[10] To focus the eyes of the nation on the plight of the unemployed the committee organised a series of well-attended orderly marches through Dublin streets of a colourful yet serious nature.

The fall of the government on 4 February 1957, due to the withdrawal of support by Seán MacBride's Clann na Poblachta, led to the 1957 general election and provided an opportunity for the UPC to dramatically escalate their protests.

[4] Murphy said at the time: "We thought of all types of schemes to approach the politicians, we would ask them to make a statement from their election platforms on their policy to solve unemployment.

Counihane, a Jesuit priest who sympathised with the cause of Labour;, Digby, the owner of Pye Radio; a Fianna Fáil politician called Murry; and Toddy O'Sullivan, manager of the Gresham Hotel.

[1] The suspicion and disdain with which Murphy was regarded with by established parliamentary members meant that initially he could not get answers to even to the most basic of his queries – such as how much unemployment relief money was to be spent in Dublin.

Despite this, over his term, Murphy stubbornly persisted and used every opportunityto ignite serious consideration within the Dáil on questions surrounding poverty, emigration and unemployment assistance.

"[19]On occasion he also attempted to force votes on issues he was concerned with, such as the motion for increasing assistance to the unemployed on 25 March 1958: "I wish to state that I am appalled at the callous indifference of the Parliamentary Secretary...

When he not being strategically ignored within the Dáil he was under attack from the members of the house, as demonstrated by Fine Gael's Stephen Barrett, who on 12 June 1957 declared the UPC (and therefore Murphy himself) part of "a new communist assault" on Ireland.

In the end he admitted in despair that "I found that Leinster House was more a centre of political activity and useless talk than a place where plans could be made to ease the lot of the unfortunate".

[10] Murphy's troubles were greatly multiplied once the new Fianna Fáil government's budget was revealed to be a particularly severe one, and including planning for the ending of food subsidies which was going to hit his support base of the unemployed and low paid workers particularly hard.

"[22] However given the majority that Fianna Fáil enjoyed within the government, Murphy realised that even if he could force a vote on the budget he would inevitably lose and so further debate on the issue would serve little purpose but to waste time.

[4] However, on the fourth day of the protest, after winning the small concession from the Government with the announcement that it would reintroduce controls on the price of bread,[3] it was decided to end the hunger strike.

[4] Realising he could not stand against the proposed budget on his own in the Dáil and that the demonstrations on the streets were not having the desired political impact, Murphy then tried another approach by contacting established society figures in an effort to garner support to lobby against the cuts.

Unfortunately he made the mistake of attempting to enlist the aid of the powerful and conservative Catholic Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid.

[4] Shortly afterwards McQuaid formally denounced the unemployment movement – a move which at a single stroke ended the possibility of Murphy enlisting any support from other church figures or from any other high-profile individuals.

Murphy himself had been adamant since the beginning that the UPC had been formed solely to spotlight the issues of emigration and unemployment in Ireland and therefore was never intended to be "a political entity as such"[10] – but its surprise election success had attracted many new supporters, not all of whom shared his views.

Ultimately, less than a year later, on Saturday 13 May 1958 he yielded to the mounting pressure and resigned his seat in protest at the indifference of the main political parties to the plight of the unemployed.

"[10] Immediately following his resignation as a TD, Murphy, now once again unemployed, discovered to his dismay that as a result of his cards not being stamped during his time in office he was no longer eligible for full assistance and was reduced to living on the meagre sum of £2 1 shilling per week for his entire family.

In January 1960 he was visited by another Dublin man from Francis St named Joe Johnston who at the time was in the Canadian Armed Forces, Signal Corps.

He says "The first time I met Jack, I was shocked to find him and his family living in a small 1 bedroom shack without heating buried under huge snow drifts.

It turns out that while Jack had managed to get some work as a carpenter with a company called "Sash And Door" during the Spring, he had been laid off in the winter due to the seasonal nature of Canadian construction (which of course he hadn't been aware of before his arrival)".

For his part, Jack made some notable contributions – some beautiful carvings – including one particular one I remember which had a maple leaf and shamrock intertwined which was proudly put by Stankey behind the bar on display".

In fact once word got out about his experience and skills, he became very much sought after by the staff and regulars alike because of his first rate advice on any building project or maintenance of houses.

After a number of years, due to homesickness, Murphy returned with his family to Ireland as the economic situation in his native country had improved and there was more opportunities for work than existed in 1959 when emigration was at its peak.

Indeed for the remainder of his life he endured an unrelentingly hostile and negative campaign from many quarters which attempted to put an unfavourable "spin" on both his intentions and his actions as a TD.

He later responded to several of the chief accusations laid against him in the article "Why I left Ireland" as told to Jim Flanagan which was published in The Sunday Review on 29 March 1959.

Immediately following his resignation he was once again unemployed and in a move contrary to his own avowed principles and stated desires he was forced to emigrate due to a combination of a lack of funds and being blacklisted by employers for being too political.

His subsequent dire initial situation in Canada, his continued lack of money upon his return to Ireland, and the telling fact that he worked for the remainder of his life in factories and building sites as a carpenter until his premature death all clearly demonstrate daily financial struggle.

There were several examples of these, most notably those catalogued in "The Communist Party of Ireland, A Critical History, Part 3[24]" which bewails Murphy's "political inexperience" along with implied egotism behind the assertion that he resigned and emigrated because he could "neither act as Dáil mouthpiece for or national leader of the movement".

Indeed, independent articles of the day (that is written and published by neither the UPC nor its associates) refer to Murphy as "quite free from personal vanity or presumption"[7] and speak of his "honesty, integrity and sincerity".