Jeremiah Denis Murphy: 1832 - 1895
Diver ahead of his time
One of the great pioneers of deep sea diving, Corkman Jeremiah Denis Murphy, is still feted thousands of miles away from his birthplace.
Born in Melmane, near Courtmacsherry, in 1832, he made his name in the late 19th century on the Caribbean islands of the Turks & Caicos, which hit the headlines in September when they were ravaged by Hurricane Irma.
His story is the centrepiece of the Turks & Caicos National Museum, whose chairman, Dr Donald H. Keith said: "Murphy's story is so amazing and he was so larger than life, it is surprising he hasn't been discovered by Hollywood!"
The islands are today a magnet for scuba divers but Dr Keith said:
"Few now realise that diving here started in about 1854, when a Boston-based undersea treasure-hunting company used Grand Turk as their headquarters while exploring for shipwrecks to salvage. Jeremiah, a young Irish helmet diver, was among them.
He must have had a great deal of self-confidence, even at the age of 20, because when the rest of the group packed up and moved back to Boston, he and a colleague talked the company into lending them the necessary diving equipment so they could stay and continue to salvage shipwrecks."
Diving Helmet
At the time, diving technology was primitive and perilous, an air pump the only means of keeping divers alive - both Jeremiah's brothers died on undersea missions.
Jeremiah's mentor, James Whipple, designed a diving bell and "armoured diving dress".
"Helmet divers like Jeremiah were the astronauts of their day," explained Dr Keith, "pushing the boundaries of the possible, risking life and limb, going where no-one had gone before."
Jeremiah's diving career spanned the second half of the 1800s, and took him to the Bahamas and Jamaica, where he was the first person to dive on the sunken city of Port Royal. In Bermuda he was a "submarine engineer," and, 150 years ago, in 1867, he spent four years in Bermuda clearing the harbour of ships that had been wrecked by another disastrous hurricane.
At nearby Salt Island, he raised gold bullion worth $60,000 from the wreck of the Royal Mail Steam Ship Rhone.
Now wealthy, he became known for his philanthropy among the island's poor before dying in September 1895, aged 63.
Air Pump
Jeremiah, who was also a justice of the peace, Consul of Denmark and Vice-Consul for the US, was buried with his wife, Catherine, brother, two sons and a daughter in St Thomas's churchyard on Turks & Caicos.
His great-grandson, David Challis, of England, researched his life in 2005 and found his house in Courtmacsherry still standing, across the bay from a slate quarry which had been run by his father Denis.
Jeremiah sailed to New York aged 17 and never went home.
Source: Unknown newspaper cutting c. 2017