Billy Murphy is honoured after 25 years’ service to local communities
A MAN who dedicated the last 25 years of his life to community development in the county was honoured recently when he retired from Wexford Local Development.
Highly regarded by everyone who knows him Mr Murphy is someone who is passionate about Wexford and its people.
His friend and colleague, Michael O’Brien, highlighted Mr Murphy’s career to this newspaper and outlined the important contribution he has made to communities across the county.
He said Billy ‘always listened’ [and] that he could relate to the American author and educator, Stephen Doyle, who once said: ‘Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.’
‘In the last week of May, Billy waved goodbye to the offices of Wexford Local Development, where he has been part of the fabric for 25 years,’ said Mr O’Brien.
‘Billy is officially retiring, but Billy being Billy, he’s most likely to find himself as busy as ever,’ he added.
Mr O’Brien then summed up how much his role meant to his friend: ‘When community development and all that it encompasses has been such a deep part of your life, the pages that it is written on are part of a never-ending chapter.’
Billy Murphy began his community development ‘opening chapter’ in 1995 with the South West Wexford Partnership, being self-employed prior to that.
However, he had always been a community activist, taking a huge interest in local development.
He was involved with Tidy Towns, the Chamber of Commerce and more recently, and currently, as chairman of Irish Rural Link, a national network of organisations campaigning for sustainable rural development in Ireland and Europe.
‘Back in the mid ‘90s, not everyone had access to a computer working in local development,’ said Mr O’Brien.
‘What the job entails is constantly evolving, with technology being a key component, but the core principles remain the same,’ he added.
He also commented: ‘ There are personal relationships built up with people [and] that’s something Billy has always enjoyed. It’s in his DNA to connect and bring people with him.’
Perhaps that approach to his work, and general outlook on life, was best summed up by one of his colleagues who commented: ‘He has an ability to mix with kings, queens and paupers at exactly the same level. He starts at the same place with everyone and treats everyone with the same high level of respect.’
Billy’s father worked with Wexford County Council while his mother owned and ran, Essie’s Boutique, which was the first ladies boutique in the county.
‘Billy observed and learned the ways of connecting with people locally,’ said Mr O’Brien.
‘But his endless appetite for learning, and being of an investigative nature, saw him absorb all forms of global issues,’ he added.
Mr O’Brien said Billy’s ability to relate to the anxieties of young people today about world issues, is linked back to his own experience of seeing images of the Cuban Missile crisis on black and white TV.
Other worldwide issues that influenced Billy’s understanding of societal matters included the French students’ revolt, the establishment of the Black Panther Party movement in the USA, and other incidents concerning Human Rights - which is an area that always interested him.
He went on to complete academic studies in Human Rights and he also holds a Masters in Ecology and Theology.
Mr O’Brien said that for Billy the ‘60s were good times in many ways, but as a young Enniscorthy man he was subconsciously drawn into global matters while the broader environment intrigued him.
Billy himself noted: ‘Activism starts young; you can turn it into a positive,’
He was opened up to a lot of thinking while attending secondary school in Cistercian College, in Roscrea.
The anti-apartheid movement was growing in South Africa by the time he left his second level studies and it was another global concern he was in tune with.
‘He was seeing the value of being active to help people,’ said Mr O’Brien.
In many ways his position with South West Wexford Partnership was ideal because it gave him lots of freedom.
‘It was one of 10 pilot projects that were founded by the Government to provide a local area based response to tackle high levels of disadvantage in communities,’ said Mr O’Brien.
‘With such rich heritage in the south west of the county, there was ample ground for developments in tourism, employment and building local communities,’ he added.
Programmes soon became mainstream and the project extended to take responsibility for the whole county, except Wexford town.
Mr O’Brien said that at that time there were three organisations in the county that were very active: County Wexford Partnership; Wexford Area Partnership and WORD - the local organisation that delivered the LEADER Project.
Those three organisations merged in 2009 into Wexford Local Development and central funding also came into being.
‘It was at this point that development programmes lost a small bit of local control,’ said Billy, speaking about that time.
‘Everything became more centralised, which was understandable to a point, but you could no longer design for what was needed locally,’ he added.
With regard to working within communities he always felt the answer is within the communities themselves.
‘ The solutions are within the communities themselves, we don’t come with a formula,’ he said.
‘We put structures in place. [and] it was said that it was our job to work ourselves out of a job.’
He said the role was about building personal relationships, and friendships.
Human Rights were a driving force for him personally and his intentions were always backed up by his strong sense of the need for equality.
