Pat Murphy | Artists Biography | Irish Artist's Film Index

Pat Murphy

Artist Biography


One of the leading figures of Irish film, Pat Murphy's early work emerged from the radical, creative upheavals which defined Hornsey and the Royal College of Art in the 1970s. Her graduate film “Rituals of Memory” was screened at the Hayward Gallery Film As Film exhibition. In 1977 she was awarded a scholarship to the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.

Her first feature, “Maeve” (BFI/RTE) won the Best Irish Film Award in Cork and was screened in Venice in 1981. Her second feature “Anne Devlin” also represented Ireland at many festivals. “Nora”, an award winning, international co-production, starred Ewan McGregor and Susan Lynch. All three films were released internationally and have been broadcast on television. In 1992, Pat made a film installation for the Strokestown Famine Museum. She has curated major film and seminar programmes for the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Irish Film Centre.

Documentaries include “Sean MacBride Remembers,” about the Nobel Peace Prize winner and “This is us we’re talking about….” about disability. Her latest film “Tana Bana” won an audience award at JDIFF Dublin International Film Festival and screened at VIFF, Vancouver International Film Festival.

Pat was a founder Board Member of CIRCLES Women’s Distribution Collective, of FILM BASE and of the Screen Directors Guild of Ireland She is a member of Aosdana, an association of artists whose work is recognized as having made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland.

Between 2010 and 2015, she was Associate Arts Professor in Graduate Film at NYU Tisch Asia in Singapore.

Sourced from the artist on August 31st 2016

Works by this artist


Supported by Kildare County Council Arts Service, the Arts Council of Ireland and Visual Artists Ireland.
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