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Wheels Within Wheels
A first-hand account of the life of travel writer Dervla Murphy in which she tells of her early life in Lismore, Co. Waterford, in her rather unusual household. Her father was the county librarian and her mother a chronic invalid. An only child, Dervla was allowed from the age of seven to freely roam on her own. At ten, she cycled ten miles to a local mountain, climbed it, then lost herself on the way down, and was forced to stay out all night - much to the distress of her parents. Living in a house that was crumbling around their ears, she reveals how her family hid a Republican who was later hanged, how she tested herself (with hot water) to increase her pain threshold, how she avoided an insane and shrieking maid, who was convinced that Dervla's parents were fried eggs, and how she helped another maid give birth under the kitchen table. An early love of books and writing, led her to enter a writing competition arranged by a local newspaper, and she won first prize for five weeks in a row. Encouraged to leave school at the age of 14 to nurse her mother, she portrays the strain that her mother's increasing illness had on the family, and the resulting breakdown in family relationships.
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First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Dervla Murphy
51 books270 followersDervla Murphy’s first book, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, was published in 1965. Over twenty travel books followed including her highly acclaimed autobiography, Wheels Within Wheels.
Dervla won worldwide praise for her writing and many awards, including the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing and the Royal Geographical Award for the popularisation of geography.
Few of the epithets used to describe her – ‘travel legend’, ‘intrepid’ or ‘the first lady of Irish cycling’ – quite do justice to her extraordinary achievement.
She was born in 1931 and remained passionate about travel, writing, politics, Palestine, conservation, bicycling and beer until her death in 2022.
Dervla won worldwide praise for her writing and many awards, including the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing and the Royal Geographical Award for the popularisation of geography.
Few of the epithets used to describe her – ‘travel legend’, ‘intrepid’ or ‘the first lady of Irish cycling’ – quite do justice to her extraordinary achievement.
She was born in 1931 and remained passionate about travel, writing, politics, Palestine, conservation, bicycling and beer until her death in 2022.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
February 5, 2022
I have read a lot of Dervla Murphy's books, and being a bit of a completist, when I saw this book, even knowing it is not about her travels, I didn't hesitate to pick it up.
This is her eighth book, published in 1979, and is an autobiography covering her childhood up until he mothers death when Dervla was 35, and she was able to fulfill her very long-term wish to cycle to India.
As anyone who has read Murphy's travel books will know, she writes honestly, shares he flaws, and doesn't shy from the hard parts. Her childhood in Lismore, Ireland contains almost nothing orthodox - her family, their lifestyle and lack of wider family bonds, their approach to religion, her mothers medical condition, her complex relationship her parents, her education (by homeschool, then boarding school), her leaving boarding school to nurse her invalid mother.
It is easy to take the view that Murphy wasn't a nice child. She was argumentative, obstinate, but also contained an intelligence (or perhaps just knowledge) beyond her years. This was partly due to her mother never hiding things from her, being forward with knowledge, and also that Murphy didn't have many childhood friendships. She was almost certainly an odd child. Other reviewer's have indicated that made her unlikable - perhaps, but it is the formative time, and her childhood surely made her what she became in her travels - incredibly strong-willed, determined and fearless. Of course it also made her often abrupt, judgemental and sometimes obnoxious, but what I like about her is that she doesn't pretend that these are not a part of her. She always shares / writes about her journeys in an honest way even when it is not flattering.
This is a relatively short book - around 230 pages, and it is not a long read. There were a few patches where it lacked a little vigor and my attention waned, but not for too long. I can't say that it interested me as much as her travel books, but it fills some gaps as to why she comes across certain ways in her books. As usual I got a kick out of the places in Dublin she mentioned which I recognised!
For me 3.5 stars. Rounded down.
This is her eighth book, published in 1979, and is an autobiography covering her childhood up until he mothers death when Dervla was 35, and she was able to fulfill her very long-term wish to cycle to India.
As anyone who has read Murphy's travel books will know, she writes honestly, shares he flaws, and doesn't shy from the hard parts. Her childhood in Lismore, Ireland contains almost nothing orthodox - her family, their lifestyle and lack of wider family bonds, their approach to religion, her mothers medical condition, her complex relationship her parents, her education (by homeschool, then boarding school), her leaving boarding school to nurse her invalid mother.
