The Father Willie Doyle Association

Father Willie Doyle Association

Official site for the canonisation cause of the Servant of God Fr Willie Doyle SJ

Official site for the canonisation cause of the Servant of God Fr Willie Doyle SJ

Father Willie Doyle

Association

29 August 1917: Praise for Fr Doyle in the Irish News

Tribute by Sergeant T. Flynn published in the Irish News on this day in 1917

We had the misfortune to lose our chaplain, Fr. Doyle, the other day. He was a real saint and would never leave his men, and it was really marvellous to see him burying dead soldiers under terrible shell fire. He did not know what fear was, and everybody in the battalion, Catholic and Protestant alike, idolised him. I went to Confession to him and received Holy Communion from him a day or two before he was killed, and I feel terribly sorry after him.

He loved the men and spent every hour of his time looking after them, and when we were having a fairly hot time in the trenches he would bring us up boxes of cigarettes and cheer us up. The men would do anything he asked them, and I am sure we will never get another padre like him. Everybody says that he has earned the V.C. many times over, and I can vouch for it myself from what I have seen him do many a time. He was asked not to go into action with the battalion, but he would not stop behind, and I am confident that no braver or holier man ever fell in battle than he.

 

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August 29, 2015

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