Dervla Is Dead

                                           Dervla Murphy (1931-2022)

   Pictured above are the two books that I have which are authored by Murphy. You can borrow them. I provide a list of all of her books at the bottom and if you enjoy travel literature, you will appreciate what she has produced. I have already written a bit about her, in the post "On Barfing." It is from an episode in Transylvania and Beyond where she finds herself high in the Bistrita Mountains among some hard-drinking loggers. That book begins, by the way, with Murphy having all her belongings stolen (by the customs officials), but she still decides to keep on going: 

    "At 3 a.m. warmed by hot liquid and kindness, I left the restaurant - feeling an overwhelming compulsion to walk and walk and walk, on and on and on, until bodily exhaustion exorcised emotional pain. Striding east out of Arad, through unlit canyons beyond gaunt rows of high-risery, it suddenly seemed that all of those could not be true, that I was about to wake up. In real life people don't set off in the middle of the night through freezing fog - hatless, ungloved and possessing only a bottle of whiskey - to explore an unknown and recently traumatized country. Until dawn, this strong sense of outrageous improbability persisted; without my gear, I felt as disorientated and vulnerable as an unshelled crustacean." 

   The country was Rumania after it  'opened' in 1989. Murphy was alone and she was almost 60 when this adventure was undertaken.

   Travelling is rather tough these days and none of us are as tough as Dervla Murphy. It is far easier to stay home and read the books of those who are more adventurous.  After the obituaries and Murphy's books you will find some additional books by other very adventurous women. 

Selected Obituaries (there are many):

"Dervla Murphy, Intrepid Author of Travel Books, Dies at 90: She Began Her Prodigious and Free-spirited Career With an Epic Solo Bicycle Journey in 1963 Across Europe to India, Jori Finkel, Washington Post, June 7, 2022.

"Dervla Murphy, an Irish travel writer who began her prodigious career with an epic solo bicycle journey in 1963 across Europe to India and went on to explore vast stretches of the developing world by foot — defying social expectations of women along the way — died on May 22 in her home in Lismore, Ireland. She was 90...."

At home in Lismore, where she lived in a warren of old stone rooms without central heat, she never learned to drive a car or use a computer. She avoided small talk and regularly declined book tours and interviews. “Interviewing Dervla is like trying to open an oyster with a wet bus ticket,” Jock Murray, her first publisher, once said.

She gave up basic comforts when she traveled, often sleeping in a tent and using latrines, and acknowledged being “impervious” to discomfort. “It literally doesn’t matter to me whether I’m sleeping on the floor or on a mattress,” she said in the documentary. “I simply don’t notice the difference. And that really is a big plus when you’re traveling.”

"Dervla Murphy, Irish Travel Writer Who Preferred Her Bike, Dies at 90: A Curious, Intrepid Loner, She Famously Went From Dunkirk Through Europe and Then to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India — Mostly on Two Wheels" Richard Sandomir, New York Times, May 27, 2022

"She became a leading travel writer, a fearless and curious loner who filled her rucksack with pens, a notebook, a light but warm sleeping bag and a change of clothing. Traveling mainly by bicycle but also on foot, by mule and in Jeeps and buses, she spent months at a time in Ethiopia, Peru, Cuba, Israel, Gaza, Madagascar, Nepal, Tibet, Baltistan, South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Romania and Northern Ireland....

When a wolf in Bulgaria was about to attack her, she killed it with a pistol; in Turkey, she wrote, when a “scantily clad” Kurdish intruder bent over her in the moonlight in the hostel room where she was staying, she fired a warning shot into the ceiling and sent him fleeing.

But those experiences did not deter her.

“At times during these past weeks,” she wrote about Afghanistan in “Full Tilt,” “I felt so whole and so at peace that I was tempted seriously to consider settling in the Hindu Kush. Nothing is false there, for humans and animals and earth, intimately interdependent, partake together in the rhythmic cycle of nature. To lose one’s petty, sophisticated complexities in that world would be heaven — but impossible, because of the fundamental falsity involved in attempting to abandon our own unhappy heritage.”

"Travel Writer Who Famously Journeyed Alone From Her Native Ireland to India on a Bicycle, Armed With a Pistol and a Compass, " The Guardian , Veronica Horwell, May 26, 2022.

"Dervla Murphy: Irish Travel Writer Dies Aged 90," May 23, BBC.

"While known as Ireland's most famous travel writer, such a description barely captures the fullness and deep understanding captured in her work."

"Dervla Murphy, ‘Secular Saint’ of Travel Writing, Dies Aged 90: On Foot, Bicycle, Pony and Public Transport, Murphy Visited More Than 30 Countries," Sylvia Thompson, The Irish Times, May 23, 2022.

"A master of straight reportage, she became a hero among travel writers and enthralled readers with what travel writer, Colin Thubron described as her “unpretentious, shiningly honest and accessible” books marked by their “earthy humour and charm”....