It is easy to take the view that Murphy wasn't a nice child. She was argumentative, obstinate, but also contained an intelligence (or perhaps just knowledge) beyond her years. This was partly due to her mother never hiding things from her, being forward with knowledge, and also that Murphy didn't have many childhood friendships. She was almost certainly an odd child. Other reviewer's have indicated that made her unlikable - perhaps, but it is the formative time, and her childhood surely made her what she became in her travels - incredibly strong-willed, determined and fearless. Of course it also made her often abrupt, judgemental and sometimes obnoxious, but what I like about her is that she doesn't pretend that these are not a part of her. She always shares / writes about her journeys in an honest way even when it is not flattering.
This is a relatively short book - around 230 pages, and it is not a long read. There were a few patches where it lacked a little vigor and my attention waned, but not for too long. I can't say that it interested me as much as her travel books, but it fills some gaps as to why she comes across certain ways in her books. As usual I got a kick out of the places in Dublin she mentioned which I recognised!
For me 3.5 stars. Rounded down.
December 3, 2021
The person that we become is often determined in our formative years. Dervla Murphy is one of those that would probably not be the tenacious person that she is today if she had a different upbringing. She was born ninety years ago in 1928 in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland. She was an only child after her mother was advised not to have any more children because of rheumatoid arthritis.
Her mother’s health meant that she became an invalid very early on and she was looked after by her husband and daughter with some assistance from others at times. To get a break from the relentless pressure that caring for someone can have, she would take off for long rides around the local countryside from the age of eleven. She had been given her bicycle and an atlas at the age of ten and these two gifts gave her the idea of cycling to India after she realised that by just keeping pedalling she could make it to any point in the world she desired.
It was a tough life in that part of Ireland, but she was remarkable stoic given all the pressures and poverty she endured. She had a brief spell at a boarding school, but her mother insisted that it was only her that could look after her. She was to do this until her death in the early 1960s. She mostly complied with her requests, but there were moments when she fought back to give herself the space that she needed.
It is a fascinating read, though fairly uncomfortable at times as Murphy does not hold back as she unloads her feelings about the way that her mother treated her and used her as her nurse for so long. However, she is human enough to realise that they were not in a position as a family to be able to afford the care that she needed. It strengthened her character and ironically gave her the skills she need to travel the world as a lone woman on a bike.
Her mother’s health meant that she became an invalid very early on and she was looked after by her husband and daughter with some assistance from others at times. To get a break from the relentless pressure that caring for someone can have, she would take off for long rides around the local countryside from the age of eleven. She had been given her bicycle and an atlas at the age of ten and these two gifts gave her the idea of cycling to India after she realised that by just keeping pedalling she could make it to any point in the world she desired.
It was a tough life in that part of Ireland, but she was remarkable stoic given all the pressures and poverty she endured. She had a brief spell at a boarding school, but her mother insisted that it was only her that could look after her. She was to do this until her death in the early 1960s. She mostly complied with her requests, but there were moments when she fought back to give herself the space that she needed.
It is a fascinating read, though fairly uncomfortable at times as Murphy does not hold back as she unloads her feelings about the way that her mother treated her and used her as her nurse for so long. However, she is human enough to realise that they were not in a position as a family to be able to afford the care that she needed. It strengthened her character and ironically gave her the skills she need to travel the world as a lone woman on a bike.
September 4, 2019
I found this really hard going. It was more like reading a formal report. This was the first book Dervla wrote and is about her early childhood and growing up in Ireland. Althour a few photos of her later travels, very little detail of them.
June 7, 2022
"Academically I was backward because sheer laziness deterred me from using what was in any case a fairly limited intelligence. But my early sharing in adult problems and responsibilities had made me, emotionally, unusually mature"
On May 22nd 2022, the world heard of the passing of Dervla Murphy, renowned Irish author and travel writer. To my shame I was not familiar with Dervla Murphy’s work and it was only in early 2022 that her writing was recommended to me. I picked up a copy of Wheels within Wheels as its autobiographical nature appealed to me. I wanted to know where Dervla Murphy began and what it was that made her into such an earnest and determined traveller and writer. Wheels within Wheels was first published in 1979 with John Murray. This edition was published by Eland Books in 2021 and is described by William Trevor of The Times as ‘an extraordinary book, reflecting an extraordinary woman and one of the great travellers of our time.’
