outcome of the petition: ‘The two unseated English Ministerialists have been raised in the peerage, and we shall probably hear Mr Craig one of these days asking the Prime Minister whether he intends to follow this precedent in the case of Mr Eugene O’Sullivan, who is also a pledged Ministerial supporter.’ Charles Craig was a unionist MP and father of the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Viscount Craigavon.

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There was a setback for Eugene O’Sullivan, however, when the Irish Volunteers in Killarney decided to hold a fresh election of officers following an upsurge of membership in September 1914. O’Sullivan was identified as being more closely aligned with the authorities than the segment that was drilling with the intention of fighting for Irish freedom and was regarded with suspicion by many of the newer Volunteers. He did seem to misjudge the situation and Killarney Volunteers leaders Michael O’Sullivan and Michael Spillane give a colourful account of his bid to become the chairman in their joint contribution to the Military Archives. One needs to take a jaundiced view of the recollections of those speaking thirty-four years after the events described and, besides, Eugene was not, at this point, in a position to respond to their version of events, having died eighteen years previously, but it does at least paint an outline of what occurred. It is stated that O’Sullivan had canvassed the existing officers to ask them to withdraw in favour of his nomination for the chair beforehand. He arrived at the meeting ‘at the head of from 30 to 40 men, and more or less took the hall by storm’. But things did not transpire as he had hoped:

Michael Spillane was then proposed and seconded and he then took the chair. Eugene O’Sullivan protested and claimed it as his right, as Chairman of the Urban Council, to be appointed Captain of the Volunteers. Spillane replied, ‘I do not want the job but if the men want me, I will act.’ O’Sullivan replied, ‘I know that, and you would be surprised how much I know’ … Spillane then asked all who wanted him as Captain to go to the right of the hall. There were very few left for O’Sullivan and he left the hall, after pouring abuse at An Seabhac, with a good deal less followers than came with him.5

‘An Seabhac’ was Pádraig Ó Siochfradha from Dingle, a teacher who was giving classes in Irish in Killarney and who was elected chairman of the county council in 1920 after Sinn Féin won the election. He wrote under the name ‘An Seabhac’ (The Hawk), Jimín Máire Thaidhg and An Baile Seo Gainne being his best-known works, and he later served in the Seanad from 1944 to 1948. John Murphy clearly identified with the republican element and in early 1918 Spillane and O’Sullivan refer to him chairing an anti-conscription meeting in Killarney.

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Tensions between the principal protagonists eased for a substantial period in the second decade of the twentieth century. Eugene O’Sullivan was settling into a spell of being routinely re-elected chairman of Killarney UDC, although he confronted a challenge of a rather unusual nature on 23 January 1917.6 At 11am, Councillor O’Sullivan and his supporters arrived at the chamber for the election. Denis J. Courtney proposed and David Hurley seconded O’Sullivan for the chair and he was duly re-elected. William Ahern proposed and Mr Courtney seconded Con Counihan for the vice-chair and he was also deemed elected. However, at midday, John Hilliard and the other councillors arrived. Another meeting was begun and Thaddeus T. O’Connor proposed Mr Hilliard as chairman, a motion seconded by Peter Huggard, ironically the man who had been co-opted to fill the seat when Maurice Leonard had been disqualified in 1909. T.T. O’Connor was then elected (also unopposed) to the position of vice-chairman.

Eugene O’Sullivan MP.

John Murphy MP and his wife, Anne (née McCarthy) (Seán Murphy).

Hilliard then handed the acting clerk – none other than John Murphy – a message requiring a letter be sent to the Lord Chancellor, requesting that he, Hilliard, be appointed a magistrate, having been elected chairman. Murphy endeavoured to contact the council solicitor, Maurice McCartie, but he was in court in Cahersiveen. McCartie had been Eugene O’Sullivan’s solicitor in the petition to unseat proceedings following the general election in 1910. The Lord Chancellor, though, declined to intervene, referring the matter to the Local Government Board for adjudication. In the meantime, O’Sullivan convened a meeting at which Michael Murray was appointed town clerk. Hilliard, however, wished to have John Murphy appointed to the position, but the situation was ultimately resolved, again, in favour of Eugene O’Sullivan.

There had also been an associated, tense battle involving rival supporters of the two men for the chairmanship of the county council two years earlier. The protagonists in this instance were another two Killarney members, James O’Shea and James T. O’Connor, one of those elected to the very first council in 1899 who had confronted O’Sullivan about respecting the decision of the meeting at the selection convention in 1906. O’Shea, a dairy farmer from Gortahoonig, Muckross had contested the position with M.J. Nolan the previous year and had been none too gracious about the matter following his defeat. However, when confronted by a well-known supporter of Murphy’s, good grace did not enter the matter for one moment. O’Shea had been elected for the Aghadoe ED in 1914 (having narrowly lost in 1911). As chairman of Killarney Rural District Council, he was already entitled to sit as a member, but he was also elected in the poll. He challenged the incumbent George O’Gorman in 1908 and won, but in 1911, the Ballyhar man came back to win by a single vote following a recount.

