I am delighted to tell you the story of Murphy! Growing up in Bermuda, our son Mathew always wanted a dog. Unfortunately, he was allergic and there were virtually no hypoallergenic rescue pups, nor puppy breeders on the island. Then one day unexpectedly, a friend of a friend told us about a litter of Portuguese Water Dogs on the island – all I knew about that breed was that they were hypoallergenic and The Obama’s had two of them. So, we were excited! We passed the interviews and finally, at 16 years of age, our son finally had his own dog. Now what to name him….
At the time, our hotel was host to the PGA Grand Slam of Golf annually, our family are huge golf fans and you guessed it – huge Rory McIlroy fans. Rory had been to the island a number of times for the tournament and as well for vacation. We asked him if it was ok and he was delighted to lend his name to Murphy’s full name.
To my son’s credit, he did a great job of training our Murphy. Whenever Rory was back on the island he would come for a walk with Murphy and because we lived on a golf course Murphy had the most amazing evening runs. Then our son went off to college. Murphy became my husband’s dog… We are pretty sure Murphy was sad for a good couple of months after Mathew left for college (I think we all were) waiting for him every night…
He definitely became “Dad’s dog”… they were bonded like glue. Unfortunately, Murphy developed epilepsy. We didn’t know that dogs could have this disease and Murphy quickly became our special needs pup. Over the next couple of years, we worked with our vets to get his medication stable and provide him with the best possible life we could.
In 2019, I had the great opportunity to work for 21c. We knew all along I was joining an amazing company, but it really felt perfect when during my final interview with 21c’s CEO, he was very concerned about getting Murphy to the mainland safely!
We were delighted – I moved first and my husband and Murphy arrived in the fall. My husband still worked in 
Bermuda so he commuted and Murphy quickly became my dog, and the unofficial Yellow Penguin Guard Dog.
Murphy experienced snow for the first time this winter – which was funny. He did not like it too much, but got used to it quickly. It didn’t last for long – that was good considering I was also getting used to the cold too!
Murphy LOVED Cincinnati, the parks, but especially coming to the hotel. The Doorman at 21c always has treats for the visiting pups and our amazing teammates at 21c welcomed him with open arms.
We lost our beloved Murphy McIlroy a couple of months ago. Epilepsy just got worse and worse and our family had to make the most difficult decision of our life. Murphy will always be with us – he was a very good boy!
