Every day since he returned to Killarney as a priest in 1979, Bishop Bill Murphy has marvelled at the view over Lough Leane, praying the same office that the monks of Innisfallen Island prayed more than a thousand years ago.

This is one of eight special places Bishop Bill will share with Frank Lewis on Radio Kerry’s Saturday Supplement on Saturday, October 25, from 9 to 11am.
Bishop Bill recalls his early days in Killarney — when Johnny Healy and the boys from New Street gathered scraps of lead from the ruins of the old redbrick mansion to sell and buy a football.
As a young boy, Bishop Bill remembers fishing with his father and brother on the Ownagree River in Glenflesk, catching 33 trout in one day, each about a pound in weight. Mike Joe O’Keeffe, founder of the Ownagree Angling Club, remembers a salmon that jumped into low branches — and couldn’t be retrieved.
Paddy O’Donovan delivered 38 pounds — 608 sausages — every Tuesday and Thursday to St Brendan’s College, where Bishop Bill remembers football training once stopping as a man carrying a newborn baby climbed through the fence from the District Hospital.
Winner of four All-Ireland medals and two All-Stars, Donie Sullivan, then aged 13, and Bishop Bill, aged 15, both recall the awe they felt seeing Christy Ring play for Cork against Tipperary in the 1950 Munster Hurling Final at Fitzgerald Stadium — 75 years ago this year.
Michael Gleeson reflects on the unimaginable suffering of the children who died in Killarney Cathedral during the Famine. Bishop Bill recalls that when the cathedral spire was built between 1908 and 1912, the scaffolding stretched halfway back the Monastery Field.
Richie Clancy, then aged 15, cycled back to the post office with the race results after every race during the three-day Killarney Races. Bishop Bill names the Tomies–Purple–Shehy ridge as his favourite mountain walk in Killarney.
He also recalls that working on the building of the Church of the Resurrection was easier because “a committee was in charge,” remembering those days with David Fleming, one of the committee members.
In his 64 years as sacristan in St Mary’s Cathedral, Tadgie Fleming witnessed big changes in funerals and baptisms. As part of Bishop Bill’s ordination as Bishop of Kerry, Fr Pat Ahern and members of the National Folk Theatre performed a stylised dance in which stones from all parts of the diocese were brought to the altar.
Bishop Bill Murphy will bring Frank Lewis to eight of his favourite places in Killarney on Saturday Supplement, October 25, from 9 to 11am.