My father Matt (sailor) Doyle was born at 23 Bath Street in 1875 and attended Star of the Sea School.

At a very early age he went to sea, starting in sailing ships and finishing in steam ships. He sailed on all five continents and rounded Cape Horn many times before the Panama Canal was built.

My father came from a seafaring family. His father John was born in County Wicklow and his mother Ellen Doyle nee Doolittle was from Wicklow Town. Her brothers were also sailors.

My grandfather lost his life in the Irish Sea as a result of a terrible storm when my father was a young man. My father survived three shipwrecks, the last one being during the First World War in the Bristol Channel.

He talked about his stopping off at various islands in the Pacific Ocean to take in water as the journeys took so long in those days. He even met descendants of the mutiny on the Bounty.
He sailed on whaling ships when it was difficult to recruit men to such a hard life. My father told me that the loveliest place he was ever in was Portland in Oregon. He was very fond of the west coast of America.

After the First World War my father settled down to work on the quay (as we natives of Irishtown and Ringsend would say) with our near neighbours from Stella Gardens, Paddy Behan, Larry Murphy, Bob Fulham (the famous Shamrock Rovers Captain) and many more.
Matt Doyle died in 1954, six months before my mother Annie Doyle, nee Smyth, passed away.
Pictured above: Oliver Doyle and his wife Alice (nee Buckley) on their wedding day 25th July 1948. Matt Doyle is in the back row (7th from the left).