The Clock Is Still Going

Full Name: Myles Doody (Maol Muire Ó Dubhta)

Address: 1 Addison Road, Fairview

Unit: 5th Battalion (Engineers), No. 2 Section.

Born: 20 January 1902 at 6 St. Joseph’s Terrace, Fairview [Hmm, that address was given on 25 May 1921 by fellow Custom House prisoner Frankie Freyne alias George Lewis!].

Parents: John ‘Jack’ Doody (ex-Sergeant DMP) originally from Rathvilly, Co. Wicklow and Ellen née Reddy from Dublin.

Siblings: Richard F, Mary B, Patrick T, John, Joseph T and Eileen.

Military Service: Dublin Brigade IRA. Sergeant National Army, Dublin Guards, Beggars Bush (enlisted 24 Feburary 1922).

Personal Life: Myles married Catherine Kennedy on 18 April 1931 at Coolock church. He was a Motor Driver of 1 Addison Road. The couple had four children – John (who died at only 10 years), Joan, Myles J. and Barbara. Myles’s widowed mother Ellen passed away in 1937.

Myles Doody himself died from cancer on 21 October 1955 at James Connolly Memorial Hospital, Blanchardstown. He was aged just 53, a married Lorry Driver late of 54 Wadelai Road, Ballymun and Nottingham Street, North Strand. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, plot FK77, St. Patrick’s section alongside his late son, survived by his widow Catherine and three children.

Remarks: No Military Pension File online. Beyond his arrest at the Custom House and internment in Kilmainham Gaol, no details of Myles’s IRA activities are known.

However, his daughter Joan Doody Stolarz (87) living in New Jersey, USA recalls that her father often spoke of the time he fought for Ireland. When she was aged 7 or 8, he brought her to Kilmainham to show her his old jail cell. She reminded this writer that her father had scratched his name “Myles Doody, Fairview” on the wall. This is featured in the excellent book on the history of Kilmainham Gaol, Every Dark Hour by Niamh o’Sullivan. In addition, Myles left his mark for posterity on a wall in the old 1862 dungeon area – “Hump the General (Refuse to scrub out) 8/7/21“, a reference to one of the British guards. It would appear that Doody’s protest landed him in the punishment block.

Joan adds when she was a child the family used to go to Sunday Mass in Fairview. Afterwards her father would bring them to visit the family graves in Glasnevin Cemetery – but only after first paying their respects at the soldiers’ plots.

When her father tragically died as a relatively young man, Joan was only 21. She says he was the first patient in Blanchardstown James Connolly Memorial Hospital, appropriately named for another patriot whose sacrifice no doubt helped inspire Myles to join the armed struggle. Joan is hoping to revisit Dublin again, possibly next year.

Relatives: Daughter Joan Doody Stolarz (New Jersey, USA) and her cousin Ruth O’Connor-Grant (Dublin).

Des White