Truth is Stranger than Fiction….
When the time came for Mrs. Doyle to
give birth to her seventh child, her husband Dan and his six
brothers and indeed his six other children, all boys, gathered around the house
in great anticipation and hightened expectation. For
if his wife Mary gave birth to a boy, (with the help of God as Dan had
been saying for the previous eight months), he would
surely be born with ‘the gift’.
When the old woman helping in the birth opened the bedroom window and
screamed at the top of her lungs “Tis a boy”, the celebrations began in
earnest. As most of the family made their way to Murphy’s Pub to
‘wet
the baby’s head’, Dan walked slowly down to the local Church and
prayed.
He
had heard that the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son – a line of
fourteen boys unbroken by the birth of a girl – on some rare
occasions could be blessed with the gift of healing. They could
also be haunted by an evil disposition. He prayed for
all that he was worth that things would not come to that.................
As
he began to make his way slowly back home, he began
shivering. It was not that the night was cold; it was just
that he was as nervous as he had been when his first son was
born. He prayed as he walked that the child and Mary his
wife were both healthy................
He entered the house quietly and removed his heavy
boots. As he climbed the stairs to the bedroom he passed Mrs. Hegarty the
midwife on her way down. “Don’t worry yourself one little
bit Mr. Doyle, sure Mary is as strong as a horse and her and the young one are
both fine”. As he entered the bedroom he was
quite shocked to see Mary sitting up in bed cuddling the newborn baby.
“Are you well sweetheart?” he asked quietly. “Fine Dan,
just fine. Have a look at your new son, and if I have
any say in the matter, your last one”. She began
to laugh and Dan joined in until the child began to
cry. “And what are we going to call him Mary?”
he asked her. “I think that since you would not have any of the
other boys named Daniel after yourself, all I ask is that he be called
Daniel. Not Dan: for as sure as God if I ever hear him being
called Dan or indeed him answering to that
name, I’ll crucify the one responsible”. Dan
could tell that Mary was serious.
And so it was that when they all attended the Church ten
days later and Daniel Ignatius Doyle was welcomed and Christened into
the Catholic Church. Now although I said
earlier that Dan was a temperate man, he did allow himself to have
a couple of pints of Guinness that very
day...................
Oddly enough, and Dan took it to be an omen for good, the week preceding
the Baptism, it had rained consistently with a gale blowing most
of the day and night. However, as they left the house for the
church that morning, the sky miraculously cleared and the sun shone on
them. There was not even a breath of wind....
Young Daniel proved to be a healthy and very bright baby from day
one. He caused Mary not one moment’s anxiety and sure enough,
or at least Dan was sure that he noticed it, was showing signs of ‘the gift’.
When he was three years old Mrs. Doyle noticed that when the child was
in the back garden he could actually control the animals merely by looking at
them. He never seemed to say anything to them but they seemed
to be doing his bidding without any words of command being
given. He was also able to imitate the birds and by
calling them with his weak whistle they would come from the surrounding trees
and hedgerows to alight on the grass close to him.
At school he showed great promise and as his teacher said, he had great
potential. He had already passed two of his older brothers in
learning and the teacher reckoned that it would not be long before he overtook
the others as well.
Daniel was a quiet boy and although he attended church when told to by
his mother, he was not religious in a ‘religious’ sort of
way. He was more of a nature person...
It was not until his tenth birthday that it was discovered that he did
indeed possess ‘the gift’. Mrs. Doyle had laid on a
small party for him and a few of his friends and during the rough and tumble
among the group of boys, one cracked his head against the outside wall and
badly cut the side of his head. When Mrs. Doyle heard
the scream she ran to get something to put on the
wound. She had seen the cut and the blood but when she
returned with some bandages, there was no sign of either.
When she asked what had happened, one of the boys
quietly said “Daniel did the magic and it all went away”. Mrs.
Doyle said nothing to Daniel but later
that night she passed on what had happened to Dan.
