Martin Doyle VC - The Irishman Who Fought For Three Armies [45-minute radio doc]

This 58-minute radio documentary is entitled “A Soldier’s Story – Investigating The Remarkable Military Career Of Martin Doyle VC, Who Fought For Three Armies (British, IRA & Free State)” Theme of radio doc: In the British army, the highest military honour which can be bestowed on a soldier is the Victoria Cross (VC). In order to win one, a soldier must show extraordinary courage and leadership in the presence of the enemy. During World War One (1914-18), the Irish man Martin Doyle won not just a VC (hence his nickname VC Doyle), but also a Military Medal for his heroic actions on the battlefield, when he was a soldier in the British army. When that war ended, he joined the IRA during the 1919-21 Irish War Of Independence and worked as an IRA intelligence officer. As a result, in 1941 he was posthumously awarded a War of Independence medal by Eamon De Valera’s government for his contribution to the Irish freedom struggle. Yet the irony is that Doyle had fought against Dev’s anti-Treaty side in the 1922-23 Irish Civil War. This 45-minute documentary investigates the remarkable and complex military career of Martin Doyle VC. In doing so it shows: (1). How his story is just one of many of the shifting loyalties and contradictions of Irish people during the turbulent period 1914 to 1923, when out of the maelstrom of war and revolution, the Irish Free State was born; (2). Why Doyle’s story personifies the many ironies of Irish history, where things are never black and white, but always complex; (3). Why it’s important that stories like Martin Doyle’s be publicly acknowledged and remembered, and not locked out of the folk memory (as happened for most the 20th century); & (4). Recent efforts in Doyle’s native town of New Ross, Co. Wexford to commemorate his achievements as a soldier. Credits: * All dramatic narrations in this documentary are performed by actor & historian Bryan MacMahon. To be downloaded for educational and non-profit purposes only, in adherence with the universal truth: “What you do for yourself dies with you, what you do for others lives forever. It is eternal.”