Background
Murphy was born in Camlough, South Armagh and joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Ireland Republican Army) during the 1981 hunger strikes.
Murphy was born in Camlough, South Armagh and joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Ireland Republican Army) during the 1981 hunger strikes.
He attended Street Colman"s College, Newry, Queen"s University of Belfast (QUB), and the University of Ulster.
In 1982 he was sentenced to five years in prison for Ireland Republican Army membership and possession of explosives. Between 1989 and 1997, he was a Sinn Féin councillor on Newry and Mourne District Council for The Fews area, in South Armagh and South Down, and served as his party"s group leader at that level In 1998, Murphy was elected as one of his party"s two Northern Ireland Assembly members for Newry and Armagh.
He was re-elected, with two party colleagues, to the Assembly in 2003.
In 2001, he contested the Newry and Armagh Westminster seat, coming second to incumbent Seamus Mallon of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (Social Democratic and Labour Party). He refused to take his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in line with the abstentionist policy of Sinn Féin.
In the Northern Ireland Assembly, he served as the Minister for Regional Development in the Northern Ireland Executive from 8 May 2007 until 16 May 2011. While on a tour of United Kingdom party conferences in autumn 2005, he became the first Irish republican to address the Conservative Party conference and caused controversy by refusing to express regret over the Brighton hotel bombing.
Murphy disputed the finding which he said branded him "sectarian".
In December 2012, Murphy appeared as a witness at Belfast High Court in the case of Declan Gormley, whom Murphy had sacked in 2010 from his post as a non-executive director of Northen Ireland Water. Gormley sued Sinn Féin over two press releases which he argued were defamatory. Gormley was subsequently offered £80,000 in damages.
Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness defended him, claiming Murphy doesn"t have "a sectarian bone in his body".
Provisional Irish Republican Army. 54th United Kingdom Parliament. 55th United Kingdom Parliament.
1st Northern Ireland Assembly.
2nd Northern Ireland Assembly. 3rd Northern Ireland Assembly.
4th Northern Ireland Assembly]
He served as the Member of Parliament for Newry and Armagh from 2005-2015.