Tony Doyle, who died on January 28th aged 58, was best known for playing patriarchs, but to his colleagues and friends he was an inspirational, generous actor and exemplary professional. In recent years, his performances in the television series Amongst Women and Bally kissangel, and the films A Love Divided and I Went Down, defined him in the public mind as the epitome of the Irish father figure. He brought an understated intelligence and almost four decades of acting experience to those roles, along with a fine understanding of the importance of the almost imperceptible gesture when acting for the camera.
He was born to James and Nora Doyle in Ballyfarnan, in north Roscommon, the youngest of four children. His father was a Garda sergeant, and the family moved when he was re-stationed to Frenchpark a couple of years later. He attended boarding school in Dublin, at Belcamp College, Raheny, before going on to UCD to study economics - a subject which, by his own admission, he found less than enthralling, compared to Dramsoc and the lure of the stage.
A couple of years spent on the Dublin fringe, in the Pike Theatre in particular, were followed by a defining break, when The Scattering, James McKenna's musical in which he had a role, transferred to London. For the rest of his life, he would make his home in Britain, although he would frequently return to Ireland when parts presented themselves. He became a familiar face in Ireland as a result of his role as Father Sheehy in RTE's popular soap opera, The Riordans.
A rich and varied theatrical career included notable performances in John Bull's Other Island and The Plough and the Stars (both at the National Theatre in London), while he was outstanding in The Gigli Concert and Cavalcaders at the Abbey in Dublin. His rich voice ensured that he was much in demand for radio, as a reader as well as an actor. One of the books he read for BBC Radio 4 was Amongst Women, to which he would return later.
He was spending an increasing amount of his time in television drama, with appearances in such popular series as Taggart, Peak Practice and Band of Gold. He also made several one-off dramas for BBC Northern Ireland with producer-director Danny Boyle, including The Henhouse and Arise and Go Now. His performance as the morally dubious police officer in the crime series Between the Lines was widely praised. When the producer of that series, Tony Garnett, approached him about appearing in a comedy drama set in a Co Wicklow village, he was doubtful at first about what seemed a "whimsical" project. But the success of the first series of Ballykissangel, and the four more which followed, meant that he was to spend more time in Ireland than he had since he was a young man. His home was still in London, but he spent more than half of each year in Dublin, staying in a rented house in Killiney. In recent years he was working almost constantly, going directly from one shoot onto the next.
His powerful performance as Moran in the BBC/RTE adaptation of Amongst Women was the crowning achievement of his screen career. That was publicly recognised when the Film Institute of Ireland presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and again when he was voted Best Actor in a Television Drama for his performance in Amongst Women at the inaugural Irish Film and Television Awards in 1999. He was named Best Actor in a Mini Series, also for Amongst Women, at the 1999 Monte Carlo TV Awards.
His sister Phil predeceased him, and he is survived by his wife, Sally, and their three children, Lucy, Joe and Sam, by his three children from his first marriage Kate, Christopher and Susannah, and by his brothers Desmond and Al.
Tony Doyle: born 1941; died January, 2000