Dervla Murphy was born on November 28, 1931. Her parents, Fergus and Kathleen Murphy, had moved from Dublin to the country town of Lismore in Co. Waterford, where her father took up the role of the local librarian. From the beginning the Murphy family was met with the scepticism and wariness of a rural community. Being from Dublin, they were considered as ‘foreigners’ – ‘As far back as the genealogical eye could see both their families were of the Dublin bourgeoisie‘. This attitude was to remain over the years. Kathleen and Fergus Murphy lived life according to their own rules, with a perspective that differed from the locals, isolating Dervla from the beginning.
"When my parents arrived in Lismore on their wedding day – being too poor to afford even a weekend honeymoon – they found a build-up of suspicions, resentment. The previous county librarian had been a popular local figure since the 1870s. He had recently reluctantly retired, leaving nine books fit to be circulated, and the townspeople were furious when an aloof young Dubliner was appointed to replace their beloved Mr Mills. A secure job with a salary of £250 a year had slipped from the grasp of some deserving local and they smelt political corruption. It mattered not to them that no local was qualified for the job, and what little they knew of my father they disliked. His family was conspicuously Republican – a black mark, not long after the Civil War, in a pre- dominantly Redmondite town."
With brutal honesty Dervla Murphy looks back over her earlier life writing an extremely emotive book that leaves its mark. Her mother was diagnosed with a rare form of rheumatoid arthritis that eventually resulted in her being bedbound. At the age of fourteen, Dervla left formal education and became her mother’s main carer for sixteen years, as her father continued to work, keeping the family barely afloat. Through these formidable times, Dervla Murphy never lost sight of her dreams to travel. She did manage a few short European adventures, always with her bike, travelling economically and exploring off-beaten tracks along the way. She fell passionately in love with Spain on these trips but her big ambition was to travel to India on her bike, a dream that was shelved as long as her parents needed her. Dervla Murphy had a very rancorous relationship with her mother, eventually resulting in her own health being affected. It must have been extremely difficult for her mother having to be cared for 24/7 but her over-reliance on Dervla while clearly wrong was also, strangely, understandable. Dervla delves deep into this fractured mother-daughter relationship that was rooted in her early years, giving the reader an incredible insight into a home environment that was erratic, eccentric, and alternative.
“Some people imagined that my unusual upbringing was a result of being the only child of an invalid. But my mother’s mothering would have been no less odd, I feel certain, had she been in rude health with a family of ten. As a perfectionist, and a woman who saw motherhood as an important career, she approached child-rearing in what I can only call an artistic spirit. Given as raw material a newly conceived child, she saw it as her duty and privilege to form an adult who would be physically, mentally and morally healthy as intelligent rearing could make it. Physically she was completely successful. The other aspects of a child’s health are, alas, less amenable to maternal regulation”
Wheels within Wheels is an extraordinary reading experience. Dervla Murphy’s appreciation for life was just exceptional. Her no-frills approach to having such remarkable adventures should inspire us all to explore that little bit further beyond our comfort zones. Her book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965) will be the next one on my reading list (see below) and, after that, I think I have more than another twenty to choose from. I have no doubt that parts of Dervla’s travel experiences are now outdated but the spirit of this indomitable and exhilarating individual shines through her incredible writing and spirited attitude. I hope by writing this review, that many of you too will now look up the back catalogue of this fascinating and exciting writer.
“Love leaves calm. Even when circumstances have given it the semblance of hate, this is so. In the tangled relationships between my parents and myself love was often abused, denied, misdirected, thwarted, exploited and outwardly debased. But it existed, and it left calm.”
On May 22nd 2022, the world heard of the passing of Dervla Murphy, renowned Irish author and travel writer. To my shame I was not familiar with Dervla Murphy’s work and it was only in early 2022 that her writing was recommended to me. I picked up a copy of Wheels within Wheels as its autobiographical nature appealed to me. I wanted to know where Dervla Murphy began and what it was that made her into such an earnest and determined traveller and writer. Wheels within Wheels was first published in 1979 with John Murray. This edition was published by Eland Books in 2021 and is described by William Trevor of The Times as ‘an extraordinary book, reflecting an extraordinary woman and one of the great travellers of our time.’
