Carole Hope will be in Dublin this coming Saturday to give a talk about Fr Doyle’s experience during the Hulluch gas attack 100 years ago this month. Carole is the author of the superb biography Worshipper and Worshipped, the definitive account of Fr Doyle’s career as military chaplain. The entire day will be devoted to the gas attack, and Carole’s presentation of Fr Doyle’s experiences during those days will start …
WWI
April 13, 2016
Today we continue some of Fr Doyle’s narrative from early April 1916. These gruesome events occurred on April 1 1916, 100 years ago yesterday. Taking a short-cut across to our lines I found myself in the first battlefield of Loos, the place where the French had made their attack. For some reason or other this part of the ground had not been cleared, and it remains more or less as …
April 2, 2016
John McCormack had just finished the last bars of ‘She is far from the land’ (Note: on a gramophone) which brought back old memories, when suddenly Bertha Krupp opened her mouth in a most unlady-like way, even for a German, let a screech which you could hear in Dublin, and spat a huge shell right into our courtyard. It was a 6 inch gun, so the artillery officer who was …
April 1, 2016
Fr Doyle recorded the following incident relating to this day 100 years ago. It was his first night sleeping in a dug out. I had rather an amusing experience the first night I spent in the trenches. On arriving here I found two officers in the dug-out, which was intended for me, but as they were leaving the next day, I did not care to evict them. After some search …
March 31, 2016
You will be glad to know, as I was, that the ninth edition (90,000 copies) of my little book Vocations is rapidly being exhausted. After my ordination, when I began to be consulted on this important subject, I was struck by the fact that there was nothing one could put into the hands of boys and girls to help them to a decision, except ponderous volumes, which they would scarcely …
March 29, 2016
On Spy Wednesday evening after Benediction, I told the men I wanted nine volunteers to watch an hour during the following night before the Altar of Repose. I had barely finished speaking when the whole church made a rush up to the altar rails and were keenly disappointed when I could only take the first nine, though I could have had thirty an hour if I wanted them. I was …
March 23, 2016
I started at seven in the morning by giving Holy Communion to the men whose Confessions I had heard the previous evening, a goodly number I am glad to say. This was followed by a number of Confessions in French for the townspeople and some French soldiers. I am quite ready to face any language at the present moment. This brought me up to nine, when my men had Mass …
March 19, 2016
Though the life is perhaps the very last I would choose humanly speaking, I am ever so happy and contented, because I know I am doing what God wants and there is much good work to be done.
March 15, 2016
On the way I noticed that heavy firing was going on ahead, but it was only when I reached a bend in the road that I realized the enemy were actually shelling the very spot I had to pass. Some soldiers stopped me, saying it was dangerous to go on. At the moment I was wondering what had become of the side of a vacant house which had suddenly vanished …
March 5, 2016
I am suffering much in every way, most of all, perhaps, from sheer fatigue. As regards food and lodging I am not badly off, but the discomforts of the life would be long to tell. However, like St. Paul I can say that I superabound with joy in all my tribulations; for I know that they come from God’s hand and that they are working out some plan of His …
March 5, 2016