 His family were Travellers with a distinguished musical heritage; his father John Doran and brother Felix Doran were also pipers, and his great-grandfather was the celebrated Wexford piper John Cash.By his early twenties, Doran was working as an itinerant musician, travelling with his family from town to town in a horse-drawn caravan and playing for money at fairs, races and sporting events.His playing is said to have inspired the young Willie Clancy to take up piping as a career.