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William Martin Murphy was an Irish businessman and politician, best known for his role as leader of an employer's syndicate in the Dublin Lockout of 1913.

He was born on November 21, 1844 in Bantry, County Cork. He was educated at Belvedere College. When his father, a building contractor, died he took over the family business. His enterprise and business acumen expanded the business, and he built churches, schools and bridges throughout Ireland, as well as railways and tramways in Britain and Africa. He was elected Nationalist MP for St Patrick's, Dublin, in 1885. He was a member of the informal grouping, the Bantry band - a group of politicians who hailed from the Bantry Bay area. The Bantry Band was also disparagingly dubbed the Pope's brass band. Its most famous member was Tim Healy MP. It also included Timothy Michael Harrington, sometime Lord Mayor of Dublin City.

When the Irish Parliamentary Party split in 1890, Murphy sided with the majority against Parnell. But Dublin emerged as a Parnellite stronghold and in the general election of 1892 Murphy lost his seat by over three to one to a Parnellite newcomer, William Field. He made two attempts to return to Parliament, at Kerry South in 1895 and Mayo North in 1900, but both were unsuccessful.

In 1904 he bought three Dublin newspapers and replaced them in 1905 with the Irish Independent. In 1906 he founded the Sunday Independent. He refused a knighthood from King Edward VII that year. He led Dublin employers against the trade unions, led by James Larkin, an opposition that culminated in the 1913 Lockout.This along with his criticism of Home Rule made him extremely unpopular with many. After the Easter Rising he bought ruined buildings in Abbey Street as sites for his newspaper offices. He owned Clery's department store, the Dublin United Tramways Company, and other large concerns. He also owned and lived in the imposing two-storey mansion known as Dartry House in the Dublin suburban area of the same name. He wrote one book, The Home Rule Act, 1914, Exposed, 1917.

He died in Dublin on June 25, 1919.