As one would almost anticipate in this tale of vexatious rivalry, O’Gorman had been the man who had attempted to propose Eugene O’Sullivan at the uncompleted Irish Party convention in 1906. At the 1915 county council meeting, chairman Nolan called the meeting to order with a full schedule of members present. Fireworks had been expected and the chairman indicated that he was not putting his name forward on this occasion. John J. Sheehan (Sneem Electoral Union) proposed J.T. O’Connor for the chair and P.J. Moynihan (Headford) seconded. James O’Shea was nominated by Michael J. O’Donnell (Castlegregory, later also a member of Fianna Fáil) and John Healy (Ardfert) seconded. For a moment, it seemed as if war could be averted when the ‘father of the house’, Edward Fitzgerald from Cahersiveen, was asked to allow his name to go forward, but he declined after a quick discussion with O’Connor.

The vote was called and O’Connor was declared the winner by 18–8. He addressed the members and thanked those who had voted for him, including Fitzgerald, who had withdrawn in his favour. James O’Shea rose ‘on a point of order’. He began by explaining his reasons for contesting the position and then referred to the 1914 election: ‘I went forward then, with the same belief as I have now – and time has proved – that the man I opposed was not a suitable man for the chair of this council.’ Uproar ensued. When he resumed, he said that he could contest again in 1916 and then stated ‘that the man who sits in the chair is not a proper or suitable man; he is not a just man.’7

In the shouting that ensued, the chairman was heard to say, ‘yerra, let him at it’. And O’Shea obliged, suggesting that his opponent was not an honourable man. O’Connor responded, ‘Now Jamesy, take it as well as you gave it,’ and drew attention to a number of other matters. O’Shea tried to get in a response, but the chairman moved to the election of the vice-chairman, which went to Jack McKenna, who was elected unopposed. As the Listowel man rose to accept the position, Healy and O’Donnell asked that O’Shea be allowed to speak and O’Connor asked O’Shea if he would withdraw and allow McKenna to be heard. He declined and, in the hubbub that followed, was heard to say, ‘your vote in this room was never a vote for fair play. You were always an advocate for the poor man’s son, but when it came to a question of the poor man’s son, you voted against him’. Eventually order was restored and the meeting continued.

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We move to the 1920s and the formative years of the Irish Free State. Eugene O’Sullivan reclaimed his position as chairman of Killarney Urban District Council in 1926 and continued to be re-elected until his death at the Imperial Hotel in Killarney on 29 May 1942. The month before he passed away, it emerged that six of the ten members of Killarney Urban District Council were disqualified from holding their seats because they had not paid their rates and the chairman had also made himself ineligible to sit in the chamber as he had not attended a meeting for over six months. He was, however, not in good health and attendance at meetings of the council was very low at this point in any event. The month after O’Sullivan died, the urban council was suspended and a commissioner was appointed and remained in place for three years.

O’Sullivan became the chairman of the Board of Killarney Mineral Waters and a member of Killarney Race Company. He also headed the first united farming association in Kerry in 1929 (Kerry Farmers’ Union and Marketing Association) and chaired the committee that organised the National Ploughing Championships in Killarney in 1939. But he also made one further attempt to advance his political career, standing as an Independent candidate in the first general election of 1927 (June). His cousin John Marcus O’Sullivan was a candidate too, but Eugene came in ninth in the poll, with 2,405 votes and was only eliminated on the ninth count. Perhaps he should have pursued this ambition by formally joining the government party, for when the electors were summoned to vote again the following September, Cumann na nGaedheal had one of its most successful elections in Kerry: Fionán Lynch and John Marcus were at the head of the poll and the party took 39.9 per cent of the vote, which would never happen again.

John Murphy did adopt a political alliance, joining Fianna Fáil shortly after the party came into being. There was a particularly troubled Fianna Fáil meeting in Knocknagoshel on 12 September 1927, which resulted in him being charged with ‘falsely accusing a person of a crime punishable by law’, along with Patrick J. Tuohy of Dublin, the Fianna Fáil organiser for Kerry. Also charged was Eamon Horan, the former Brigadier-General of the National Army and Clann Éireann candidate in the general election, who was charged under the Treason Clause of the Public Safety Act. He was present as Clann Éireann had entered into an agreement to support Fianna Fáil in the Dáil. All three were remanded to Limerick Prison, but when the case came before the District Court in Tralee later that month, the state entered a nolle prosequi against the two Fianna Fáil men.8 John Murphy died at his home in High Street – the Park Place Hotel – on 17 April 1930, in relatively reduced circumstances, his grandnephew, Seán, said.

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There was an expression years ago used to describe a person given to fractious behaviour: ‘a thorny wire’. The story of the antagonism between Murphy and O’Sullivan, not to mention a number of the other people mentioned here, makes it clear that there were quite a number of thorny wires engaged in politics in Killarney during this period. Whatever provoked their intense dislike for one another, Murphy and O’Sullivan were both responsible for exacerbating the tension, seemingly rarely missing the opportunity to seek to put each other down. They were both able to generate considerable loyalty among their supporters and they certainly made the Kerry political scene a colourful one for many years. The rivalry even persists to this day, to some degree, in that hallowed arena of Gaelic football. While Eugene O’Sullivan joined Dr Croke’s when he came to town and certainly contributed much to the club’s early triumphs, the Murphys are a committed Legion family and Seán’s bar on College Street celebrates this in vivid green and white. Other political rivalries have developed in Kerry over the years, some stretching over generations, some between members of the same parties, but none of them has ever reached the extremes that Murphy and O’Sullivan achieved, either on their own or through their followers.