Dervla Murphy was born on November 28, 1931. Her parents, Fergus and Kathleen Murphy, had moved from Dublin to the country town of Lismore in Co. Waterford, where her father took up the role of the local librarian. From the beginning the Murphy family was met with the scepticism and wariness of a rural community. Being from Dublin, they were considered as ‘foreigners’ – ‘As far back as the genealogical eye could see both their families were of the Dublin bourgeoisie‘. This attitude was to remain over the years. Kathleen and Fergus Murphy lived life according to their own rules, with a perspective that differed from the locals, isolating Dervla from the beginning.
"When my parents arrived in Lismore on their wedding day – being too poor to afford even a weekend honeymoon – they found a build-up of suspicions, resentment. The previous county librarian had been a popular local figure since the 1870s. He had recently reluctantly retired, leaving nine books fit to be circulated, and the townspeople were furious when an aloof young Dubliner was appointed to replace their beloved Mr Mills. A secure job with a salary of £250 a year had slipped from the grasp of some deserving local and they smelt political corruption. It mattered not to them that no local was qualified for the job, and what little they knew of my father they disliked. His family was conspicuously Republican – a black mark, not long after the Civil War, in a pre- dominantly Redmondite town."
With brutal honesty Dervla Murphy looks back over her earlier life writing an extremely emotive book that leaves its mark. Her mother was diagnosed with a rare form of rheumatoid arthritis that eventually resulted in her being bedbound. At the age of fourteen, Dervla left formal education and became her mother’s main carer for sixteen years, as her father continued to work, keeping the family barely afloat. Through these formidable times, Dervla Murphy never lost sight of her dreams to travel. She did manage a few short European adventures, always with her bike, travelling economically and exploring off-beaten tracks along the way. She fell passionately in love with Spain on these trips but her big ambition was to travel to India on her bike, a dream that was shelved as long as her parents needed her. Dervla Murphy had a very rancorous relationship with her mother, eventually resulting in her own health being affected. It must have been extremely difficult for her mother having to be cared for 24/7 but her over-reliance on Dervla while clearly wrong was also, strangely, understandable. Dervla delves deep into this fractured mother-daughter relationship that was rooted in her early years, giving the reader an incredible insight into a home environment that was erratic, eccentric, and alternative.
“Some people imagined that my unusual upbringing was a result of being the only child of an invalid. But my mother’s mothering would have been no less odd, I feel certain, had she been in rude health with a family of ten. As a perfectionist, and a woman who saw motherhood as an important career, she approached child-rearing in what I can only call an artistic spirit. Given as raw material a newly conceived child, she saw it as her duty and privilege to form an adult who would be physically, mentally and morally healthy as intelligent rearing could make it. Physically she was completely successful. The other aspects of a child’s health are, alas, less amenable to maternal regulation”
Wheels within Wheels is an extraordinary reading experience. Dervla Murphy’s appreciation for life was just exceptional. Her no-frills approach to having such remarkable adventures should inspire us all to explore that little bit further beyond our comfort zones. Her book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965) will be the next one on my reading list (see below) and, after that, I think I have more than another twenty to choose from. I have no doubt that parts of Dervla’s travel experiences are now outdated but the spirit of this indomitable and exhilarating individual shines through her incredible writing and spirited attitude. I hope by writing this review, that many of you too will now look up the back catalogue of this fascinating and exciting writer.
“Love leaves calm. Even when circumstances have given it the semblance of hate, this is so. In the tangled relationships between my parents and myself love was often abused, denied, misdirected, thwarted, exploited and outwardly debased. But it existed, and it left calm.”
February 5, 2021
I love memoirs but not this one. Maybe she’s better with travel books. Here she just seems lacking in maturity.
April 19, 2020
For my tenth birthday my parents gave me a second-hand bicycle and Pappa sent me a second-hand atlas. Already I was an enthusiastic cyclist, though I had never before owned a bicycle, and soon after my bithday I resolved to cycle to India one day. I never forgotten the exact spot, on a steep hill near Lismore, where this decision was made. Half-way up I rather proudly looked at my legs, slowly pushing the pedals round, and the thought came _'If I went on doing this for long enough I could get to India.' I saw how I could travel in reality _alone, independent and needing very little money.
December 15, 2022
Having read Full Tilt, it was fascinating to read the years prior to this amazing journey by bike from Ireland to India and helps to understand how her difficult and unusual family life prepared her for it.
