Murphy’s Bar and Restaurant (Co.Down)

“The Murphy family have over a decade of experience in the hospitality business…we pride ourselves in customer service and top quality Bistro style food. We also offer entertainment at weekends.” Entertainment at weekends? As Murphy’s is owned by Bartley Murphy, and Mr Murphy is a longterm member of the East Down Hunt (as well as a tax evader and a man who in 2014 during a court appearance was told by Deputy District Judge Peter King: “This case troubles me because you come to the court with 44 previous convictions.”), we have to ask given the fact that foxhunting is still bafflingly legal in Northern Ireland just what that entertainment might consist of? A puff-piece in a 2022 edition of the Irish Field which noted that Mr Murphy, already in his sixties, was back out hunting ‘after a crushing fall and four weeks in intensive care’ probably gives us all the answer…