Paddy Doyle

Paddy Doyle was in the audience for the O.N.E. concert in the Arts Centre on Monday night, 17th July. There was a capacity attendance that night to hear local musicians and singers give proof, if such was needed, that the musical tradition in Athy is very strong. By the following morning Paddy had passed away just short of his 90th birthday. It was, in a way, a happy coincidence that Paddy, a talented singer and a long time member of the Parish choir, should enjoy his last evening in his beloved town of Athy in the company of fellow singers. I had known Paddy for many years, initially during his time with Minch Nortons and in more recent years as an experienced and helpful electrician. Paddy was the quintessential Athy man whose love for Athy knew no bounds. His father served in, and survived, the First World War. However, it was not without some consequences for as Paddy told me when I interviewed him several years ago, his father, known to all as “Barracks” Doyle, throughout his post war life suffered from the consequences of seeing the bodies of his fellow soldiers mangled and torn in the French trenches. Paddy was one of the most kind hearted persons one could hope to meet. He was generous with his time, generous with his good humour and generous with his wonderful singing voice which saw him as a member of the Parish choir for many decades. He was a person who epitomised all that was good in the best of us. I never saw Paddy without a smile, a good word or a laugh. He was an ever cheerful person whose very presence was guaranteed to lift the mood of the most dour amongst us. It was therefore pleasing to see that Paddy’s funeral Mass was a celebration of a wonderful life lived simply but with great affection for his neighbours and his wider community. It was a celebration marked by what I feel was the most exquisite singing I had ever heard in St. Michael’s Parish Church. Paddy’s companions in the Parish choir performed wonderfully in bidding their final farewell to a well loved friend, but the singing of Paddy’s son Dermot was absolutely wonderful. I have never been so moved by a singer or a song as I was at Paddy’s funeral Mass as I listened to the wonderful voice of his son Dermot. It was for me so unexpected and a real joy to hear such a masterful performance in the church. Paddy would have been very proud of his son Dermot as he filled the church with a beautiful rendition of ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’, accompanied on the viola by Noelle Robinson. The ceremony ended with Dermot singing ‘Annies Song’, this time accompanied by Justin Kelly on the flute. Dermot’s contribution to the celebration of his father’s life was extraordinarily powerful. Paddy’s second son Ciaran continued the celebration of a well lived life with a charming eulogy which included what would have been his father’s own account of growing up in Athy. Paddy had recounted how it was beside the Moneen River that his father James and his mother Elizabeth made their family home after they married. Paddy was the eldest of five children and the Doyle family lived in a two roomed mudwalled cottage with a thatched roof and clay floors. This was the lot of so many families in Athy and elsewhere in the country in the years before the Slum Clearance Programme initiated by De Valera’s government in the early 1930s. Until he was 13 years of age Paddy assisted his mother by bringing home two buckets of water every day from a well over a mile away from the Doyle cottage. In 1953 the Doyle family moved to a newly built house at Coneyboro. Paddy married Patricia Donegan from Carlow in 1969 and having lived in Avondale Drive for a few years moved to their new home on the Castledermot Road six years later. It was there that Paddy and Patricia reared their three children, Ciaran, Dermot and Kathryn. At the Mass special mention was made of their mother Patricia described with fondness “as a beautiful caring mother of principle and truth”. It was a great privilege to be part of the congregation which gathered in St. Michael’s Church to say goodbye to a good man. That same venue where I saw Paddy on his last night will on Monday, 14th August host a photographic and video exhibition of the canal boatmen and their boats who once plied their trade on the Barrow line and the Grand Canal. Lots of Athy folk will feature. The exhibition will be open until the 25th August from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day excluding Sundays.