Mrs. Doyle

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Mrs. Joan Doyle (played by Pauline McLynn) is a character in the Irish television comedy Father Ted. Mrs Doyle is a housekeeper who looks after the three Priests and the parochial house on Craggy Island.

[edit] Refreshments

Mrs. Doyle is relentless in her responsibility to provide refreshments to the Priests and their visitors. She will never take no for an answer (especially when it comes to offering tea) which is possibly a reference to Irish etiquette demanding a person to say "no" the first two times they are offered something and accept it on the third offer. She badgers anyone with her catchphrase "Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, GO ON!!!!!" As she said to Father Ted Crilly once, "Ah, you'll have some cake...there's cocaine in it!!! Oh, not cocaine, no!! What am I on about, I meant, erm, what are they called...raisins!!"

Mrs. Doyle has a unique test for her sandwiches. She eats one of them whole, and if it does not meet her standards, she throws all of the rest in the bin. Her sandwiches seem to cause her a great deal of physical discomfort and would appear to be revolting, but at the end of her test she assures everyone that "they're fine!!" Mrs. Doyle was deeply hurt by Ted's introduction of a tea making machine called the Teamaster into the Parochial House [1], but she sabotaged it and convinced Ted that she was the best at making the tea. It is believed that Mrs. Doyle's tea-making is a reference to the fact that the Irish are the biggest tea drinkers in the world averaging 4 to 6 cups per person per day.

[edit] Character Analysis

Mrs. Doyle is the most mysterious character in the show. She is always referred to as "Mrs. Doyle" by other characters. She seems to be friends with a lot of women who are similar to her in dress and appearance, and perhaps even in occupation. They always refer to her as "Mrs. Doyle", and she never uses their first names either, referring to them as "Mrs. Dineen" or "Mrs. Jones" and so on. Apart from relentless tea-making, her other main jobs include bathing Dougal, digging drainage ditches, fixing the roof and cleaning the big window in the living room, which usually ends up with her careering off the window sill onto the floor. Mrs. Doyle is also prone to plummeting off the roof of the house.

Mrs. Doyle's first name was actually revealed to be Joan early on in the series (albeit only in the script, and not onscreen). In the script book the writers added a comment which stated that how early on in writing they revealed a lot of information which could have been a dark secret over the series, and they seemed to use this later on as in the series 3 episode "The Mainland," the mention of Mrs. Doyle's first name is obscured by other loud noises (a fire bell in the police station, and plates clattering in the restaurant), in a similar way to how The Simpsons often obscured maps which showed the exact location of Springfield within the United States.

Mrs. Doyle's personal life outside of the parochial house is always kept a mystery, although we know that at one stage in her life, she must have had a husband. She is very secretive about him too, at one point beginning a story by saying "Well, one time when my husband... I've said too much." She also mentions having a sister, although she only mentioned these two people once on separate occasions, and gave nothing away about either.

Father Ted
Characters
Father Ted Crilly | Father Dougal McGuire | Father Jack Hackett | Mrs. Doyle Bishop Brennan | Minor Characters
Major Cast and Crew
Dermot Morgan Ardal O'Hanlon | Frank Kelly | Pauline McLynn Arthur Mathews | Graham Linehan Pat Shortt | Jim Norton | Graham Norton | Tony Guilfoyle
Other Related Pages
List of Father Ted episodes | Craggy Island | My Lovely Horse | Feck