December 2, 2023
What a lovely thing it is to have a friend bring you a book to work and mostly when your friend is 86 and walks with a cane. To my surprise, Jim happened to give me one of the most significant books I've read this year, an autobiography of an Irish girl born in the 1930s that mainly wants to ride her bike and read her books in peace. Getting to know about her is reassuring in a time of my life in which confusion and restlessness abound in my day to day. It's important to feel understood, even if it is through paper by a book author born 70 years before you. Dervla made my feelings of egoism and insensitiveness seem more normal than I was ashamed to think. She wasn't afraid to show her flaws and made me more comfortable getting to know mine. I need to pass this along.
August 8, 2022
A fascinating memoir. Dervla Murphy was certainly an eccentric, fiercely independent and unusually tough person but her retrospective insights onto the relationships of her youth and the formation of her personality are universal.
From the astounding freedom that she was permitted in her childhood, to the astounding captivity of her early adulthood, which she spent providing 24/7 care to her invalid mother, she had a strange and interesting life before her global travels ever began. Of course, she had a few brushes with danger – no Dervla Murphy book would be complete without a few hair-raising escapades!
Plenty of insights into the Ireland of the time (including some letters from the time of the founding of the Irish Free State), amusing anecdotes of childhood, concerning tales of her secret romance and her mental breakdown – but ultimately, the most memorable aspect of the book is its valuable reflections on human nature and conflict within a family.
From the astounding freedom that she was permitted in her childhood, to the astounding captivity of her early adulthood, which she spent providing 24/7 care to her invalid mother, she had a strange and interesting life before her global travels ever began. Of course, she had a few brushes with danger – no Dervla Murphy book would be complete without a few hair-raising escapades!
Plenty of insights into the Ireland of the time (including some letters from the time of the founding of the Irish Free State), amusing anecdotes of childhood, concerning tales of her secret romance and her mental breakdown – but ultimately, the most memorable aspect of the book is its valuable reflections on human nature and conflict within a family.
August 17, 2021
more a back story and her childhood than any detail of her travels.
focused quite a bit on her family life in Lismore where they seemed to have been somewhat separate to the rest of the community, did get a sense that they deliberately held themselves apart
honest portrayal of her difficult relationship with her mother, in particular as she became primary carer as mother's condition deteriorated
focused quite a bit on her family life in Lismore where they seemed to have been somewhat separate to the rest of the community, did get a sense that they deliberately held themselves apart
honest portrayal of her difficult relationship with her mother, in particular as she became primary carer as mother's condition deteriorated
January 4, 2016
Supposedly an account of an unusual upbringing - but instead if felt like coming home, from having lived in the same town as her but 50 years later, having weirdly so many of the same experiences as her (same boarding school, same adventures travelling solo) it was an enjoyable but spooky read for me.
September 4, 2020
If ever a book could demonstrate that in the face of adversity you can achieve anything, this is it. A very honest account of a difficult and challenging life and well worth reading. Dervla Murphy is an amazing and inspirational woman. I'm just beginning my third book by her - I would love to meet her.
October 25, 2021
A wonderful memoir by one of the most intrepid travelers of our time about her first thirty years, her love of books, her early cycling adventures, the abiding love and frustrations of caring for her invalid mother, and her coming of age as a writer.
January 4, 2014
Moving, well-written and unflinching self-examination. Read Full Tilt first and this explained much of her character and ability to live as she did.
January 14, 2018
I like honesty. Dervla's revelations were real and not always flattering. I admire people that can make themselves vulnerable without apology.
July 26, 2019
Murphy writes well, as befits an author of her time and place, but I have to agree with some GR members that she doesn't present herself in the best light. Honesty? Maybe, but that doesn't make her an engaging person. Self-confessedly spoiled, "nasty" and "arrogant", self-absorbed to the point of obsession, she blames her extreme attitudes on her parents by word and implication. It's all their fault because they did or they didn't do thus and so. Yet she also repeatedly states in so many words that she herself could have done things she didn't do, to change or improve her situation. The modern reader might say, "Oh well she was only sixteen (or whatever), she was still a child", but in those days boys and girls in Britain and Ireland routinely left school at 14 and entered the adult workforce. They were treated like adults and expected to take their place in the adult world--and they did. Murphy's emotional immaturity may have started at home, but apparently she didn't get much change out of going away to school, spending time in Dublin etc. because she was so wrapped up in selfselfself. No wonder she was "no good at languages"--communicating with others requires interaction with them, which by her own frequent admission in these pages was not her forte.
