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James Vincent Murphy
James Vincent Murphy (7 July 1880 – 4 July 1946) was an Irish translator, writer, lecturer and journalist, who published one of the first complete English translations of Mein Kampf in 1939.
Murphy attended St Patrick's College, Maynooth. He was ordained a priest at St Patrick's College Chapel in Maynooth, in 1905.[citation needed] He left clerical service, and by the late 1920s was married and working as a journalist. Before the Second World War he lived for some time in Italy and Germany.
James Murphy was born in 1880 in Knockmacool, south of Murragh near Enniskean, County Cork, Ireland, to Timothy Murphy and his wife Hannah (née Sullivan). He was the third child in the family of three boys and four girls. In 1884 they moved to Raheen, Upton, northeast of Bandon, County Cork, where his father raised horses. As the cleverest son in the family custom dictated that he should become a Roman Catholic priest, so aged 13 he was sent to the diocesan school in Cork. In August 1894, his father, returning from the Bandon horse fair, fell from his horse and died of a fractured skull. James felt responsible as he had failed to check that the horse's saddle-girth strap had been tightened. He was under pressure to do well and was one of the few boys from the 27 diocesan schools in Ireland to gain admission to the Royal College of St Patrick at Maynooth, where he won several prizes and graduated in 1905 as a Bachelor of Divinity.
After a year's apprenticeship with the Bishop of Cork, he was sent to America to train in Saint Bernard's Seminary, Rochester, New York, where from autumn 1906 he taught rhetoric, but although regarded as a man of the highest talent, he was dismissed in April 1907 for negligence in discharging his duties. He was given a temporary post in the diocese of Rhode Island, followed by an appointment as curate at St Anthony's Church in Providence, Rhode Island. The parish flourished, increasing communicants to over 1,000. However, following a visit by the Bishop, who talked to Murphy about his unsatisfactory conduct, he left Providence in early November 1909 and then for Italy to start a new life. He was quite unsuited for the discipline of the priesthood and never discussed this period of his life – in fact, very few people knew he had ever been a priest.
He studied Archaeology and Philosophy in Rome and Florence and later went to Germany, where he took courses at Heidelberg and Munich Universities. He was in Munich in 1914 when war broke out, but managed to escape and reach London. By this time he was viewed by the church as “a clerical drop-out”. His far greater interest in international affairs was recognised by the Northcliffe Press which, after Italy entered the war in 1915, sent him as a correspondent on the Austro-Italian front. In 1916 the Italian government appointed him head of the Italian Information Bureau in London. With the assistance of an Italian journalist he published a weekly English language magazine called Modern Italy. The idea was to make Italy better known to the British public, but its underlying purpose was to counter claims of self-determination by the Austrians, Croats and Slovenes. It ceased publication in September 1919, after the Versailles Peace Conference. Murphy's employment by the Italian government also terminated. In March 1919, Queen Mary had invited him to Buckingham Palace to lecture on behalf of the Italian orthopaedic surgeon Vittorio Putti, who had developed a technique for attaching artificial limbs.
Shortly after Mussolini's “March on Rome” in autumn 1922, Murphy went to Italy as a freelance correspondent for several British and American newspapers and magazines. He interviewed Mussolini several times and his reporting became critical of the Fascist regime, particularly after the murder of the Socialist Party leader Giacomo Matteotti in 1924. As a result, he became a victim of official harassment. His cables were read and sub-edited and his mail intercepted, with cheques being stolen. In short, he was made persona non grata. He left Italy for Paris and met up with a group of Italian political exiles. Among these was Mussolini's former private secretary Arturo Fasciolo, who provided him with documentary evidence of Mussolini's role in many illegal and criminal actions, including Matteotti's murder. He gave some of these documents to Gaetano Salvemini, who used them in his book The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy, published in 1927. Murphy's article on “Italian Tyranny”, published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1925, so impressed a US Congressman that he had it read in Congress and then reprinted in the Congressional Record. The former Premier Francesco Saverio Nitti persuaded Murphy to undertake a lecture tour in the US, to explain what was happening in Italy.
