Murray was born in Dublin, Ireland. As a stage actor, he began his career in Dublin at the Abbey Theatre where, as a member of The Abbey Company,[1] he appeared in over 50 productions. In London, he has been a member of The Royal National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company and has been in many productions in the West End.[1] He has appeared many times at the Gate Theatre in Dublin,[2] most recently in 2013 in My Cousin Rachel adapted for the stage by Joseph O'Connor.[3] In the 2010 Dublin Fringe Festival, he appeared in the award-winning production of Medea at The Samuel Beckett theatre.[4]
Recently he presented the highly acclaimed and IFTA nominated documentary for TV3The Tenements, a four-part series charting the rise and fall of the Tenements in Dublin from the 1800s to the mid-1970s.
He fronted the BBC1 children's religious affairs programmes Knock Knock and Umbrella for three years. On RTÉ, he had his own prime time TV talk shows Encore and Caught in the Act and presented Saturday Night Live. His nine-part radio series The Sound of Movies was aired on RTÉ Radio 1 in 2008. Most recently he has been a semi regular presenter of Late Date on RTÉ Radio 1.
In the US, he presented the 'Irish Spring' commercial on network TV for six years, the award-winning 'Pioneer Press' commercials for three years and hosted the St Patrick's Day Parade for PBS Television.
His series The Big House was shown on TV3 in the spring of 2013.
He co-created and co-devised the ITV series Perfect Scoundrels which ran for three years.
He has co-written two musicals performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and Irish Theatre Company Dublin; A Happy Go Likeable Man, after Molière, and Thieves Carnival, after Anouilth.
Most recently Murray took part in the 'One City One Book' celebration Bread and Roses; Strumpet City Revisited reading extracts from the book with the RIAAM orchestra playing the theme music from the TV series conducted by the composer Proinnsias O'Duinn at Dublin Castle.[6]
Although Murray's fame increased in the eighties thanks to his role as Flurry Knox in The Irish R.M. and Shifty Boswell in the popular sitcom Bread, his role in Brookside is perhaps the best remembered, despite the character only appearing in the show for eleven episodes in 1993. His character, the wife beater and child abuser Trevor Jordache, was famously stabbed and killed by his wife, Mandy (Sandra Maitland), she and daughter Beth (Anna Friel) later buried his body under the patio, where it was discovered in 1995.
He plays Bob Charles, once owner of McCoys pub but now the owner of The Hungry Pig restaurant, in the RTÉ soap opera Fair City.[7]
Recently he took part in the 'One City-One Book' celebration Bread and Roses; Strumpet City Revisited in which he read extracts from the book with the RIAM orchestra playing the theme music from the TV series conducted by the composer Proinnsias O'Duinn at Dublin Castle.
