Maura Murphy, née McNamee (6 September 1928 – 5 October 2005) was an Irish writer.
[2] Murphy worked as a domestic and in other part-time jobs; she kept a diary through much of her life, as she raised nine children.
[3] The book, though somewhat comical in tone, focuses on her life of hardship and poverty, and is critical of the Roman Catholic Church's stances on women, divorce, and contraception.
[1] Publishers Weekly praised the book's "skillful storytelling and optimistic spirit" and called it a "hopeful, spunky sister to Angela's Ashes," the Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography of Frank McCourt.
[5] Maura McNamee married John Murphy in 1953; they moved to Birmingham in 1959, where he worked in a tire factory.