Of the family, two daughters (Rose and Alice) remained unmarried; George Alfred died as a young man in Latrobe, and Eliza became a nun in the Presentation Order, later becoming Superior as Mother Mary Xavier.

In 1863 Surveyor General J. E. Calder commented: "No one is better acquainted with the district than Mr. Dooley is with the one in his charge, and no one in the colony has done so much successfully to push forward settlement than he has.

Dooley was a born politician, possessing a ready Irish wit and a gift of rhetoric.

He was never lost for words, however he emerged as a compassionate man who was generous to his Church, and caring for the needs of the struggling early settlers on the North West Coast.

[6]When he died suddenly in Gilbert Street, Latrobe in the midst of an election campaign, there was great consternation.

A town was in mourning for the: "genial kind old gentleman who had represented East Devon for nineteen years."