Dervla Murphy at 90

Dervla Murphy in her own words, extracted from a 2016 interview

What is your earliest travelling memory?
My earliest memory should have been – the Rhineland, 1939. Hitler blocked that by sending to Belsen the friend with whom we were to have stayed. So I first left Ireland in January 1948, at the age of 16, to cheer the boys in green at Twickenham. I forget who won. I’ve never forgotten the shock of seeing with my own eyes what bombing can do to a city ... I saw more of the same a year later on my first solo cycle tour of Germany.