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Seamus McMurphy () was an Irish people poet and rapparee, who lived c. 1720–1750.
His close friend was Peadar Ó Doirnín, a fellow-poet with whom he founded a hedge school teaching Irish bardic poetry. They held regular sessions at Dunreavy Wood and Mullaghbane.
The two were actively involved in the planning for the Jacobite rising of 1745; McMurphy had also been an active rapparee since at least 1740. His main adversary was John Johnston of Roxborough, known as Johnston of the Fews, an infamous local tory- and priest hunter.
In the summer of 1744, Mac Murchaidh and O'Doirnin organised a monster meeting on Slieve Gullion to motivate the local people for the imminent arrival of Prince Charles Edward Stuart. As a result of the unrest caused by the Slieve Gullion meeting, Johnston was attacked and very seriously wounded. Though he survived, he met with McMurphy and Ó Doirnín, where they agreed to "an uneasy truce."
McMurphy and Ó Doirnín often attended a shebeen or inn at Flagstaff (or Upper Fathom?), a mountain route to Omeath, owned by Patsy MacDecker, known as Paddy of the Mountain. The area remains particularly remote even in the 21st century, and in the 1740s was the perfect hideaway for rapparees.
McMurphy also took Paddy Mac Decker's daughter, Molly, as his mistress. However, their affair was stormy; after a heated argument and breakup, Molly allegedly vowed revenge on McMurphy. To this end, she gave Ó Doirnín alcohol one evening and persuaded him to compose a satirical poem about Johnston called The Heretic Headhunter. Molly then showed the poem to Johnston, claiming McMurphy was the author. Johnston was angered by this violation of their truce. In return, Molly was offered £50 by Johnston to help entrap McMurphy.
However, another version places the blame on one of Mac Murchaidh's lieutenants, Art Fearon, who wanted to win Molly’s favour. According to this account, he told her detailed stories about McMurphy’s numerous affairs with other women. Equally angered, Paddy MacDecker decided to claim the £50 that had already been offered as a reward, and joined the plan. On the Saturday night before the Pattern Day of Killeavy, McMurphy was scheduled to stay at the inn; the MacDeckers got him extremely drunk and off-guard.
However it came about, Johnston and his men caught McMurphy at MacDecker's sibín, sometime in late 1749 or early 1750.
For violating the traditional Irish code of silence regarding both the police and the courts, Molly MacDecker was ostracised by her community, and became psychosis. She eventually drowned herself at Narrow Water.
In 1973, Jem Murphy, a relation of the rapparee's family, erected a headstone to Seamus McMurphy in Creggan churchyard.
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