Christopher Murphy is an Irish castle restorer and heritage conservation specialist, best known for his long-term commitment to the restoration, preservation, and sustainable reuse of historic Irish castles and fortified houses.
His work focuses on safeguarding architectural heritage while ensuring buildings remain structurally sound and viable for modern use.
Murphy is particularly respected for his hands-on approach, combining traditional craft skills—such as stone masonry, lime mortar work, and historic carpentry—with modern conservation principles. He advocates strongly for minimum intervention, authenticity of materials, and respect for a structure’s historical layers.
He celebrated his 100th bursary in December
1931 Infants’ school in Rathmines, Dublin
1932 Primary School in Colombo, Sri Lanka
1933-35 Home Schooling in Oughterard
1935 Summer term at Kylemore Abbey (girls’ school)
1935-37 Baymount Preparatory School, Dollymount, North Dunlin
1937-39 Canterbury Cathedral Chori School, Chorister
1939 to 1940 - Kings School Canterbury, Scholar
1940-41 Home education at |Milford, Co. Mayo
Trinity College, Dublin 1943-1944 and after military service 1947-1948
Employment History:
April 1944 to September 1947 – British and Indian Armies, demobilised with rank of Lieutenant in the Inniskilling Fusiliers
January 1949 to April 1962 -Royal Dutch/Shell Group (lived and worked in London, Uganda, Kenya, Jamaica, Panama, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Algeria)
Overseas Sales Executive, with a wide variety of responsibilities from time to time, including retail and wholesale planning and marketing, branch management, advertising, public relations, regional head office administration etc.
April 1962 – December 1993 – James Capel & Co (now HSBC), London
1962: Engaged as Investment Analyst/Salesman for Continental Europe, with a secondary function as a part-time Discretionary Fund Manager
1967: Investment Analyst in charge of computer applications for research
1968: Partner in charge of computer applications for research and back-office. Oversaw the successful completion of computer models of the London gilts, investment trust and gold share markets, respectively, and the installation of Capels’ first mainframe computer
1973: Gold Trader: Set up and ran a gold coin trading department for Capels
1975-1993: Consultant/Fund Manager: Resigned as a Senior Executive Shareholder, in favour of self-employed association with Capels. Continued computer research for the Firm under this arrangement and managed funds for discretionary clients.
Fund Management became primary interest and led to the development of the Pricepro stock selection system (started in 1983).
January – December 1994: twelve months on the trading floor of one of the largest Lonon market makers, in close touch with a leading investment research team.
1995-2010 sets up own investment advisor firm and launched a small hedge fund specialising in market neutral portfolio composed of London Bluechips.
Moved permanently to Dublin in 2015 to oversee the completion of the restoration and running of Carraigin Castle (Headford, Co. Galway) as a tourist destination, which he has been doing as a sideline since 1969.