Father Coyle served as Pastor of the Cathedral of St. Paul in downtown Birmingham Alabama from 1904 until his assassination on August 11, 1921 on the front porch of the old parish rectory.

A native of Drum, Athlone in County Roscommon, Ireland, Father Coyle was ordained in Rome May 30, 1896 when only
twenty-three years old. Later that same year, he came to spend his priestly life in Alabama.

He was welcomed to Mobile by Bishop Edward Allen whom he served faithfully for 25 years. Father Coyle served eight years in the Mobile area, first in parish missions, then at McGill Institute for Boys, first as instructor and later as rector of the school.

In 1904 Bishop Allen appointed Father Coyle as Pastor of St. Paul's to succeed Father Patrick O'Reilly who had died from injuries sustained in a fall from a horse in a military parade. Father Coyle served the large St. Paul's congregation for seventeen years until his tragic death in 1921 at the age of forty-eight.

A thick ten-foot high Celtic cross marks his final resting place in Birmingham's Elmwood cemetery. During the last years Father Coyle served in Birmingham, there existed a regrettable atmosphere of public anti-Catholic economic and psychological persecution, organized by the Ku Klux Klan and a secret anti-Catholic political society called the True Americans. Father Coyle was unwavering during this tense period in defending the Catholic Church and what Catholics believe.

He was shot by an enraged minister whose daughter's marriage to a dark-skinned Puerto Rican Father Coyle had presided over less than two hours before he was mortally wounded. May his bravery inspire us to love!