Hi Dark Rosaleen, Thank you so much for replying ! You have put some pieces in my jigsaw puzzle ! I met whom I called Aunty Betty and my great uncle Tom when they lived in Kidderminster , Birmingham , this must have been in the 1960's , although I never met Jim and Maisie , Uncle Tom talked of them a great deal. The Murphy's were quite a large family , Uncle Tom, told me many stories of his days as a young man looking after The Tetrarch and another horse , Tetratema ! Tom's father was called Jim Murphy and his mother Mary, I believe they hailed from Co Wexford , . Tom had a further 8 siblings. Tom was the eldest , then Kathleen , Maggie , Ellen ( my grand mother) but three brothers died as children, Arthur , George and James , them Mary ( known as Minie ) and Josephine was the youngest ,although I believe after Mary died , Toms father remarried and I think Josephine was a half sister , whom I never met , but I met all my great aunts and Uncle Tom and Aunty Betty , they used to stay at my grand mothers quite alot, I loved them all to bits . They are all deceased now of course , but they all lived to a ripe old age , mostly into their nineties ! The horse connection lived on, Maggie ( Toms sister) married Tom Delaney , they had a large family and 4 of their sons , Paddy ( whom I knew very well and with great affection) Arthur , Jonny and I think George , became well known Jockey's of the 1950's , Paddy lived and worked on The New Market National stud, and I stayed with them often . Paddy Delaney died in December 2011 . Just going back to the era of Tom as a young child I have found from the 1911 cencus that the Murphy Family lived at dwelling 1 Shellumsrath rural Kilkenny , Tom would was 11 at this time , from what I can find out from the census , it appeared to be a cottage dwelling with a cart house , a stable or 2 and a few outbuildings and a bit of land. I am sure this place has long gone , but if anyone of your Neill (O'Neill) family can shed any light on where it was , or if it is still standing I should be most grateful. My daughter Lisa , who is now 40 , also met Tom Murphy , she was around 6 years old when he last visited my Grandmother Ellen before her death , and she was thrilled to see the photograph posted of him with The Tetrarch , . An Aunt of mine ( Maureen) who was my grandmothers eldest child , kept in regular touch with Tom also after he went to Canada , and apparently he used to love to sing to the senior citizens at the homes he visited and was greatly admired and loved . Thank you so much , There are so many wonderful memories for me relating to my child hood in the 50's and 60's and meeting all these great aunts and uncles , I was born and live in Derbyshire in the UK ...
