Career
After placing the children in what he believed to be a temporary situation, Doyle left for work in England. Nevertheless, the government denied his request, citing the best interests of the children (and, it is believed, disapproval of his living arrangements with Mrs Jessie Powers néeMiss Cunningham). He subsequently fought a legal battle to regain custody of them, which required overturning the provisions of the Irish Children Acting, 1941.
Doyle became involved in a case presented before the Irish Supreme Court in which it was claimed that the Children"s Acting contravened several sections of the Irish Constitution.
In December 1955, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Desmond Doyle, and ordered that the children be returned to him and that his court costs were to be reimbursed by the government. The events leading up to the Supreme Court"s decision were recounted in the book Evelyn: A True Story, by eldest daughter Evelyn Doyle (2003, Orion Publishing Group, London).
The story was also published as Tea and Green Ribbons: A Memoir (2003, Free Press, New York). Her sequel describing the Doyles" life and Evelyn"s life after the Supreme Court decision was published as Nothing Green: The Sequel to the Bestselling "Evelyn" (2004, Orion Publishing Group, London).
A highly fictionalised account of these events has been recorded in the film Evelyn (2002), starring Pierce Brosnan (who plays Desmond), Julianna Margulies, Sophie Vavasseur, Stephen Rea, Aidan Quinn and Alan Bates and directed by Bruce Beresford.