Her love of books might be considered a redeeming feature, if it weren't obviously another way for her to evade reality. I'm not being unkind here, I did it myself. Taken to extremes it's dangerous. I wondered how her parents could consider her "slow" and unintelligent if, as she claims, she had read all of Ruskin and co. before the age of twenty. I don't think she was unintelligent, just intellectually lazy; again, I recognise the behaviour. I too couldn't be bothered to study very hard at subjects that didn't interest me or that I found difficult, or the teacher was uncongenial--but it comes at a price. There's a difference between being an introvert and being an egoist.
I now realise Murphy has written several volumes of memoirs; hardly surprising she didn't write about anything but her wonderful self and her own adventures, considering. However this made the end of this book a huge disappointment. One moment she is finally setting off on her bike "for India" from her home in Ireland (was she intending to cycle across the Channel? I know, but that's the way she made it sound), and then "When I arrived in Delhi" and nothing in between, just "teasers" for her next few books. Throughout the book she mentions a mysterious "daughter", another trailer to get the reader to find her other books.
Murphy writes well but was not, I think, an appealing person.
Her love of books might be considered a redeeming feature, if it weren't obviously another way for her to evade reality. I'm not being unkind here, I did it myself. Taken to extremes it's dangerous. I wondered how her parents could consider her "slow" and unintelligent if, as she claims, she had read all of Ruskin and co. before the age of twenty. I don't think she was unintelligent, just intellectually lazy; again, I recognise the behaviour. I too couldn't be bothered to study very hard at subjects that didn't interest me or that I found difficult, or the teacher was uncongenial--but it comes at a price. There's a difference between being an introvert and being an egoist.
I now realise Murphy has written several volumes of memoirs; hardly surprising she didn't write about anything but her wonderful self and her own adventures, considering. However this made the end of this book a huge disappointment. One moment she is finally setting off on her bike "for India" from her home in Ireland (was she intending to cycle across the Channel? I know, but that's the way she made it sound), and then "When I arrived in Delhi" and nothing in between, just "teasers" for her next few books. Throughout the book she mentions a mysterious "daughter", another trailer to get the reader to find her other books.
Murphy writes well but was not, I think, an appealing person.
April 12, 2020
A happy re-read
A searingly honest memoir which I first read years ago. I have just seen an Irish documentary on Dervla Murphy and I think in some ways she has inherited her mother’s stubborn temperament and determination to have her own way. Though commonplace nowadays deciding to become a single mother was very unusual then and hearing daughter speak, I am not at all sure it made for an easy childhood. However, I am very pleased I had read this wonderful and highly recommended memoir before I saw the film.
A searingly honest memoir which I first read years ago. I have just seen an Irish documentary on Dervla Murphy and I think in some ways she has inherited her mother’s stubborn temperament and determination to have her own way. Though commonplace nowadays deciding to become a single mother was very unusual then and hearing daughter speak, I am not at all sure it made for an easy childhood. However, I am very pleased I had read this wonderful and highly recommended memoir before I saw the film.
August 17, 2010
Already a huge Dervla Murphy fan, I came across this book about her unconventional upbringing in a charity shop and read it that afternoon. Her writing style is so engaging and enjoyable to read that I immediately felt that I wished to be her friend! And that I wanted to re-read her other immensely enjoyable books.
May 10, 2012
This was a terrificially honest book. Dervlas love of cycling, her fraught relationship with her bed ridden mother and the birth of her child stays with me still after 20 years. Clearly a strong minded and independant woman.
August 29, 2021
It seems not all readers are aware that this book was written for the author’s daughter and was not initially intended for publication. The manuscript was accidentally discovered by Dervla’s publisher (John Murray) who insisted that it be published. I guess this explains why some readers found the author not an overly attractive character. But if the same readers laid themselves bare with the same unabashed honesty as Dervla, the results might be even less flattering. Even in a recent interview (which can be accessed here on the Goodreads page) Dervla remains willing to reveal herself, warts and all, as when she describes eating bread with trails of snails on it !
