Mick Murphy: Boxer, wrestler and circus performer who won Ireland's biggest cycle race six months after taking up the sport

On a diet of raw meat and cow's blood, sleeping rough in woods, and training with stone barbells, Mick Murphy achieved one the most remarkable feats in modern sporting history. Having taken up bike racing full-time only six months earlier, the Kerry man was the sensational winner of the 1958 Rás Táilteann, Ireland's premier cycle event.

The name recalled the ancient Celtic Tailteann games, and Murphy – boxer, wrestler, cyclist and circus performer – was every inch the Celtic warrior. The barrel-chested 24-year-old came from nowhere to lead on the second stage, but did not stop at the finishing line. After 30 more miles, he finally dismounted at a field with a stone wall and spent an hour lifting weights. Then, finding an unsuspecting cow, he took out a small penknife he carried in his sock and cut a vein, letting the blood drain into his water bottle. Murphy would have three more “transfusions” that week.

On stage four his race looked over. Murphy went down heavily on a downhill bend and broke his collarbone, but got back on his bike and made it to the end. He was brought to hospital but was half-concussed: hallucinating that the doctors were body-snatchers, he jumped out of the window and over the wall. Strapped to his bike the following morning, he somehow held his lead for four more days, despite another crash which saw him cycle, dazed, a few miles in the opposite direction. When the 1,500km race arrived in Dublin, he was winner by almost five minutes.

Dubbed variously “The Iron Man”, “Mile-a-Minute Murphy” and “The Clay Pigeon”, he became an instant celebrity. However, he would cycle for only two more years before taking the boat to England in search of work.

Born on a small farm in Co Kerry in 1934, he was guided by a neighbour who worked in circuses, training obsessively and learning juggling, fire-eating, and how to balance a ladder on his chin. All these he performed for money on streets in Ireland and Britain throughout his life. Perhaps his greatest feat was walking a mile uphill on his hands. Once a man in London challenged him to race hand-walking from Brighton. “I volunteered to take him on, but he never showed up,” he said.

He joined travelling circuses, and in the late 1990s could be found in Covent Garden swallowing swords and eating fire. Like many Irish, he also spent years on building sites in Germany and it was a fall from scaffolding that took him back home, where he was happy to relive his glory days for the occasional visiting journalist.

Michael Murphy, cyclist and circus performer: born Cahirciveen, Co Kerry 28 April 1934; died 10 September 2015.