It’s an area that concerns him in today’s world where the endless desires of the wealthy have impacted on balance and society has become unequal.
However, he feels ‘ the power of community has come back into life during Covid-19’ but the power blocks are still there including the power wielding big tech companies which need to be made more accountable.
Billy also feels that the loss of town councils had an impact at local level: ‘When you remove the decision-making from the people on the ground you lose something, you lose something. There is always a need to be investing the power in smaller groups.’
‘Councillors no longer have the power they would have had, say 40 years ago,’ he said.
‘Sometimes that could have been abused, but in changing it, it may have been a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater,’ he added.
‘It could have been tweaked and reformed better.’
With regard to the PPN (Public Participation Network), which was established under the guidance of Fr Sean Healy, Billy said all of the strands for connecting people are important but not everyone fits into a system.
‘Neighbourliness is the smallest unit we have, or the parish, or the street, or the block in towns,’ he said.
‘As we developed we didn’t always invest enough in creating sustainable neighbourhoods but things have improved immensely from years ago,’ he added.
‘Society keeps changing.’
Billy also feels that groups such as those within the sports and drama sectors have greatly aided the social landscape.
Billy Murphy has a very positive outlook but he is very aware of the obstacles that place people in difficult circumstances.
You could say that the Government is supposed to be a comfort blanket for everyone but other interests are often looked after much better than the least well-off in society,’ he said.
‘It takes a lot more effort to ensure that blanket covers everyone [and] the same can be said when it comes to the environment.’
Billy recalled how he worked with ‘great colleagues over the years”, and how he loved getting new roles at work so he was always being challenged.
He loved examining how things were done and seeing if there was a better way of doing things.
A proud Enniscorthy and Wexford man he always believed in talking less and listening more.
‘Community development workers have to listen,’ he said.
‘ The solutions are there; you just have to harvest the strengths and assets that are already there,’ he added.
With regard to the importance of listening and then finding yourself in agreement with what’ being said, he quoted his late friend, John Sinnott, from Duncormick, who said: ‘You could meet that fella at any crossroads.’
While he will miss the routine of work he said people should understand that nobody is indispensable.
He alluded to the stories sportspeople often tell after they retire; that it’s not always about the matches: ‘You miss the camaraderie.’
One of his colleagues described Billy as: ‘A trusted, highly respected, true gentleman who was always forward thinking in empowering communities. He embraced diversity. He influenced and promoted fairness whilst always remarking at the importance of not only people, but sustainability and our environment.’
Another colleague said: ‘It is my absolute pleasure to have had the opportunity to befriend such a polite, calm, considerate colleague with an extremely positive mind set.’
‘I would describe Billy as an extremely well educated true gentleman whose presence and knowledge will be sorely missed,’ said another workmate, while another friend said: ‘He had unwavering principles; always putting people first; the ability to listen, to compromise, and to negotiate and the enviable ability to be able to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they would thank him for the journey.’
While his community work is his life’s passion, at the heart of everything he does is his wife, Mary and their three children: Aine, Seamus and Ailbhe.
He also loves sport, especially hurling and rugby, and with his uncles being the Rackards, hurling is something that runs deep within his veins.
Before Covid-19 intervened, Billy was looking forward to a number of sporting events including the Olympics and the European Soccer Championships.
He had tickets for the PRO 14 final and would also have been following Wexford as well as going down to Bellefield for club games.
Getting out on the hills for walks would be part of the plans too.
Mr O’Brien said that from RAPID to LDSIP and LCDP, to the current Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme, Billy has worked on numerous different social inclusion programmes over the last 25 years.
‘ There have been Heritage Officers roles, walking trails, sustainable rural development, along with CE Supervisor, Equality Officer and Community Development officer,’ said Mr O’Brien.
‘He facilitated Wexford Local Development’s Strategic Planning Process by working with staff across the whole company last year and he sat on the board of Combar with John Bowman,’ he added.
Billy also initiated Action for Sustainability and was one of the voluntary founding members of Enniscorthy Sustainable Town.
‘He had solar panels before most people knew what they were and a wood burning stove when the technology was relatively new,’ he said.
Mr O’Brien went on to comment: ‘Billy Murphy is very modest and very understated too. He generated a great sense of positivity with every project and person he worked with and as he himself said “negativity is not the fertiliser for anything positive”.’
‘A scholar and a gentleman has left Wexford Local Development,’ said Mr O’Brien.
‘His imparted wisdom will forever be appreciated by his work colleagues.’