Rev. Fr. Michael Doyle was the brother of Mary (Quinn) and Catherine (Murray) and he was curate for over 30 years at S.S. Michael and John Church in Dublin. He was born about 1770 and early in his career he was president of the confraternity of St. Catherine. Up to about 1804 when he entered Maynooth, he had been principal of a seminary in Dublin, which prepared hundreds of pupils for entrance to Maynooth and other ecclesiastical colleges.
After ordination he continued the same work for up to ten or twelve years before his death. By his industry and by a spirit of saving he realised from £12,000 to £15,000, which he devoted to the establishment of burses in various colleges, especially the Irish College, Rome. He was regarded as a great benefactor of the Church in Ireland
For notwithstanding his great age Father Doyle never became parish priest. He was chaplain to Daniel O’Connell during his Lord Mayoralty and became archdeacon of Glendalough. He died on the 28th July 1844 and is buried in the vaults of S.S. Michael and John Church, in a stone coffin he had made for himself.
He exerted a big influence on the lives of the young Quinn boys. He did not see for them the drudgery of farm life, being tenants of the local Landlords, perhaps sharing the farm as was the lot of their cousins back in Ballinahown. No indeed, for them it was on to education in private Schools, then being established by the expertise of “The Rev. Dear Uncle Michael” and others with money and the know how. The influence of these schools paved the way for future prominence in the more lucrative and comfortable professions then available to their students. High on the list of these in the thinking of Fr. Doyle was what the religious life could offer to those with the proper training and background. So it was not surprising that he tested the strength of his ambitions by taking Andrew Quinn, the first of the sons of his sister Mary, to the Irish College in Rome. It had just re-opened after very troubled times in Italy and was a fertile ground for this young man, with the connections and the ability to exploit them, that soon set him on the journey described in his own story.