A few weeks later, whilst cutting some hedgerows near the house, Dan
caught his hand on some barbed wire and got a nasty deep cut on the palm of his
hand. He put a cloth on it and returned to the
house. When Mary saw it, she quietly said “Why not ask
Daniel to help?”
She called him down from upstairs where he was
doing his homework and quietly said “Daniel, I know what you did on your birthday to
your friend’s head, would you try to do it on your father’s hand?” “Surely”
he replied and went up to Dan.
“Daddy” he said “pick a cabbage leaf from the garden and bring it
to me”. Dan did not hesitate but did what he
was told. On his return, Daniel folded it in the shape
of a cross and placed it over the wound. He then replaced the
bandage. “Don’t touch it until after tea and it will be OK
Dad” he said as he returned up the stairs.
Sure enough and you can believe me or not, as Mary poured out the tea
for Dan no more than an hour later, he removed the
bandage. The cabbage leaf was no longer there and there was
not a sign of any wound – not even a scar.
Although Mary and Dan had known of ‘the gift’ for
many years, it was the first time that they had ever seen it
work. Neither said anything – they just nodded to each
other.................
Over the coming years, Daniel saw to most of the family’s ailments. The
word spread and close neighbours would also come to him with their
problems. Daniel never refused to see
anyone. Many were cured immediately with others
requiring a second or third visit.
He never accepted money from anyone and when people began to arrive each
evening from distant parts of Ireland to be cured, Dan was
forced to restrict meeting them to three days each
week. After seeing more than six people Daniel was so
tired that he would sleep for ten hours after a session...............
When he was eighteen, someone informed Radio Eireann (the Irish Radio
Service) people up in Dublin and of course they sent
down a crew to record some of the healings. When Daniel told
one of his ‘patients’ who was suffering from very bad styes in his
eyes to go to the garden and pick seven gooseberry thorns, the radio
interviewer began to laugh. When he saw Daniel point each one at the styes
until all seven had been used and then telling the patient to bury the thorns
in the garden, the interviewer began to laugh
hysterically. It was Dan who ordered them to leave the
house and never to return.
It is a pity really for next morning the man with the styes returned
completely cured....
When the item was broadcast on radio, hundreds if not thousands
complained to the authorities about the way they had ridiculed
Daniel. A more serious result was that now that the
whole country knew of him, thousands would descend on his home from far and
wide.
Many had incurable diseases including
terminal cancers most of whom had been given short times to
live. All medical treatment had failed and although many were
clutching at straws they saw Daniel as their final hope.
Such scenes frightened Daniel for he had not known about such sufferings
throughout his young life (he had not yet reached his twenty-first
birthday). The stress was beginning to
affect his health.
However, the ‘final straw that broke the camel’s back’ was
when one evening as the family sat down to tea they heard a loud banging on the
front door. It was his mother who answered it to find a
young woman with a baby in arms.
“Daniel must help the baby” the woman cried. Daniel heard her and
immediately went to see what was going on.
The woman handed him the baby and as he looked at the child he could see
in his mind’s eye that the child was close to death. The
woman cried “The doctors say that there is nothing they can do for him, it’s his
little heart” she spoke through her tears. Daniel took the
child to the kitchen telling everyone to remain in the front room.
He prayed over the child and it was then that the decision came to
him. He would take the child’s place...........................
He placed his hand on the child’s chest and concentrated harder than he
had ever done in his life. He suddenly saw a flash of
light and was forced to put the child down as he clutched his own
chest. As he cried out the others ran into the kitchen to find
the child crying at the top of his lungs whilst Daniel sat on the floor
clutching his chest.
A doctor was called and as he examined Daniel, his life passed
away. He had suffered a severe heart attack.......................
Oddly enough, when the doctor examined the child he could find nothing
whatsoever wrong with the child’s heart and this was confirmed by the
specialists later. They called it a miracle........
The strangest fact about the whole affair was that Daniel died at seven
minutes past seven, on the seventh day of July – the seventh month – nineteen
hundred and seventy seven – 7.7pm, 7.7.77................................
------------Mike--------------
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