In the book, especially the latter part, one is amazed at Dervla’s stoicism in the face of unrelenting toiling for her invalid bed ridden mother during the last years of her life. Yet despite this she can still eke out joyful moments, snatching time to cycle around or swim or meet her manfriend, or when home, listen to concerts with her mother - and drink glasses of whiskey. Even in her worst moments she could still enjoy life. ‘Even the bitterest despair and frustration can at a deep level be relished as part of the human experience. And so is generated a basic content which survives the surface discontents provoked by everyday miseries’. This is reassuring and comforting for all of us.
I look forward to reading her travel works. ‘Full tilt’ was lying around our house when growing up yet, bookish as I am, I never got round to reading it. I’ll resolve that now. And witting she is, eg., describing a not too close relationship with one of her neighbours, she said – so the relationship stuck at meteorological comment !
In the book, especially the latter part, one is amazed at Dervla’s stoicism in the face of unrelenting toiling for her invalid bed ridden mother during the last years of her life. Yet despite this she can still eke out joyful moments, snatching time to cycle around or swim or meet her manfriend, or when home, listen to concerts with her mother - and drink glasses of whiskey. Even in her worst moments she could still enjoy life. ‘Even the bitterest despair and frustration can at a deep level be relished as part of the human experience. And so is generated a basic content which survives the surface discontents provoked by everyday miseries’. This is reassuring and comforting for all of us.
I look forward to reading her travel works. ‘Full tilt’ was lying around our house when growing up yet, bookish as I am, I never got round to reading it. I’ll resolve that now. And witting she is, eg., describing a not too close relationship with one of her neighbours, she said – so the relationship stuck at meteorological comment !
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August 17, 2020From "About the Author," p. [237]: she "remains passionate about politics, conservation, bicycling and beer." Well, you can see why I admire her so much!!
I read Full Tilt first in 1988 when I had ridden RAGBRAI about 10 years and was soon to give up on RAGBRAI since I had moved to Charleston, SC, three years previously, and the costs in terms of time and money were becoming too much. (Of course Dervla would have scoffed!) I've reread the book several times, and it's one of the few books that will remain on my shelves.
"I nearly joined the angels by drinking half a bottle of neat whiskey.... I recovered with a speed that ominously foreshadowed an infinite capacity for strong liquor."
"Long before I had heard of pantheists, druids or sacred groves, ... But does it matter how we worship, if we worship?"
"...withdrawn books -- their pages interlarded with evidence of the diet of the rural reader."
"It is precisely this irrational faith in one's own durability which can earn one an undeserved reputation for courage."
"At thirty, I could ignore neither my own flaws nor the endless variety of causes that lie behind the flaws of others. The school was hard, but the knowledge was priceless."
"...a happy-go-lucky, private voyage."
I read Full Tilt first in 1988 when I had ridden RAGBRAI about 10 years and was soon to give up on RAGBRAI since I had moved to Charleston, SC, three years previously, and the costs in terms of time and money were becoming too much. (Of course Dervla would have scoffed!) I've reread the book several times, and it's one of the few books that will remain on my shelves.
"I nearly joined the angels by drinking half a bottle of neat whiskey.... I recovered with a speed that ominously foreshadowed an infinite capacity for strong liquor."
"Long before I had heard of pantheists, druids or sacred groves, ... But does it matter how we worship, if we worship?"
"...withdrawn books -- their pages interlarded with evidence of the diet of the rural reader."
"It is precisely this irrational faith in one's own durability which can earn one an undeserved reputation for courage."
"At thirty, I could ignore neither my own flaws nor the endless variety of causes that lie behind the flaws of others. The school was hard, but the knowledge was priceless."
"...a happy-go-lucky, private voyage."
June 1, 2023
Having enjoyed Dervla Murphy's book about Cuba some years ago I was interested to read about her first major cycling expedition - to India - in 'Full Tilt'. This is both entertaining and informative, written with her characteristic aplomb. An incident in which a budding rapist enters her room in the middle of the night and she scares him away by reaching for the revolver under her pillow and firing a bullet into the ceiling, is perhaps the most remarkable incident, to which Murphy devotes only a few rather dismissive lines.
Reading 'Full Tilt' took me to her early autobiography, which is not as gripping as the books about her journeys but is very interesting about how her unusual early life formed her, and how the wish to escape (and specifically to cycle to India) grew in her at a very early age.
