William Joseph Gabriel Doyle was born in Dalkey County Dublin on March 3, 1873. He was the youngest of seven children, four boys and three girls. The eldest and youngest of the girls married; the second became a Sister of Mercy. The eldest boy after a short stay in the Jesuit Novitiate entered Holy Cross College, Clonliffe, graduating to the College of the Propaganda, Rome. Ten days before his ordination he caught fever and died in 1887 at 28 years of age.
William Doyle entered the Jesuit Novitiate at the age of 18 after schooling at Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire, after reading St. Alphonsus’ book “Instructions and Consideration on the Religious State”. Soon after his ordination in 1907, his superiors appointed him on the mission staff for five years.
He was finally appointed during World War I chaplain of the 16th Irish Division, serving with 8th Royal Irish Fusiliers, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 6th Royal Irish Rifles and the 7th Royal Irish Rifles. Having fulfilled his priestly duties in an exemplary fashion for almost two years, he was killed at the 2nd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) on August 16, 1917.
That is the bare outline of the life of a man who without doubt is one of the greatest Irish holy men and religious exemplars of the early twentieth century, vying with Matt Talbot as one of Ireland’s greatest modern ascetics. Beginning in childhood Fr. Doyle was marked out as quite exceptional with regard to putting the Gospel into practice. He was won’t to help the poor people of his area from a very early age by providing them with money or goods or by working for them. It is impossible not to believe that this was the result of a fervently religious household. “At the beginning of Lent, when he was quite a little boy, an old Aunt, chancing to go into his Mother’s bedroom, found him gesticulating and talking in front of the mirror. ” You villain, you wretch,” he kept saying to his reflection, “I’ll starve you, I’ll murder you! Not a sweet will you get, not a bit of cake will you get! “
This spirit of mortification and strong will to master his weaknesses was something he worked at his whole life. As he commented himself, “The reformation of one’s life must be the work of every day, I should take each rule and duty, think how Jesus acted, or would have done, and contrast my conduct with His.” He concentrated on using the life God had given him to remove any impediment to forming a close and lasting relationship with his creator. “We should call a man a fool who wasted his wealth warming himself before a fire made of banknotes. Do we act less madly in seeking gratification by consuming our precious day in frivolities?
He did indeed bring his body and his will to submission. “He gave up having a fire in his room and even avoided warming himself at one. Every day he wore a hair shirt and one or two chains for some time”. He also took up an amazing penance of saying thousands of short prayers every day which he referred to as ‘aspirations’. “I find I am falling off in the 100,000 aspirations. Have bound myself for a week by vow to make the full number (1st Feb 1917).” Reminiscent of the Eastern Jesus prayer this was obviously quite a commitment while under fire or avoiding taking a surprise dip in a rain filled shell hole.
It would be wrong however to think of Fr. Doyle as a humourless or dour individual. His severity was very much directed to his own faults and he was loath to ask similar penances of others. Added to this he had a very strong sense of humour which tended to disguise his true ascetic nature. His principal biographer illustrates this somewhat playful side to his character. “The scene of the first story is Donegal Bay on a summer vacation day. Fr. Doyle was in a small boat with four fellow scholastics. One of them, sitting in the stern, took out his watch to regulate the time for examen. Just as he said, “We begin Now,” Fr. Doyle, who was sitting in the bow with a gun in his hand, fired both barrels into the air, shouting “Go!” The oarsmen nearly fell out of the boat with the shock.”
While in Clongowes Fr. Doyle came to the conclusion that a brother scholastic used to appropriate the newspaper too much. So one day he entered the common room and sat down at the fire opposite Mr X who was absorbed in his paper – which suddenly burst into flame. Fr. Doyle, having heated the poker, had surreptitiously applied it to the newspaper!” These and other incidents paint a picture of a rather mischievous and good humoured individual.
His service as a chaplain to the 16th division during the First World War and the subsequent biography detailing that service made him posthumously famous. The second part of the biography is largely comprised of edited letters written to his Father and paint a true picture of life in the trenches but always with his quirky sense of humour. He writes about a Christmas football game in 1916. “On St. Stephen’s Day the men were engaged in a football match, when the Germans saw them, sent over a lovely shot at long range, which carried away the goal post—the umpire gave a ‘ foul’—and bursting in the middle of the men, killed three and wounded seven. The wounded were bandaged up and hurried off to hospital, the dead carried away for burial; and then the ball was kicked off once more, and the game went on as if nothing had happened. The Germans must have admired the cool pluck of the players, for they did not fire any more. This is just one little incident of the war, showing how little is thought of human life out here; it sounds callous but there is no room for sentiment in warfare”.
He was very attached to the soldiers entrusted to his care and they had great respect and affection for him. The soldiers and quite a number of the officers thought of him as fearless but the reality was different. “Three of my lads came tearing in to my dug-out; they had nearly been sent to glory and felt they were safe with the priest. The poor priest cracks a joke or two, makes them forget their terror, and goes on with his lunch while every morsel sticks in his throat from fear and dread of the next shell. A moment passes, one, two, here it comes; dead silence and anxious faces for a second, and then we all laugh, for it is one of our own shells going over. Five minutes more and we know all danger has passed.”
Fr. Doyle’s own time came on the 16th of August. “…Word came in that an officer of the Dublins had been badly hit, and was lying out in an exposed position. Fr. Doyle at once decided to go out to him, and left the Aid Post with his runner, Private Mclnespie, and a Lieutenant Grant. Some twenty minutes’ later, at about a quarter to four, Mclnespie staggered into the Aid Post and fell down in a state of collapse from shell shock. Corporal Raitt went to his assistance and after considerable difficulty managed to revive him. His first words on coming back to consciousness were: “Fr. Doyle has been killed!” Then bit by bit the whole story was told. Fr. Doyle had found the wounded officer lying far out in a shell crater. He crawled out to him, absolved and anointed him, and then, half dragging, half carrying the dying man, managed to get him within the line. Three officers came up at this moment, and Mclnespie was sent for some water. This he got and was handing it to Fr. Doyle when a shell burst in the midst of the group, killing Fr. Doyle and the three officers instantaneously, and hurling Mclnespie violently to the ground”.
Fr. Doyle was mourned by all the soldiers at the front. In the years that followed his death he first became well known through Professor Alfred O Rahilly’s biography first published in 1920. More recently there seems to have been a revival of interest in his life and he certainly has lessons to teach us regarding striving for perfection and love and service of neighbour. Those interested in learning more can still purchase O Rahilly’s biography at; http://www.lulu.com/shop/professor-alfred-orahilly/father-william-doyle-sj/paperback/product-15463211.html
Gerard Brady
The Poor Knights of Christ in Ireland and the UK 