As the lockdown continues across Ireland, communities everywhere are doing their best to keep spirits high. In the parishes of Roundfort, Carras and Robeen in Co Mayo, one man encompasses the meaning of community and is as entertaining as he is comforting.
Fr Michael Murphy, or Fr Mike as he is known locally, has been working day and night, broadcasting mass live for his parishioners. Not only that, but because he is covering three churches, he will still say mass at each church, every day, recognising the importance of keeping everything as normal as possible, especially for older people.
Fr Mike has managed to turn the frowns upside down with hilarious videos giving messages of hope and faith
There’s something about Fr Mike – when you first meet him, he looks like your average priest, wearing a dark shirt and cardigan. He has a good beard that doesn’t go unnoticed when it gets a trim. However, there’s a youthfulness in his conversation and he has an extraordinary ability to hold the attention of even the youngest children.
Having their First Holy Communion day cancelled has upset many eight-year-olds, who were looking forward to this rite of passage. However, Fr Mike has managed to turn the frowns upside down with hilarious videos giving messages of hope and faith, while donning outrageous wigs, covering his beard in colourful decorations and telling jokes.
In addition to that, Easter week is children’s week in Lourdes, France. Usually, he would have led a group of local children and people with special needs in making the pilgrimage. As this was cancelled, he brought the celebrations to them instead. He set up in front of a Grotto, with the help of puppets, a guitar and songs. It was a virtual pilgrimage, bringing Lourdes to Mayo and a special treat for all.
Background
Born in Birmingham to Irish parents Frank and Delia, the Murphy family moved back to Ireland in 1965, at a time when everyone else was going the other direction. Frank bought a pub with an adjoining shop in Kilkelly, Co Mayo, and that’s where Fr Mike and his four brothers were raised.
Fr Mike is an avid GAA fan, and it was because of this that he decided to go to secondary school as a boarder at St Jarlath’s in Tuam, Co Galway.
“I remember my uncle telling me that he heard that the lads in St Jarlath’s play football at school every day and when I heard that, the decision was made,” smiles Fr Mike. In sixth class, he spent three months in Connemara on a Gael Linn scholarship, so he wasn’t one to get homesick.
“I absolutely loved it there, but I didn’t learn a word of Irish the entire time. It was a fantastic experience nonetheless,” he laughs. There were a couple of influences that brought Fr Mike in the direction of the church, and one was the Legion of Mary that he was a part of at St Jarlath’s.
He loved getting out with the leaders to visit different homes, meeting people and working with communities both in Ireland and the UK. The other major, and perhaps unlikely, influence was his father’s pub.
“You see everything in a pub – people call it the university of life, and interestingly, in Maynooth, a whole lot of us came from the background of a pub. It’s probably because you’re seeing things and realising the needs that people might have in their life.”
University
Eventually, Fr Mike entered the seminary in Maynooth in 1979, along with 58 others. He was just 17 years old. “I was probably more mature then in some ways than I am now,” he says. He studied the arts at college and found that the seven years of training flew by.
This was one of his favourite times in life, but it wasn’t always sweetness and light. As some students chose not to continue on the path of the clergy, Fr Mike did question his own decisions.
“About half the guys who started with me would have left along the way and others would have joined – there was never any pressure to stay. The hardest thing was when you would see great guys leaving, you’d know them very well because you were with them the whole time and sometimes you would think, ‘If he’s leaving, why am I still here?’ But you realise that everyone is different. That was definitely one of the harder things.”
Fr Mike spent his summers working in bars and nightclubs in Galway and was often on the receiving end of funny glances when he explained that he was in training to be a priest. Like any other young man, he worked and socialised along with everybody else, but managed to remain true to his faith.
Once he was ordained, Fr Mike started working as the dean of his former secondary school, St Jarlath’s, looking after the boarders. After eight years, the opportunity arose to serve as the chaplain at the newly opened RTC in Castlebar, which is now known as the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology.
“Well, the moment I heard this, I was delighted. I remember thinking on the day I left Maynooth that I’d love to have spent more time in college. Even though I had seven years of it, I absolutely loved it.”
Throughout his time serving at the RTC, Fr Mike was hugely popular amongst the students. As he never lost his love of GAA, he coached football teams and remained very active in supporting students through their endeavours.
Whenever one of the students was taking part in a competition, Fr Mike could always be found in the front row. He also brought a group from the college to the Philippines to work with the Bajau tribe in 1997, and since then has organised trips for many groups, raising thousands of euro for people in the Philippines. As his five-year posting came to an end, Fr Mike was devastated. “I nearly cried when my time was up, I loved it that much,” he says, but as luck would have it, a short time later, he was able to return to the college for a second five-year term.
When Fr Mike finally had to relocate to his current parish, the locals built a great rapport with him. Fr Mike’s sermons are well-composed. He clearly has a flair with a pen, as at funeral attended by Irish Country Living, he composed a poem for his sermon. “Listening to the family talking about their father and husband, I just felt compelled to write this poem,” he said from the pulpit.
Community
Every year, Fr Mike has a parish magazine printed. Indeed, it’s more like a book, with stories, old photographs and memories of the parishioners held within. Each one reads like a time capsule and they’re usually sold out in no time.
Nobody is left out when it comes to regular visits and every year, there is a beautiful outdoor mass held at the cemetery where he blesses each and every grave individually before he leaves. As for weddings, his sermons are often better than the speeches, with humour, jokes and inside knowledge of each couple.
He enjoys people and he’s always involved in community projects, if not leading them entirely. This Easter, during one of the saddest times in living memory, Fr Mike was out there, wigs and all, making sure that everyone in the parish is safe, comforted and entertained.