John Murphy (1822-1909) was born in Haysland, Kilrane parish of County Wexford, the eldest son of the farmer Nicholas Murphy and his wife, Katherine, née Sinnott. It was a typical Catholic middle-class family of Wexford farmers. In 1844, as a member of an emigrant group organized by Kilrane merchant James Pettit, John Murphy went to Liverpool, sailed to the Río de la Plata region and settled in Buenos Aires. He first worked digging ditches in the district of Chascomús, and then as a shepherd in Chacabuco. In 1854 Murphy purchased land in Salto and established the successful sheep-farm “La Flor del Uncalito”, in which many other Irish immigrants (including his brothers William and Patrick) would work as shepherds and ranch hands. When his mother died in 1861, John Murphy went to Ireland to visit the family and returned to Argentina in 1863.