William Richard Murphy was born in County Wexford in 1890 but was orphaned at an early age and brought up in Belfast by an elder cousin. He graduated in education in Dublin and returned to Belfast to teach on the Falls Road. 

When WW1 broke out he joined the British Army & was posted to the 1st battalion South Staffordshire regiment. He saw action at the Battle of Loos in October 1915 & on the 1st day of the Somme [1 July 1916]. In the assault Murphy was given the task of leading the bombing company to clear the fortified houses in the village of Mametz. Of the battalion’s 21 officers who had gone over the top that morning, by the end of the day six were dead and a further five were wounded, though Murphy survived unscathed.

Murphy was to see many more battles on the Western Front in 1916, such as High Wood and Delville Wood (a particularly hideous affair) in late August, then later in the year on the Douve River and at Beaumont Hamel. In 1917 he was promoted to captain and was awarded the Military Cross for service in the Somme battles. During 1917 he was again in action at Bullcourt in April and then at the third battle of Ypres, another bloody fiasco in which the battalion took heavy casualties. The year 1918 saw Murphy serving in Italy with his battalion, and in June he was promoted from major to lieutenant colonel to become the commanding officer of the 1st battalion South Staffordshire regiment. This was a singular honour for a young Catholic Irishman to be given: the command of a battalion of mostly English soldiers. He led the 1SSR in their final offensive of the War across the Piave River and captured 4,500 of the enemy before the Armistice was signed.

On returning from the War he took up the role of a Schools Inspector  but when the Irish Civil War began Michael Collins ‘headhunted’ him to take up a role in the new Free State Army. He was given command of troops under the overall direction of Eoin O’Duffy and organised the attacks on Republican positions in and around Bruree and Kilmallock, Co. Limerick, during September 1922. After the withdrawal of the Republican forces from there and following the landings in Kerry, he was dispatched to Tralee as the commanding officer of the Free State Army in County Kerry, a position he held from late September until early January 1923. A difficult post, he did the best he could to restore order without being too harsh. He spared the lives of four IRA men sentenced to death just before he left Kerry for the last time. He was then transferred to Dublin to the operations section, but when his orders were not carried out he expressed a wish to resign. To avoid controversy he was instead put in charge of writing training manuals, which was obviously a dead-end position.

However, with the ending of the civil war another opportunity came his way, as Kevin O’Higgins wanted someone reliable to take over the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Murphy was appointed chief commissioner in May 1923 and led the force until it was amalgamated with the Garda Síochána in 1925. The DMP were totally demoralised and he built up their confidence again under very difficult circumstances. He was also involved, with others, in the transformation of the various semi-secret police agencies then in existence into what was eventually to become the Special Branch of the Garda Síochána. This followed his suggestion to O’Higgins in 1924 for the establishment of a ‘Special Branch to deal with Bolshevik, Anarchist and Communist crime masquerading under political disguise’. His proudest moment, however, was in the closing months of his commissionership of the DMP, when he helped Frank Duff of the Legion of Mary to close down the last brothels in the notorious ‘Monto’ red light district of Dublin. Duff appealed directly to Murphy to ensure that the police ended this civic embarrassment once and for all. 

In 1925 Murphy was appointed a deputy commissioner of the Garda Síochána under his old military comrade Eoin O’Duffy. Over the years that followed Murphy was to hold many of the key positions within the police, but owing to the bitter legacy of the civil war he was never awarded the position of commissioner. However, during the Second World War de Valera asked him to organise an auxiliary force to back up the army and Garda. This force soon numbered over 65,000 men but in late 1940 it was split in two, with one section becoming the Local Defence Force (LDF), under army control, and the other the Local Security Force (LSF), remaining under Murphy’s command. However, the LSF was always the poor relation of the state’s security services and was disbanded at the war’s end without ceremony.

After the war Murphy was put in charge of ‘C’ (Crime) Branch and he published his Manual of criminal investigation, which remained in use for many years. He ended his police career back in charge of the Dublin Metropolitan Area. Throughout his career Murphy was known to all ranks as ‘the general’, though when he retired in 1955 he still held the same rank as the day he joined the force 30 years before!

Murphy was an active organiser of amateur boxing at both national and international level. He helped many aspiring boxers in the ranks of the Garda to pursue their interest in the sport, such as ‘Lugs’ Branigan, and he was, along with his wife and others, instrumental in having the National Stadium built.

He died in 1975 and was given a state funeral. He is buried in St Peter’s cemetery, Little Bray, Co. Dublin.