In 1927 Murphy moved to London to prepare his lectures for the American tour. He planned to include talks on European industrialisation and the need for economic unification, Anglo-Irish literature and Italian Fascism. There he met Mary Crowley, who helped him in his preparatory work, while he became interested in her poetry writing. The Italian government made an official diplomatic objection to Murphy's intended lecture tour, claiming that its purpose was to make public propaganda against the Italian government. On arrival in New York in October 1927 he was challenged by the US Immigration Service on his status as a visitor. He was allowed entry but he and his lecture agent, with the help of Philadelphia University, had to persuade the authorities of his academic credentials. His projected six-month US tour was so successful that it stretched to almost two years. He then persuaded the editor of the prestigious New York magazine The Forum to appoint him as its foreign editor.
On his return to London he planned a series of articles for The Forum on modern Irish literature and went to Dublin to interview George William Russell (who wrote with the pseudonym Æ). In London he had interviews with James Stephens and Seán O'Casey, whose controversial play The Silver Tassie was playing there. He and Mary married in London on 16 November 1929 and moved to Berlin a few days later as he had an appointment to interview Albert Einstein. Further meetings with Einstein followed, which led to Murphy meeting the Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Planck, the founder of the quantum theory. Planck and Einstein agreed to collaborate in the publication in Germany of an English-language intellectual journal, to be called The International Forum, aimed to bring together the pioneering minds of sociological science in Germany with those in America and Britain. Murphy solicited articles or wrote them himself based on interviews with, among others, Arnold Zweig, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, Thomas Mann and Karl Haushofer. The first two issues, in January and February 1931, drew widespread attention, to the extent that the German Ministry of Education took over the financial responsibility for all the journal's business details. But after two more issues, the financial crisis in Germany caused the government to withdraw its subsidy, which led to the end of The International Forum. Murphy then devoted his time to the translation of scientific work, particularly Max Planck's lectures, which he edited and published in 1932 as Where is science going? with a preface by Einstein and an explanatory introduction by Murphy. The book was reprinted in 2001, 2019 and 2021, with tributes to Planck and comments on how relevant it still was, in spite of the huge advances in the application of physical science since its original publication.
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James Vincent Murphy
James Vincent Murphy (7 July 1880 – 4 July 1946) was an Irish translator, writer, lecturer and journalist, who published one of the first complete English translations of Mein Kampf in 1939.
Murphy attended St Patrick's College, Maynooth. He was ordained a priest at St Patrick's College Chapel in Maynooth, in 1905.[citation needed] He left clerical service, and by the late 1920s was married and working as a journalist. Before the Second World War he lived for some time in Italy and Germany.
James Murphy was born in 1880 in Knockmacool, south of Murragh near Enniskean, County Cork, Ireland, to Timothy Murphy and his wife Hannah (née Sullivan). He was the third child in the family of three boys and four girls. In 1884 they moved to Raheen, Upton, northeast of Bandon, County Cork, where his father raised horses. As the cleverest son in the family custom dictated that he should become a Roman Catholic priest, so aged 13 he was sent to the diocesan school in Cork. In August 1894, his father, returning from the Bandon horse fair, fell from his horse and died of a fractured skull. James felt responsible as he had failed to check that the horse's saddle-girth strap had been tightened. He was under pressure to do well and was one of the few boys from the 27 diocesan schools in Ireland to gain admission to the Royal College of St Patrick at Maynooth, where he won several prizes and graduated in 1905 as a Bachelor of Divinity.
After a year's apprenticeship with the Bishop of Cork, he was sent to America to train in Saint Bernard's Seminary, Rochester, New York, where from autumn 1906 he taught rhetoric, but although regarded as a man of the highest talent, he was dismissed in April 1907 for negligence in discharging his duties. He was given a temporary post in the diocese of Rhode Island, followed by an appointment as curate at St Anthony's Church in Providence, Rhode Island. The parish flourished, increasing communicants to over 1,000. However, following a visit by the Bishop, who talked to Murphy about his unsatisfactory conduct, he left Providence in early November 1909 and then for Italy to start a new life. He was quite unsuited for the discipline of the priesthood and never discussed this period of his life – in fact, very few people knew he had ever been a priest.
