I HAD already heard about Rory Murphy when I first laid eyes on him. He had already issued the call-up cry with unprecedented urgency to the young people on the land. No one was worse wanted at that very time in our phase of development than this young phenomenal dynamo from Ballynavockran.

It was the early fifties and an introductory meeting had been arranged for the Talbot Hotel, Wexford, in order to create an all embracing farming organisation.

I went along with my father and uncle. Like Rory himself, I was of a different and later generation, born and reared in an independent Ireland. The greater bulk of the men present (I do not remember it single woman) were socially humble and hugged the rear of the hall. Ropes would not have dragged them up to the front rows of seats. They puffed cigarettes and pipes. 'The idea of' standing up and saying something would have killed many stone dead. Clergymen, progressive farmers of big acreage, degree holders or retired English army officers were automatically promoted office holders at any meeting around the county then. It was painful for a newly emancipated generation to watch.

There was a reason for this. The generation of our elders had been the sons and grandsons of evictable farmers. Sixty years previously, there had been mass evictions in County Wexford and many of the evicted were still alive. To owe money was terrifying still. Great numbers of land dwellers carried that dead albatross around their shoulders.

Into this suffocating atmosphere in the Talbot Hotel strode the lithe youth from Ballynavockran.

I do not remember another orator from that night but the memory of Rory Murphy will never leave me.

When called on to speak, he reacted like a coiled spring. It was as if he was about to collar the audience by the throat. He did not speak from a static position, he moved up and back from the platform. I recall that he had a rolled newspaper in his right hand which he brandished like a sword. His voice cracked like lightning. It was very clear. It was more than urgent, it was insistent. He blew the cobwebs off the brains in that audience. It was as if he had opened all the big windows and let in the gale wind from Tuskar. He explained, he insisted, he urged, he warned. No doubt he had many nights of greatness and success but on that night, he was at the height of his power and effectiveness. Before that ageing audience he must have seemed like a trumpeter of defiance and a prophet of regeneration. He was no more than twenty two or twenty three years of age.

There was no going back. The N.F.A., a parliament for people on the land, was formed and then in embryo. People lifted their hearts and spirit that night, even if still mystified by his youth. Was he a hot head?, a jump-up? a whippersnapper looking for attention? Was he genuine?

Rory's subsequent track record has been amply dealt with on these pages last week while Dan Walsh also paid a moving tribute to the multi -talented man who left school at fourteen but educated himself. It's possible that his audience on that dramatic night were not fully aware that young Rory Murphy

had already recruited and organised the young generation of boys and girls on the land in Macra na Feirme. To do this he cycled from Ballynavockran, Bunclody, to places as far south as Trinity and back home again into the dawn light. This was a self-stimulated, voluntary, unpaid crusade of pure patriotism. We will never see the like again Rory Murphy had talents of national significance. He could have made cabinet minister, or even more.

That he did not is a puzzle. Did he shine too soon? Did he suffer from the impatience of saddled youth? Was he obstructed by older heavyweights who exhausted his ambition? Were his several talents dissipated over so many fields that specialisation or focus was lost? Would the gray cynics of his youth have decided that he was too clever by half? Whatever the reason, frustration must have played a part for the bright lights of dazzling success grew dim.

Those of us who worked with him in politics, culture, sport, history, or Comóradh 98, saw a brilliant thinking man and patient diplomat, always positive, exceptionally well informed, street wise and a quintessential committee strategist. He was at his best in the face of substantial threat. "Softy, gentlemen, softly," he said as he wafted forth several options.

The vast throngs on the mountain's shoulder at Kilmyshall were by their very presence eloquent in tribute to him. Many carried the burden of loss as his family did. He was part of us, all Wexford, Carlow and Ireland, in high profile for over half a century. He was one of the very best.

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