William ‘Boy’ Murphy competed in the men’s middleweight boxing at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games and went on to compete at the Amsterdam 1928 Games – becoming one of the first Irish boxers to represent Ireland at two Olympic Games.

Born in India, Murphy had won the Egyptian middleweight title as a seventeen-year-old before joining the Irish Army in the 1920s and winning the Irish senior middleweight title in 1924. In Paris, he knocked out Eugeniusz Novak of Poland in the first round before losing to Leslie Black of Canada in a verdict that drew strong protest from Irish officials and observers who regarded it as deeply unjust.

At Amsterdam in 1928, he knocked out his Spanish opponent in round one and was also defeated in a contested decision.