Seamus Doyle was from Ferns. According to his witness statement, Fr Philip Roche of 1798 fame was his great-great uncle. He joined the Gaelic League in 1900 and was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Gorey in 1907. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and became secretary to the board that oversaw the Volunteers in County Wexford. At the outbreak of the Rising he was Adjutant of the Enniscorthy Battalion. With Seán Etchingham, he travelled to Dublin under military escort to get confirmation from Pearse that Dublin had surrendered. He was interned after the Rising and served time in Dartmoor, Lewes, Maidstone and Pentonville prisons in England.
