Biography:Tom Billy Murphy

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Tom Billy Murphy


     
 Given name:     Tom Billy
 Middle name:     
 Family name:     Murphy
 Place of birth:     Glencollins Upper, Ballydesmond
 Place of death:     Glencollins Upper, Ballydesmond
 Year of birth:     1879
 Year of death:     1944
 Profile:     Composer, Musician
 Source of information:     
     

Biographical notes


TOM BILLY MURPHY (c. 1875-1944) was a blind fiddler who was born and died at Glencollins Upper, Ballydesmond in the Sliabh Luachra region, of the County Cork/Kerry border. Murphy, like his younger contemporary and sometimes rival Pádraig O'Keeffe (1887-1963), was a fiddle teacher and mentor to many area musicians in the first half of the 20th century. He learned many of his tunes from a traveling fiddle player named Taidhgin an Asail (Tadhg O Buachalla or Tadeen the Fiddler), who was also sight-impaired. Murphy was a peripatetic (though not homeless) individual who traveled throughout the region on his donkey, who, as the story goes, knew without guidance exactly which houses to go to for a welcome.