Col. Colm Doyle

Colonel Colm Doyle retired from the Defence Forces in 2007 after 42 years service. His career appointments included Director of Public Relations, Commandant of The United Nations Training School, Director of Reserve Forces and Commandant of the Military College. He is a former Commanding Officer of the 12^th Infantry Battalion, Limerick.

Colm has extensive experience of overseas service, including tours with the United Nations in Cyprus, Lebanon and the Middle East. He also served with the EU in the former Yugoslavia.  Having served as a Captain with Ireland’s first unit deployed to Lebanon in 1978 he returned there in 1997 as the commanding officer of the 82^nd. Battalion, during which time he hosted the visit of President Mary McAleese, the first Irish President to visit troops serving overseas.

Colonel Doyle first served in Bosnia Herzegovina (BH) as an observer with the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in October1991 stationed in the Serb city of Banja Luka, before being appointed Head of Mission (HOM) for BH in November of that year when he moved to the capital Sarajevo.  As the situation deteriorated he attempted to mediate, negotiate and persuade political and military leaders of all sides to halt the seemingly inexorable path to all-out war.  He participated in negotiations, visited prisoner-of-war camps, extricated election monitors and organised hostage releases.  Shortly after returning home In March 1992 he was requested by Lord Peter Carrington, Chairman of the International Peace Conference on Yugoslavia to return to Sarajevo as his Personal Representative.  During the next several months as the situation worsened, he was directly involved in negotiating cease-fires in the city and in particular, securing the hostage release of the country’s President, Ilija Izetbegovic.  He was eventually evacuated by helicopter from the city in May 1992.

In 2004 Colonel Doyle was selected by the United Nations to serve as Chief of Staff of the Military Division at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in New York. 

He assisted the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)  in The Hague since 1995. He provided a written witness statement to the Tribunal in that year and made six subsequent visits to The Hague, testifying as a prosecution witness at the trials of Slobodan Milosevic, the President of Serbia in 2003, General Pavle Strugar of the Federal Army in 2004, Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs in 2010 and General Ratko Mladic, Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army in 2012.

On his return from New York in 2006 Colonel Doyle’s final appointment was as Commandant of the Military College at The Curragh where he supervised all aspects of the schools of the Military College (Cadet School, Infantry School, Command & Staff School and The United Nations Training School).

He holds a Masters Degree in International Studies from the University of Limerick.  He regularly appears on national TV and radio as a military commentator. In 2009 he was invited to present a paper at the Royal Irish Academy’s International Conference on ‘A responsibility to Protect’, the dilemma of state sovereignty over military intervention. 

He is a former Chairman of the JFK Memorial School Board of Management in Limerick City and a Community First Responder.

He has written a memoir of his time in Bosnia under the title “Witness to War Crimes: The memoirs of a peacekeeper in Bosnia”. The same year (2018) he returned to Bosnia to complete a television documentary on his service there.  

Colonel Doyle is married to Grainne and they have four adult children.  He lives in Limerick City.

The above text is an extract from the 2022 UL Alumni Awards Souvenir Booklet.

To read more about the 2022 UL Alumni Awards please click here.

To view images from the 2022 UL Alumni Awards please click here.

Watch Colm's on-stage interview below.