Vinnie Doyle's gift as a doctor was to make you feel there was nothing more important than your illness and your need to get better. He had nothing else to do, no other cares: you were the focus of his attention. To a child this seemed natural, this is what doctors were. Elegant and handsome, assured and kind, he arrived at your bedside and you felt better. Adults recognised this rarity for what it was, and for them, if the ailment was beyond the power of medicine, a little cajoling and teasing was called for; his sympathy was taken for granted.
Vincent Gerard Doyle was born in Dublin on October 13th 1914. He grew up in Drumcondra and attended Belvedere College, where he was awarded the Schools Rowing Championship Medal; he later won his colours for rowing at University College Dublin. After graduating in 1940 he spend two years working in Liverpool. The end of the war in Europe found him in Holland and northern Germany with the British Red Cross, caring for displaced persons and refugees from Russia and the concentration camps. It was in Holland that he met the English nurse Anne Brachi, who became his wife in 1946.
The first two years of their marriage was spent in Kerry, where Vincent was Assistant Medical Officer of Health, and together they crossed the empty roads of the county, doing school inspections and the like. They moved to Dublin in 1948, to a house in Palmerston Road, Rathmines, which became a busy surgery and a lively, comfortable home to five children and an array of animals. Anne presided over both and was the rock on which a large, successful practice was built.
Vinnie's genial grace concealed an enormous appetite for work. Apart from his practice at Palmerston Road (and then Cambridge Villas, with Joseph Martin and the late Liam Byrne) and at the Health Centre in Bride Street (remembered by the local people who turned out for his funeral Mass in Whitefriar's Street), he was an important figure in Irish medical life since the inaugural meeting of the East of Ireland faculty of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1954. He became Provost of the Faculty in 1958, was one of the original trainers of general practitioners in Ireland from 1974, and brought about the foundation of the Irish College of General Practitioners in 1984. He advised the Government on a fee-per-item-of-service scheme adopted in 1970. He had been active in the Irish Medical Association since 1960 and was elected its President in 1972. He gave the keynote address to the World Medical Organisation conference on "The Privacy of the Individual", in 1973.
His father, Thomas J. Doyle, was a director of the building firm Dockrell's (the first Catholic to hold that position) and a trustee and founder member of Cumann na nGaedheal; his mother, Polly, was a leading light in the early days of the Feis Ceoil. Vinnie inherited from them a love of music. He had a pleasing, rich voice himself: at Christmas family gatherings the highlight was Vinnie singing, to the piano accompaniment of his brother Tommy, the late judge, some of the old songs such as My Pretty Jane or Rose Softly Blooming. He lived to see the musical line continuing from the Victorian world of his parents to the nearly-21st century rock band Chicks of his grand-daughter Lucy, which he followed with pride and a characteristic sense of fun.
Vinnie died on January 14th. Anne, their children David, Polly, Jo, Suzy and Anne, and their grandchildren, will take comfort in the knowledge that his influence has been imprinted on many people and that it is still spreading, through them, in Dublin, London, Kinsale, and on the islands of Manhattan and Anguilla.
J.S.D.