He studied Archaeology and Philosophy in Rome and Florence and later went to Germany, where he took courses at Heidelberg and Munich Universities. He was in Munich in 1914 when war broke out, but managed to escape and reach London. By this time he was viewed by the church as “a clerical drop-out”. His far greater interest in international affairs was recognised by the Northcliffe Press which, after Italy entered the war in 1915, sent him as a correspondent on the Austro-Italian front. In 1916 the Italian government appointed him head of the Italian Information Bureau in London. With the assistance of an Italian journalist he published a weekly English language magazine called Modern Italy. The idea was to make Italy better known to the British public, but its underlying purpose was to counter claims of self-determination by the Austrians, Croats and Slovenes. It ceased publication in September 1919, after the Versailles Peace Conference. Murphy's employment by the Italian government also terminated. In March 1919, Queen Mary had invited him to Buckingham Palace to lecture on behalf of the Italian orthopaedic surgeon Vittorio Putti, who had developed a technique for attaching artificial limbs.
Shortly after Mussolini's “March on Rome” in autumn 1922, Murphy went to Italy as a freelance correspondent for several British and American newspapers and magazines. He interviewed Mussolini several times and his reporting became critical of the Fascist regime, particularly after the murder of the Socialist Party leader Giacomo Matteotti in 1924. As a result, he became a victim of official harassment. His cables were read and sub-edited and his mail intercepted, with cheques being stolen. In short, he was made persona non grata. He left Italy for Paris and met up with a group of Italian political exiles. Among these was Mussolini's former private secretary Arturo Fasciolo, who provided him with documentary evidence of Mussolini's role in many illegal and criminal actions, including Matteotti's murder. He gave some of these documents to Gaetano Salvemini, who used them in his book The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy, published in 1927. Murphy's article on “Italian Tyranny”, published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1925, so impressed a US Congressman that he had it read in Congress and then reprinted in the Congressional Record. The former Premier Francesco Saverio Nitti persuaded Murphy to undertake a lecture tour in the US, to explain what was happening in Italy.
In 1927 Murphy moved to London to prepare his lectures for the American tour. He planned to include talks on European industrialisation and the need for economic unification, Anglo-Irish literature and Italian Fascism. There he met Mary Crowley, who helped him in his preparatory work, while he became interested in her poetry writing. The Italian government made an official diplomatic objection to Murphy's intended lecture tour, claiming that its purpose was to make public propaganda against the Italian government. On arrival in New York in October 1927 he was challenged by the US Immigration Service on his status as a visitor. He was allowed entry but he and his lecture agent, with the help of Philadelphia University, had to persuade the authorities of his academic credentials. His projected six-month US tour was so successful that it stretched to almost two years. He then persuaded the editor of the prestigious New York magazine The Forum to appoint him as its foreign editor.
On his return to London he planned a series of articles for The Forum on modern Irish literature and went to Dublin to interview George William Russell (who wrote with the pseudonym Æ). In London he had interviews with James Stephens and Seán O'Casey, whose controversial play The Silver Tassie was playing there. He and Mary married in London on 16 November 1929 and moved to Berlin a few days later as he had an appointment to interview Albert Einstein. Further meetings with Einstein followed, which led to Murphy meeting the Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Planck, the founder of the quantum theory. Planck and Einstein agreed to collaborate in the publication in Germany of an English-language intellectual journal, to be called The International Forum, aimed to bring together the pioneering minds of sociological science in Germany with those in America and Britain. Murphy solicited articles or wrote them himself based on interviews with, among others, Arnold Zweig, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, Thomas Mann and Karl Haushofer. The first two issues, in January and February 1931, drew widespread attention, to the extent that the German Ministry of Education took over the financial responsibility for all the journal's business details. But after two more issues, the financial crisis in Germany caused the government to withdraw its subsidy, which led to the end of The International Forum. Murphy then devoted his time to the translation of scientific work, particularly Max Planck's lectures, which he edited and published in 1932 as Where is science going? with a preface by Einstein and an explanatory introduction by Murphy. The book was reprinted in 2001, 2019 and 2021, with tributes to Planck and comments on how relevant it still was, in spite of the huge advances in the application of physical science since its original publication.