Donie Murphy is a local historian and farmer from Newmarket in Co Cork. He has, for over forty years, collected local history and is author of the book ‘Men of the South’, a book on the War of Independence, published in 1991.

“I had several jobs - I was a soldier, policeman, security guard, quality controller, general worker, truck driver and van salesman,” Donie told The Avondhu when he came to Mitchelstown to speak to the local Writers Group and Book Club there on foot of the launch of his new book, ‘The Footprints’..

“One day when I came home at 11am after the company director refused to pay me overtime for the previous three weeks, his excuse being that in the month of May, he ‘paid no overtime - only gave a Christmas bonus’. I said ‘the truck is yours, drive it, I am out of here’. When I came home, my father (RIP) who was very fixed in his ways, described me as ‘a rolling stone that would never gather moss’. I left for England and joined the police force there where I acquired good experience that later helped me as a collector of history.

Regarding his new book, ‘The Footprints’, Donie says: “The footprints appeared thirty-two years after the murder of James Rourke who was shot and died in July 1888. The gunman, who died a hero in New York as a fireman, lost his life when he entered a burning building to rescue people inside. Next morning, his footprints were seen on the ditch in Glenamuckla, Newmarket where the murder had taken place. The Parish Priest blessed them and stated they would last a hundred years,” Donie explains. He goes on: “Down through the years the prints were dug up and the ditch was even knocked but when the grass grew, the footprints have always reappeared,” he says, adding that they are there to this day. “Only God could do that," Donie points out.

FOLKLORE

 The Newmarket author says the big problem is that several folklore versions of that story exist.

“Many people researching the story have believed the local tales; a few had short stories published in local magazines etc. All had the wrong date and it took me up to twenty years to get both the murder report and inquest report, but I got them. The murder was never solved. Over the years I was hoping some research student with more time and money would take on the story as a thesis for an MA or PHD.”

Donie has given a number of historical talks on the subject, has been on local radio C103, Kerry Radio and RTE’s Radio 1 talking about it and this year in October, has a full programme on it in ‘Where The Road Takes Me’ with John Greene (C103).

JOHN MANDEVILLE

John says he came across the name of John Mandeville when he was a van salesman in the mid to late seventies.

“I have about seventeen pages of my own research on him, not one word of it taken from other stories on him. He was unusual when you consider that most of the farmers he fought for, were tenant farmers while he himself had 100 acres freehold.

“I also have Fr Michael B Kennedy, a native of Mitchelstown in the book and I would love to know if has he any relatives around Mitchelstown now? During the Land War he was curate in Meelin, just a few miles from where I live. Jailed twice in 1888, he gave great leadership to his people. He was later curate in Blarney, Dungourney and Fermoy where he died in 1912. There is a fine monument to Fr Kennedy in the old Christian Brothers School in Fermoy.

Donie says he also has another native of Mitchelstown featured in the book - Fr Casey who was PP of Abbeyfeale who was instrumental in setting up the famous calf market in the Co Limerick town.

“I also have the Glenlara/Newmarket murder covered, in that the famous moonlighter John Twiss from Castleisland was hanged in the wrong. I have a lot of new evidence in that case.

AMAZED

Donie says he has read a lot of the books and watched the film on The Turin Shroud that has had years of research and hundreds of millions (of money) spent on it.

“The Alive Catholic Church magazine in June of this year stated that a leading scientist who was involved in the investigation on The Shroud in the late seventies said they had to date, failed to find any conclusive evidence.

“The Shroud is kept locked up, with several doors outside it and Security Guards minding it all the year round and is only seen on rare occasions. Yet, just three miles from where I live, in a very wild boggy mountain area where a poor labourer was shot over a hundred and twenty five years ago, the footprints of the man that did the shooting are there to this day. Only God could keep them there. I visit the spot regularly and say a decade of the Rosary there. I have visited during a good fall of snow, and yet, after the snow drifted, the two footprints were there clear as could be.”

‘The Footprints’ is available locally at Hyland’s Bookshop, Mitchelstown.

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