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THE NAME DOYLE IN IRELAND

While there is little liklihood that our Doyle line can be traced back to ancestors who were of armorial rank, it may be of interest for the reader to see the type of response which would likely be received if he answered an advertisement offering to provide his coat of arms. The written description of the Doyle history would perhaps follow these lines:

DOYLE

Doyle, never found as O'Doyle in modern times stands high on the list of surnames arranged in order of numerical strength, holding twelfth place with approximately 21,000 souls out of a population of something less than 4-½ million.

The name in Irish is always written as O'Dubhghaill. As Dubhghall it appears in the "Annals of the Four Masters" at various dates between 978 and 1013. The traditional belief is that this line descends from one of the Norsemen who settled in Ireland in pre-Norman times; and the fact that Doyles are and were always more numerous in areas adjacent to the sea coast, where Norse settlements existed, tends to confirm this view. These invaders, like all the others who over the centuries invaded Irelnd, stayed, intermarried and "became more Irish than the Irish themselves."

The Gaelic word Dubhgall is generally interpreted to mean "dark stranger'' or "dark foreigner" and was a word often used in early times to denote a Dane. There is reason to believe that when surnames first came into being in Ireland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries more than one quite distinct family acquired the name Doyle. There is no reliable evidence for the claim which is sometimes made that some Doyles are an offshoot of the great Doyle was always most closely associated with the counties of Southeast Leinster (Wicklow, Wexford and Carlow) in which it is chiefly found today, as it is in the records of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

A Doyle gave his name to the first bridge built over the Liffey in the city of Dublin. James Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, ( the famous controversialist J.K.L.) was one of the foremost champions of the Catholic cause in preemancipation days. In more recent times Father Willie Doyle, the Jesuit Chaplain who was killed in World War I,has left an outstanding record of saintliness which may one day bring about his canonization.

The best known outside Ireland was undoubtedly Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the creator of Sherlock Holmes. His grandfather was Dublin born John Doyle (1797-1868) the famous "H.B." of PJnch, who resigned his lucrative position on the staff of that well known weekly because of its antiCatholic bias and it is worthy of note that five closely related Doyles of this branch are included in the Dictionary of National Biography, a distinction equalled by very few other families.

On the following page, see a typical coat of arms for the Doyle name.