Larry Murphy of Brewster, formerly of Lexington, died on July 4, 2026

Born in Rockchapel, County Cork, Ireland, Larry was the youngest of nine children. He was five when his oldest brother left for Boston, and the American wake that sent him off was so sad that Larry ran away and hid in a bush. Twenty years later when Larry set out, it was with an Aer Lingus ticket, a packet of Taytos, and the idea of a lark in Boston for six months before settling down to business.

What business that was varied. Teacher, electrician, insurance broker, maintenance man, house cleaner, and ever-so-briefly a seminarian. Larry never cared much for a career. He had the heart of a bard, the feet of an itinerant, and what he cared about most was people.

Of all those people, the one who galvanized his heart and gave him cause to rise in the morning was Maud Murphy, his fellow Rockchapel native. Larry loved Maud with every inch of his five-foot-four frame and the strength of men twice his size. What defined that love was not only its faithfulness, but its gentleness, generosity, and humility. Maud died from Alzheimer's disease at the end of 2025. Wherever you found Maud, you found Larry beside her, holding her hand for hours at a time, every day until the last one.

Larry enjoyed flying, and his favorite form was by the seat of his pants. He was a first-class jokester, with a razor-sharp wit, and all you needed to do was follow the trail of laughter in any room to find him. He had no voice for singing, but that didn't stop him. No great talent for poetry either, but that only added to the mayhem of the annual Christmas gift giving where terrible rhymes and gags became a holiday tradition. He felt planning robbed life of spontaneity and avoided it at all costs, a practice that led to a great deal of high adventure, including the time he snagged a last-minute room for his young, sheltered, very Irish family at the Concord and discovered, only on arrival, that they had landed in the Borscht Belt.

He taught his children that there was always ice cream over the horizon, and that the wait was worth the miles. And miles they walked, starting off in Arlington and winding up in Harvard Square, the Res, Hampton Beach, and everywhere buses couldn't reach but feet could, regaling them with stories all the while. Those children, Marie Glenn and her husband Daniel of Westwood, and Deirdre Martin and her husband Joseph of Kingston, adore him with all their might.

In addition to his beloved wife, Maud, and the siblings who went before him, he leaves behind six grandchildren, Brendan, Evan, and Aidan Glenn, and Jack, Carys, and Ava Martin; his sister Joan McCarthy and her husband Jack of Arlington; and a score of deeply loved nieces and nephews.

The funeral will start from the Douglass Funeral Home, 51 Worthen Rd., Lexington on Tuesday July 14  at 9am followed by a Mass of Christian burial at St. Brigid's Church, Lexington at 10 am. Funeral Home Visiting Hours Monday from 4pm to 7pm. Relatives and friends are kindly invited. In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to the Rian Immigrant Center (www.riancenter.org).

Interment at Westview Cemetery in Lexington.