Full Tilt and other early writings
In 1963, Murphy set off on her first long-distance bicycle tour - a self-supported trip from Ireland to India. Taking a pistol along with other equipment aboard
Roz, her Armstrong Cadet bicycle, she passed through Europe during one of the worst winters in years. In Yugoslavia, Murphy began to write a journal instead of mailing letters. In Iran she used her gun to frighten off a group of thieves, and "used unprintable tactics" to escape from an attempted rapist at a police station. She received her worst injury of the journey on a bus in Afghanistan, when a rifle butt hit her and fractured three ribs; however, this only delayed her for a short while. She wrote appreciatively about the landscape and people of Afghanistan, calling herself "Afghanatical" and claiming that the Afghan "is a man after my own heart." In Pakistan, she visited Swat (where she was a guest of the last wali, Miangul Aurangzeb) and the mountain area of Gilgit. The final leg of her trip took her through the Punjab region and over the border to India towards Delhi. Her journal was later published by John Murray as her first book
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle.
After arriving in Delhi, Murphy volunteered to work with Tibetan refugees under the auspices of Save the Children. She spent five months in a refugee camp in Dharamsala run by Tsering Dolma, sister of the 14th Dalai Lama. She then cycled through the Kullu Valley, spending Christmas in Malana. Her journals for this time were published in her second book,
Tibetan Foothold.
On returning to Europe, Murphy took part in a fundraising campaign for Save the Children, and in 1965 she worked with another group of Tibetan refugees in Pokhara, Nepal (described in
The Waiting Land).
In 1966, Murphy made her first trip to Africa. She travelled to Ethiopia and walked with a pack mule from Asmara to Addis Ababa, confronted by Kalashnikov-carrying soldiers on the way. This journey was described in her fourth book,
In Ethiopia with a Mule.
Travels with Rachel
Murphy's daughter Rachel accompanied her on a trip to India at the age of five; they flew into Bombay and traveled to Goa and Coorg (described in
On a Shoestring to Coorg). The pair later journeyed to Baltistan (
Where the Indus is Young), South America (
Eight Feet in the Andes), and Madagascar (
Muddling through in Madagascar). Their last trip was through Cameroon on a horse, where Dervla was frequently mistaken for Rachel's husband (
Cameroon with Egbert).
On traveling with a child, she wrote:
A child's presence emphasises your trust in the community's goodwill. And because children pay little attention to racial or cultural differences, junior companions rapidly demolish barriers of shyness or apprehension often raised when foreigners unexpectedly approach a remote village.
Politicization
In 1978, Murphy wrote
A Place Apart, about her travels in Northern Ireland and encounters with members of the Protestant and Catholic religious communities. She credits her 1982 book
Race to the Finish? The Nuclear Stakes as a turning point which led her to write more about political issues. Her writings include discussions about race relations in Bradford and Birmingham (
Tales From Two Cities), AIDS (
The Ukimwi Road), the aftermath of apartheid (
South from the Limpopo) and the Rwandan genocide (
Visiting Rwanda), the displacement of tribal peoples (
One Foot in Laos), and post-war reconstruction of the Balkans (
Through the Embers of Chaos). She is anti-globalization and critical of NATO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organisation. She has spoken out against nuclear power and climate change.
Murphy stated that some readers disapproved of the "political stuff", but another group "tells me they haven't thought about these things in this way before and are glad that I've written and thought more about the political side. My view is that I have these things I want to say and I don't really care if it spoils a pure travel book."
"Irish babushka"
In 2002, aged 71, Murphy planned to cycle in the Ussuriland region of eastern Russia. She broke her knee while on the Baikal Amur Mainline railway, then tore a calf while recuperating at Lake Baikal and her plans changed to a journey around Siberia by train, boat and bus, documented in
Through Siberia by Accident. She revisited Siberia and wrote a companion book,
Silverland. In 2005, she visited Cuba with her daughter and three granddaughters, and made two returning trips in 2006 and 2007 (described in
The Island that Dared).