Episode 53: Dervla Murphy: A Life at Full Tilt

Dervla Murphy: A Life at Full Tilt

‘On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as presents and a few days later I decided to cycle to India . . . I did not want to be soothingly assured that this was a passing whim because I was quite confident that one day I would cycle to India. That was at the beginning of December 1941, and on 14 January 1963, I started to cycle from Dunkirk towards Delhi.’

Described as ‘the first lady of Irish cycling’, Dervla Murphy was renowned for her intrepid spirit, and she remained passionate about travel, writing, politics, conservation and bicycling until her death in 2022. In this episode of the Slightly Foxed podcast we have gathered a number of those who knew and worked with Dervla to discuss the life and work of this extraordinary travel writer.

Gail Pirkis and Steph Allen, from Slightly Foxed, worked with Dervla during their time at John Murray Publishers. Rose Baring was her editor at Eland Books and Ethel Crowley was a friend and editor of the recent anthology, Life at Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy. Together with our host Rosie Goldsmith they discuss Dervla’s early years and inspiration, consider the experience of publishing her work and examine her place in the Ireland of her time.

Born in Lismore, Ireland, in 1931, Dervla lived there until the end of her life. She was an only child and her parents, who originated from Dublin, encouraged her independence and love of books. Her father – who later became the much-loved Waterford County Librarian ‒ had been involved in the Irish republican movement and had served time in Wormwood Scrubs prison for his activities. Dervla spent her childhood caring for her mother who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and then left school at 14 to care for her full-time. When her parents died in 1962 Dervla, at the age of 30, found herself free to travel. She acquired a bicycle and set out on a journey to Istanbul, through Iran and on to India during one of the worst winters in recent memory. This would become the subject of her first, and most famous book, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, published in 1965.

There followed numerous voyages with her trusty steed and 25 more books, including her highly acclaimed autobiography Wheels within Wheels. She won worldwide praise for her writing and many awards, including the Edward Stanford Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing and a Royal Geographical Society Award.

Dervla took huge risks, mostly travelling alone and in famously austere style, whether in far-flung Limpopo, the Andes, Gaza or closer to home, where she documented the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Battling injury and political circumstance, she immersed herself in the lives of ordinary people caught in the shifting tides of power that dictated the terms on which they lived. To these people, she listened. What resulted was some of the most astute and compelling travel writing of the twentieth century.

As the table choose their favourite book of Dervla’s, we also have our usual round-up of current reading, including the latest mystery from Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook, the Booker Prize-nominated The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, and Jon Dunn’s monograph on the hummingbird, The Glitter in the Green.

Show Notes

Books Mentioned

Please find links to books, articles, and further reading listed below. We may be able to get hold of second-hand copies of the out-of-print titles mentioned on the podcast and listed below. Please get in touch with the Slightly Foxed office for more information. The digits in brackets following each listing refer to the minute and second they are mentioned. (Episode duration: minutes; seconds)

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Dervla Murphy, Life at Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy (2:44)

Dervla Murphy, Cameroon with Egbert (3:36)

Dervla Murphy, Wheels within Wheels: The Makings of a Traveller (9:41)

Cervantes, Don Quixote (15:49)

Dervla Murphy, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (16:33)

Penelope Chetwode, Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia (17:25)

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (18:43)

Jane Austen, Persuasion (18:46)

Dervla Murphy, Eight Feet in the Andes (27:21)

Dervla Murphy, A Place Apart: Northern Ireland in the 1970s (34:39)

Dervla Murphy, On a Shoestring to Coorg (38:47)