Daughter of Nicholas Murphy and his wife, Mary Gertrude, nee Purcell. The Murphys were one of the richest Catholic families in Cork, the owners of the chief liquor firm in the city. After the death of her husbnd, Muriel participated in nationalist activities, especially in the United States, where she was the first woman granted the freedom of New York city. After partition and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 she took the side of the defeated anti-treatyites in the civil war, and later joined the Communist Party. She left Ireland with her daughter, Maire, in December 1923, and spent the rest of her life in a peripatetic existence, mostly in Germany, France, and England. In 1932 Terence MacSwiney's elder sister Mary, a prominent figure within the nationalist movement before and after his death, removed Maire, her niece, to Ireland. The two sisters-in-law did not get on well together, and Muriel claimed that her daughter had been kidnapped. Legal attempts to regain her failed, however, and the daughter herself later repudiated her mother's claims. Muriel MacSwiney's later activities are obscure. She was granted a pension by the Irish government in 1950, and she surfaced briefly on the fringes of left-wing politics in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s. From a relationship with a French intellectual she had a daughter, Alix (b. 1926), with whom she was living in Tonbridge in Kent towards the end of her life. She died in Oakwood Hospital, Maidstone.
Daughter of Nicholas Murphy and his wife, Mary Gertrude, nee Purcell. The Murphys were one of the richest Catholic families in Cork, the owners of the chief liquor firm in the city. After the death of her husbnd, Muriel participated in nationalist activities, especially in the United States, where she was the first woman granted the freedom of New York city. After partition and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 she took the side of the defeated anti-treatyites in the civil war, and later joined the Communist Party. She left Ireland with her daughter, Maire, in December 1923, and spent the rest of her life in a peripatetic existence, mostly in Germany, France, and England. In 1932 Terence MacSwiney's elder sister Mary, a prominent figure within the nationalist movement before and after his death, removed Maire, her niece, to Ireland. The two sisters-in-law did not get on well together, and Muriel claimed that her daughter had been kidnapped. Legal attempts to regain her failed, however, and the daughter herself later repudiated her mother's claims. Muriel MacSwiney's later activities are obscure. She was granted a pension by the Irish government in 1950, and she surfaced briefly on the fringes of left-wing politics in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s. From a relationship with a French intellectual she had a daughter, Alix (b. 1926), with whom she was living in Tonbridge in Kent towards the end of her life. She died in Oakwood Hospital, Maidstone.
Family Members
Children
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Records on Ancestry
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Geneanet Community Trees Index
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England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005
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New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957
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England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007
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Web: UK, Burial and Cremation Index, 1576-2014
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