In our research for the book Trev and myself have met some great people. One of those people is Florence Murphy who you will see driving their 1979 Karmann Beetle Cabriolet that both she and Johnny bought in Germany and drove home. It's a beautiful Beetle and so original.
Anyone in the Cork area will probably have heard of Florence's late husband Johnny Murphy because the man was a wizard when it came to aircooled VWs. You've often heard about the mechanic that could diagnose a problem by listening to an aircooled motor, well, Johnny WAS that mechanic! Everyone we ask about him has nothing but nice things to say about Johnny and we would love to have met him and learned form his years of experience as a VW trained mechanic and then from his time running his own business, Roskeen Motors.
Florence herself was one of the people involved in setting up the Duhallow Vintage Club and was very much involved for many years.
Sadly Johnny died of cancer but if that wasn't enough of a loss for Florence, she also lost both her sons in very tragic circumstances. Since then the Duhallow Club have done a run in memory of the Murphy Family and it is on again this Sunday, August 11th.
The meeting point for the Murphy Family Memorial Run is Freemount, Co. Cork and the start time for the 60 mile run is 12 noon
The route will be starting in Freemount and onto Kanturk, Banteer, Naad, Creans Cross, Coachford, Farnanes, Lissarda, Kilmurray (where there is a stop planned at the Independence Musuem), Macroom and Ballyvourney with dinner in The Abbey Hotel.
The cost to be part of this run is a very reasonable €20
Over the last number of years the numbers of VWs attending has fallen which is a shame as it is now dominated now by Fords and other marques so for this year let's turn that around and show the Murphy family our support by getting our VWs along to Freemount on Sunday.
We hope to see you all there
Anyone in the Cork area will probably have heard of Florence's late husband Johnny Murphy because the man was a wizard when it came to aircooled VWs. You've often heard about the mechanic that could diagnose a problem by listening to an aircooled motor, well, Johnny WAS that mechanic! Everyone we ask about him has nothing but nice things to say about Johnny and we would love to have met him and learned form his years of experience as a VW trained mechanic and then from his time running his own business, Roskeen Motors.
Florence herself was one of the people involved in setting up the Duhallow Vintage Club and was very much involved for many years.
Sadly Johnny died of cancer but if that wasn't enough of a loss for Florence, she also lost both her sons in very tragic circumstances. Since then the Duhallow Club have done a run in memory of the Murphy Family and it is on again this Sunday, August 11th.
The meeting point for the Murphy Family Memorial Run is Freemount, Co. Cork and the start time for the 60 mile run is 12 noon
The route will be starting in Freemount and onto Kanturk, Banteer, Naad, Creans Cross, Coachford, Farnanes, Lissarda, Kilmurray (where there is a stop planned at the Independence Musuem), Macroom and Ballyvourney with dinner in The Abbey Hotel.
The cost to be part of this run is a very reasonable €20
Over the last number of years the numbers of VWs attending has fallen which is a shame as it is now dominated now by Fords and other marques so for this year let's turn that around and show the Murphy family our support by getting our VWs along to Freemount on Sunday.
We hope to see you all there
