Patrick Murphy, a good friend to me and many others in Ringsend passed away suddenly recently. Patrick was a true Ringsend man, born, christened, first communion, confirmation, married and mourned all in St Patrick’s Church in the parish of St Patrick’s Ringsend.

Patrick loved Ringsend and all its traditions like carrying the coffins over the bridge, sadly, this last honour was bestowed on him very early.

Patrick was reared in O’Rahilly House. The Murphys lived in 45 and we were in 42, so I knew Patrick well from a very young age. After school we would hang around ‘the forest’, the place where the I.G.B. was and new houses are now.
Another favourite place was known as ‘the dump’. There were all kinds of treasures to be found there. Patrick could not afford to be seen there because his father was the bulldozer driver.

His son Carl spoke about his father being a hard worker. It made me think about Patrick and all the little jobs he had as a boy. As head altar boy, Patrick had it all sewn up. When there was a wedding he was there, when there was a funeral he was there, so Patrick made a few bob that way.

Patrick also had a paper run for Sally Maguire, who sold her papers from a pram at the post office corner at the junction of Bridge Street and Thorncastle Street. When I say ‘run’ I mean a marathon. Patrick used to deliver papers to all the flats and Pigeon House Road six days a week and collect the money on Fridays.

Patrick could be seen delivering his papers in all weathers with his dog Prince, who was actually our dog but preferred to be Pato’s best friend.

At the height of Shelbourne Park’s popularity in the 60s and 70s, people would park their cars in the South Lotts Estate. Guess who was there to mind the cars? Pato.

He was there Wednesdays and Saturdays, always on the same pitch which was the longest road, so he made the most money. After that work was done, we always went to Ferrari’s for our chips.

When Pato left school he went to work for Irish Stained Glass, which was located on Hanover Quay. Pato worked there for a short period with his good friend Lar Ebbs. After this, Pato moved to a factory close by called Pel lreland, which made school furniture.

He worked there for some years until our first Recession came in the 70s and we were all laid off. Pato bought a car from his redundancy, which came in handy for travelling every day to the Shelly Banks. The summer was good that year. That’s when Pato started to work on his tan– Pato loved the sun forever.

In the meantime Pato was going with his childhood sweetheart Mary, who is also a true Ringsender. Pato and Mary eventually married in St. Patrick’s Church and went on to have three lovely children Carl, Steven and Fiona.
Our thoughts are with them.

Pato went on to work for Dublin Corpo, as it was called then. Eventually, he made his way up the ladder, first as chargehand and sometime later, with a little bit of extra study, he became Superintendent, which he and his family were very proud of.

So after all that hard work Pato passed away after a short illness at the young age of 53. Now we all know what Carl was referring to when he made that excellent speech from the altar.

May he rest in peace.