Reading 'Full Tilt' took me to her early autobiography, which is not as gripping as the books about her journeys but is very interesting about how her unusual early life formed her, and how the wish to escape (and specifically to cycle to India) grew in her at a very early age.
July 17, 2025
Murphy’s prose is cold, sharp, and relentless—it hooks into you and doesn’t let go. (e.g. she writes, “we are born—I am convinced—with a certain basic foreknowledge about the pattern of our lives….”)
Someone gave me Wheels Within Wheels for my thirtieth birthday, and it couldn’t have landed at a better time. Murphy herself was approaching thirty when she wrote this, trying to rebuild her life while navigating grief. Her humanism radiates throughout the book & it made me feel warmer, and frankly, made me want to be a better person.
But what makes this memoir really stand out is the unflinching look at her own psychology: the fine-grained attention to detail, the willingness to sit in discomfort, especially when it comes to her complicated relationship with her mother—an invalid she cared for over sixteen years.
Haven’t read a memoir this engaging in a while!
Someone gave me Wheels Within Wheels for my thirtieth birthday, and it couldn’t have landed at a better time. Murphy herself was approaching thirty when she wrote this, trying to rebuild her life while navigating grief. Her humanism radiates throughout the book & it made me feel warmer, and frankly, made me want to be a better person.
But what makes this memoir really stand out is the unflinching look at her own psychology: the fine-grained attention to detail, the willingness to sit in discomfort, especially when it comes to her complicated relationship with her mother—an invalid she cared for over sixteen years.
Haven’t read a memoir this engaging in a while!
January 19, 2018
Well written and engaging, but found it too irritating to finish. Devla was tediously self absorbed - as one probably would be as a child, but how could she remember what she thought and what others said with such clarity at such young ages? Conversations about religious bigotry, politics, levitation - no her 'memories' are farcical.
The style is slightly pompous and arrogant. Why was she so unpopular at her first boarding school and with their 'servant' Maggie? Why couldn't she make herself more amenable? Why couldn't she pass exams, was no good at sport, music, art and domestic science? And what sort of person hates cake??? I'm afraid I was not that keen on her, despite the lively writing.....
The style is slightly pompous and arrogant. Why was she so unpopular at her first boarding school and with their 'servant' Maggie? Why couldn't she make herself more amenable? Why couldn't she pass exams, was no good at sport, music, art and domestic science? And what sort of person hates cake??? I'm afraid I was not that keen on her, despite the lively writing.....
June 15, 2023
I first learned about Dervla Murphy through her book FULL TILT, about her cycling journey from Ireland to India.
Wanting to know more about Murphy, I purchased this book. Cycling is in the background of this book, but I am happy to have learned more about this strong, intelligent woman. Cycling long distances in harsh conditions took great strength, but she exhibited even greater strength in her life through difficult academic situations and especially through agonizing family situations. Murphy's story is inspiring.
Wanting to know more about Murphy, I purchased this book. Cycling is in the background of this book, but I am happy to have learned more about this strong, intelligent woman. Cycling long distances in harsh conditions took great strength, but she exhibited even greater strength in her life through difficult academic situations and especially through agonizing family situations. Murphy's story is inspiring.
May 8, 2023
First read this book several decades ago. Really enjoyed my re-reading -I think I had more understanding and empathy for her story as an older person. Thoughtful, perceptive, frank, full of dry humour and paints a brilliant picture of childhood in the early 20th century in Ireland. An excellent read.
August 27, 2023
Makes me want to hop on a bike and figure out the route to Lismore. Even if the reader is unfamiliar with the Blackwater they’ll soon fall in love with it through Murphy’s prose; evocative and charming. Much heartache is heaped on top as she details the decline of her parents. Worth the read for both factors. A fascinating life, and this is only a segment.
August 11, 2022
Hits so well to read a book that involves swimming at Seapoint in the 40s. She does love to brag about being really clever as a child though, which is one of the most annoying things anyone could ever do
July 6, 2017
How a young woman grows up in isolated Ireland with eccentric but, highly educated parents. She is mostly self-educated and adventuresome. Restricted by convention and a wheelchair bound mother.
July 28, 2019
More of a Cider with Rosie than a book about cycling, but an interesting insight into growing up in Ireland.
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