Fr Willie Doyle: Irish marketing campaign to make ‘WW1 hero priest’ a saint
Born William Joseph Gabriel Doyle in 1873, the longer term priest had a cushty, middle-class childhood within the prosperous Dublin suburb of Dalkey.
He was despatched to a Catholic boarding college in England, however returned to Ireland as an adolescent, the place by the age of 18 he had begun learning to be a Jesuit priest.
He was in his early 40s when he was despatched to the Front as a WW1 chaplain.
Even although it was a non-combatant function, Kenny factors out that the commander of the sixteenth (Irish) Division, Maj-Gen Sir William Bernard Hickie, described Fr Doyle as “the bravest man that he ever met”.
He added that Fr Doyle was a prolific letter author whose private correspondence has turn into an necessary eyewitness supply for historians.
“If you take a look at any e-book concerning the Irish within the First World War, virtually invariable Fr Willie Doyle is in that e-book.
“Because of the sheer quantity of letters that he despatched house, we all know loads about what the Irish troopers skilled.”
Kenny added that Fr Doyle was held in nice esteem by his personal males, however was additionally famous for his kindness and mercy in the direction of injured German prisoners-of-war.
