city, and with a large population of Irish origin. Soon after his election, he lobbied and led delegations against a proposal to build huge barrack-like lodging-houses. Instead, he persuaded the Council to build cottage dwellings. He was re-elected in 1897, with one of the largest number of votes ever recorded in a Manchester Council election. Boyle was involved in the long-term re-organisation of the Manchester City Police after the revelations of an official enquiry revealed widespread corruption. He also interested himself in the affairs of the Manchester Ship Canal (Manchester City Council had come to the rescue of the project when it ran out of money, and still possessed a substantial shareholding in the Canal Company). In May 1897 the local monthly magazine 'Manchester Faces and Places' published a profile. "It is as much by character as by speech that Mr Boyle has so soon secured the respect and ear of the assembly. Sound sense, good humour and the wit which is the dower of the Irish race – these are the qualities which tell powerfully for the cause he may be advocating. On the platform Mr Boyle…is an orator. His voice is sonorous and musical…and when particularly he speaks on politics he gives the ring and earnestness and even of passion. Just the touch of the accent of his country aids rather than mars the effect of his speech." Dan Boyle's Railway Boyle was (and is) chiefly remembered in Manchester as the 'father' of Manchester Corporation Tramways. He was invited to become Chairman of the Tramways Committee in 1898, after only four years on the Council, and moved the resolution to purchase the horse tramway system that same year. In this position, he took on the complex task of organising the purchase of the Manchester Carriage and Tramways Company, the promotion of Five Parliamentary Bills, and the reconstruction, electrification, and expansion of the entire municipal tramway system. The first electric tram route opened in 1901. Speaking at the banquet to celebrate the opening, he said that the object was to provide a good service with the best possible conditions, and, not least, to give the ratepayers a decent return on their capital. The system soon evolved under his leadership to embrace 140 miles of track, with 450 tramcars travelling 30,000 miles a day, and carrying 130 million passengers. Mancunians dubbed it "Dan Boyle’s Railway". Boyle also had a strong