[2] "Much of the most recent work displays intense absorption of the Roman classics either through direct reference or employment of the pithy epigram.
"[2] He attended University College Cork where he was part of a resurgence of literary activity under the inspiration of John Montague.
But “...what makes Murphy unique among his contemporaries,” according to Montague in a brief foreword to the Selected volume (2006), “is his curious integrity, the way he has created an aesthetic out of nearly nothing, ex nihilo.” After dropping out of university in the early 1970s Murphy spent some years working in London and a year living in an Israeli Kibbutz before returning to Cork in 1980 where he has remained ever since.
[4] Fred Johnston, writing in Poetry Ireland Review, described Murphy's work as "catching the chink of light between the savagely political and the everyday".
[5] Other poets cited as possible influences on Murphy's work include the American Charles Simic and the Romanian Marin Sorescu.