Patrick Ryan

Patrick Ryan may refer to:

Patrick Ryan (athlete)

Patrick ("Pat" or "Paddy") James Ryan (4 January 1881 – 13 February 1964) was an Irish hammer thrower. He competed for the United States at the 1920 Summer Olympics and won a gold medal in the hammer throw and a silver in the 56-pound weight throw. In 1913 he established the first world record in hammer throw, which stood as a world record for 25 years and as an American record for 40 years. Ryan was part of Irish weight throwers known as the Irish Whales.

Biography

Born in Limerick, Ireland, Ryan won his first Irish hammer title in 1902, beating the great Tom Kiely. In 1910 Ryan emigrated to America. After placing third in the 1911 AAU championship in his first year he improved to take second place in 1912, and won the title in 1913. With the exception of 1918 when he was in Europe with the American Armed Forces he won the AAU title every year from then up to and including 1921, when he retired.

While in New York Ryan worked initially as a labor foreman but then joined the City Police, and was a member of both the Irish American Athletic Club and the New York Athletic Club. He had not established citizenship in time for the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, and so missed an opportunity. The following year, however, at the curiously named Eccentric Fireman’s Games he established the first official IAAF world record for the event with a throw of 189 ft. 6½" (57.77m). This remained a world record for 25 years and an American record for forty years, being eventually beaten by Martin Engel in July 1953. He came close at the AAU on 26 June with a winning throw of 186 ft. 9" (56.92m), but took the record with a throw of 195 ft. 4½" (59.54m) on 11 July 1953.

Patrick Ryan (Irish priest)

Father Patrick Ryan, an Irish Catholic priest, left the Pallottine order in 1973 after refusing a transfer to a parish church in England.

A decade later, and alleged by British intelligence of being an IRA volunteer, Fr Ryan was accused of involvement in IRA activities. In 1988, Ryan denied the accusation in an interview with The Tipperary Star, saying that he had raised money both inside and outside Europe for victims on the nationalist side in the troubles of Northern Ireland. But Ryan insisted that he had "never bought explosives for the IRA or anybody else", and had never been requested by the paramilitary group to do so.

Alleged IRA membership

On 1 May 1988, three off-duty British servicemen were assassinated in the Netherlands. On 30 June 1988, acting on a tip-off, Belgian police went to the home of an IRA sympathiser and arrested Ryan, who was believed to be acting as quartermaster of the IRA active service unit in Belgium. Upon his arrest, the police seized a quantity of bomb-making equipment and manuals, and a large sum of foreign currency. The British authorities provided substantial evidence in support of a request for Ryan's extradition from Belgium to face charges in Britain. Legal argument between the two countries ensued over the next five months and, following a three-week hunger strike in protest against his possible extradition to Britain, Ryan was instead transferred to Dublin on 25 November 1988.