Lenny Murphy - Early Life

Early Life

Murphy was the youngest of three sons of Joyce and William Murphy from the loyalist Shankill Road, Belfast. William was originally from Fleet Street, Sailortown in the Belfast docks area. This was where he had met Joyce Thompson, who came from the Shankill. Like his own father (also named William), he worked as a dock labourer. The Murphy family changed their residence several times; in 1957 they returned to Joyce's family home in the lower Shankill, at 28 Percy Street. Murphy's father was reclusive which led to a rumour that he was not the same man and that Joyce was now living with a different 'William Murphy', one who was a Catholic. Lenny Murphy did not use his given first name because Hugh was perceived as Catholic-sounding, especially when coupled with the surname Murphy. Prior to the erection of a peace wall in 1970s, Percy Street ran from the lower Shankill area to the Falls Road. A hoodlum at school (Argyle Primary), where he was known for the use of a knife and had his elder brothers to back him up, Murphy logged his first conviction at the age of twelve for theft. After leaving the Belfast Boys' Model School at sixteen, he joined the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and was involved in the rioting that broke out in Belfast in August 1969.

His character was marked by a pathological hatred of Catholics which he brought into all of his conversations, often referring to them as "scum and animals". He held a steady job as a shop assistant, although his increasing criminal activities enabled him to indulge in a more high profile and flamboyant lifestyle which involved socialising with an array of young women and heavy drinking.

Dillon wrote that it is "incredible to think that Murphy was in fact a murderer at the age of twenty" (1972). There were many people at the time who would have found it hard to believe as physically he did not differ from most young men of his age. Below average height, of slim build and sallow complexion, Murphy was blue eyed and had curly dark brown hair. He sported several tattoos; most of them bearing loyalist images. He was a flashy dresser, too, often wearing a leather jacket snd scarf, and occasionally a pair of leather driving-gloves, such that it reminded one contact of the time of a World War I fighter-pilot.