In 1979, Murphy 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....

In 2019, the Royal Geographical Society celebrated her work with the Ness Award for the “popularisation of geography through travel literature”. In 2021, she won the prestigious Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing."

"Tributes to Trailblazing Travel Writer, Dervla Murphy, 90," Caroline Delaney, Irish Examiner, May 23, 2022. 

"Dervla Murphy died today. She took her first cycling holiday abroad when she was 20, travelling through Wales and the south of England. The following year she embarked on a five-week continental tour...."

“If your fearless, you don’t need courage." 

"Travel Writer Dervla Murphy, 1931-2022 - Obituary, Kat Hopps and James Murray, The Express, May 29, 2022.

"Asked once why she travelled so much, she said: “I need to get away from the artificial life of the West. When I set out on a journey, my spirits rise. I’m never lonely or frightened.”

"Dervla Murphy," The Sunday Times, May 29, 2022.

"Dervla left school at 14 and spent the next 16 years caring for her arthritic mother. Only when her mother died was she able to embark on the bicycle journey she'd been dreaming of since the age of ten. In 1963 she pedalled from Ireland to India, then wrote about it in her most famous and best loved book, Full Tilt...

In the world of travel writing Dervla was not just unique, she was off the spectrum. She never accepted a commission or advance because it was the travel that mattered, not the book. She wrote her manuscripts on a typewriter, never a computer. If forced to do a publicity tour she would reject the offer of free accommodation and find her own place where she would feel comfortable by being uncomfortable. She had a deeply ingrained dislike of the tourist industry, preferring to travel to the least hospitable corners of little-known countries at the least pleasant time of year to avoid the dreaded "tourists". In fact she revelled in hardship. A reviewer of Muddling Through in Madagascar remarked that her "appetite for discomfort verges on the gothic".

[Travelling now is even tough for us. We have to get through the airports.]

"Murphy Was Spared the Misery of Modern Travel," Brenda Power, The Sunday Times, May 29, 2022. 

"In the week of the travel writer's death at the age of 90, it's tempting to compare the obstacles she faced on trips around the globe with those that confront modern holiday-makers, both visiting and leaving this country. Murphy had little time for tourists, figuring that their trips were less about exploring a new destination than fleeing the mundanity of their own lives. In order to do even this, however, they now face challenges that make bandits and wolves sound like a walk in the park."

Books By Dervla Murphy

(The travel book publisher, ELAND, provides some of her books and a good profile.)
The bolded titles can be found in the Western Libraries.

A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza, 2013, Eland

A Place Apart: Northern Ireland in the 1970s, 1978, John Murray

Between River and Sea: Encounters in Israel and Palestine, 2015, Eland

Cameroon with Egbert,1990, John Murray

Changing the Problem: Post-forum Reflections,1984, The Lilliput Press

Eight Feet in the Andes,1983, John Murray

Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, 1965,John Murray

In Ethiopia with a Mule, 1968,John Murray

Ireland (text by Dervla Murphy and photography by Klaus Francke),1985,Orbis

The Island that Dared: Journeys in Cuba,2008, Eland

Muddling through in Madagascar, 1985,John Murray

One Foot in Laos, 1999, John Murray

On a Shoestring to Coorg: An Experience of South India, 1976, John Murray

Race to the Finish?: The Nuclear Stakes ,1982, John Murray

South from the Limpopo: Travels through South Africa,1997,John Murray

Tales from Two Cities: Travel of Another Sort, 1987, John Murray

One Foot in Laos, 1999, John Murray

Silverland: A Winter Journey Beyond the Urals, 2006, John Murray

Through Siberia by Accident: A Small Slice of Autobiography, 2005, John Murray

Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys, 2002, John Murray

Tibetan Foothold, 1966, John Murray

Transylvania and Beyond,1992, John Murray

The Ukimwi Road: From Kenya to Zimbabwe,1993,John Murray 

Visiting Rwanda,1998, The Lilliput Press

The Waiting Land: A Spell in Nepal,1967, John Murray

Wheels Within Wheels: Autobiography, 1979, John Murray

Where the Indus Is Young: A Winter in Baltistan, 1977, John Murray

(The London Public Library has an audio version of Eight Feet in the Andes and a print copy of The Island That Dared… .)

The Bonus:

While reading the obituaries for Murphy, I remembered Mary Kingsley. Like Murphy, Kingsley was able to begin travelling and exploring only after the death of her parents, for whom she had to care. Her books are older and available to read for free. See, for example: Travels in West Africa and West African Studies. I have mentioned Kingsley before, in the post about "The Guinea Worm."

   For additional exciting travel books written by women see: "Travelling About."  In that post I mention the "Marlboro Travel Series", produced by Northwestern University Press. You will find seventeen more classic travel books by both women and men. I suppose that somewhere I could locate books written by those in other gender categories. Jan Morris came to mind, but she began as James and chose to make the journey from him to her.