Mrs Doyle

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Mrs Doyle
Mrs Doyle, played by Pauline McLynn, is the parish priests' widowed housekeeper. Her first name is not mentioned on the show, but is given as Joan in a script. Whenever a character speaks her name, background noise suddenly erupts, masking whatever is being said.

Mrs Doyle is a hyperactive, repressed and somewhat insane parish housekeeper with an over the top zeal for her work. Obsessed with refreshments, she is often to be found preparing copious amounts of tea, cake and sandwiches; she even stays up all night 'just in case one of you needs a cup of tea'.[4] Whenever Ted or somebody else refuses one of her beverages, she urges them on for some time, usually just by repeating "go on, go on", until the offending priest or guest finally agrees just for the sake of some peace. She then denies them the tea or cake. In one episode, when Ted finally gives in, she decides that she is forcing him to have a cake, and tells him that he should just say no (which he had done several times), calling it a 'word that Our Lord gave us to use when we didn't want any cake.' She then proceeds to have the cakes destroyed.

Aside from simple domestic chores, Mrs Doyle also performs all the other tasks that need completing around the house, such as digging drainage ditches and mending the roof.[5] In this respect, Ted takes advantage of her work ethic and treats her like a general dogsbody. She frequently suffers accidents while attending to these chores, such as falling off the roof, falling down the stairs and especially plummeting head-first out of the large window frame in the front room.

Little or nothing is known about her personal life, except that she must have been married at some point, and previously spoke of having a sister. She has a dim view of sex, once mentioning how thankful she is that "she never thinks about that sort of thing", and in this respect appears quite conservative. In "And God Created Woman", when she and Ted are discussing the work of novelist Polly Clarke, she laments how much swearing there is in modern fiction and goes on a rant about the amount of sex in Clarke's books. She also becomes annoyed, condescending and visibly jealous whenever another woman comes into the parochial house, especially those who are good-looking or command the attention of the priests. She has several women friends on the island who appear