Murphy was born in Charlestown in 1851 to John Murphy of Fermanagh and Jane Smiley of Donegal. She attended grammar school and high school in Charlestown. She began contributing children’s stories to the Young Crusader, a Catholic Magazine that published monthly from its offices on West Street, using the pen name Agnes Smiley, her grandmother’s maiden name.
Murphy was also a contributor to The Boston Pilot weekly newspaper when John Boyle O’Reilly arrived in Boston in 1870. At that time, O’Reilly was famous in Irish circles as the man who had made a daring escape from a British penal colony in Australia and found his way to America. He would become one of the most influential writers, orators and change makers in late 19th century Boston. He had read one of her stories in the Young Crusader and inquired about her. They met at the newspaper offices and “a mutual attachment sprang up which ripened into lasting affection," wrote a local paper.
The couple married on August 15, 1872, at St. Mary’s Church in Charlestown, and they settled into 34 Winthrop Street where they raised four daughters, Mary (Molly), Eliza Boyle, Agnes Smiley and Blanid.
In the 1870s, the name Agnes Smiley became well known in Boston's Irish Catholic community because of her regular children’s column in The Pilot entitled 'Little Ants,' in which she wrote loving and inspirational stories for children that captured their imagination and gained a following for her. During the 1870s, she wrote more than 175 columns in The Pilot, which produced a sizable number of letters to the paper praising her efforts.
One of them quoted a line from Smiley’s column, which read, “It is not the number of days we live, but the good and thorough way in which we spend those days that makes a long and noble life, and to live such a life we must aim at high thoughts and surround ourselves with good associates.”
According to her obituary in The Boston Globe, Murphy “took an interest in everything and was consulted in everything by (O’Reilly). He often referred to her in a touching sentence in public."
In the dedication to his book, Legends, Ballads and Songs, O’Reilly wrote that his wife’s “rare and loving judgment has been a standard I have tried to reach.”
When Mary died on November 22, 2897 after a brief bout of pneumonia, her funeral was held at St. Mary's Church in Charlestown. She is buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline next to her husband.
- Research + Text, Michael Quinlin
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