Myles, Sir Thomas (1857–1937), surgeon and nationalist, was born 20 April 1857 in Limerick city, second son of John Myles (d. 1871), merchant, and his second wife, Prudence (d. 1904), daughter of William Bradshaw of Kylebeg, Co. Tipperary. Educated at TCD, he graduated BA (1880) and then MB and M.Ch. (1881). In April 1881 he was appointed as resident surgeon at Dr Steevens' Hospital (1881–5). Some members of the board of governors felt that he was too young for such an appointment. Myles was a man of imposing physique and personality and he soon commanded the respect of both staff and students. On 6 May 1882 he was summoned by the police to attend Lord Frederick Cavendish (qv) and T. H. Burke (qv) who had been attacked in the Phoenix Park by members of the Invincibles. When he arrived he found that Burke was already dead; Cavendish was still breathing, but died soon afterwards. Myles gave medical evidence at the subsequent trial of the Invincible leaders. In January 1885 he resigned from Dr Steveens' and was appointed as a house surgeon at the Jervis Street Hospital (1885–90), becoming secretary of the Dublin hospitals commission in the same year.
Since his student days he had shown himself to be an accomplished athlete and boxer. During the 1880s he became acquainted with John L. Sullivan, the world heavyweight boxing champion, and would often spar with him. He later fought a three-round bout with Sullivan, who confessed that he was much impressed with Myles's strength and skill. When he had established a thriving private practice, he became a keen yachtsman and sailed not only in the seas around Ireland but further abroad. Deeply interested in politics, he was in 1886 a founding member of the short-lived Protestant Home Rule Association, and often spoke on home rule at public meetings. An associate of Charles Stewart Parnell (qv), he acted as one of his bodyguards during electoral campaigns.
In 1888 he graduated MD from TCD and was later appointed to the newly established chair of pathology at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (1889–97). He also served as examiner in surgery and anatomy while representing the RCSI at the general medical council. As a surgeon he was known for his direct, and often ungentle, approach to surgical problems. Yet he was an early exponent of Listerian antiseptic practices and was one of the first Dublin surgeons to wear gloves while operating. In 1890 he was appointed surgeon to the Richmond Hospital; he remained associated with the hospital for the rest of his life. Made an honorary burgess of Limerick in 1900, he was elected president of the RCSI (1900–02), and was knighted in 1902. He later served as surgeon in Ireland to both Edward VII and George V.
Remaining committed to the cause of home rule and alarmed by the arming of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1914, he agreed to help Erskine Childers (qv) in his efforts to acquire weapons for the Irish Volunteers. As he frequently sailed his steam-yacht Chotah in the Irish Sea and was known to members of the coastguard, it was felt that he could land weapons without arousing suspicion. After a series of delays, he met Childers in the Asgard off the Irish coast and transferred a quantity of rifles and ammunition to his yacht. On the night of 1 August 1914 he landed these at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow, delivering them to members of the Irish Volunteers under the command of Seán T. O'Kelly (qv) and Seán Fitzgibbon. After the outbreak of the first world war he was appointed as consulting surgeon to the British forces in Ireland, being given the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel. When one of his students, a member of the Volunteers, questioned his political sympathies, he angrily replied: ‘I brought you those guns to show that bloody Craig that two could play his game' (O'Brien, Crookshank, & Wolstenholme, 159). He was in Dublin castle when the Easter rising broke out in 1916 and attended the mortally wounded constable James O'Brien, the first member of the DMP to be killed during the rebellion. During the course of the fighting, wounded British soldiers were brought to the Richmond Hospital and he met the local Volunteer commander, Commdt Ned Daly (qv), who agreed not to take over the hospital. Myles was promoted to colonel, RAMC, in 1917.
Throughout his medical career he contributed articles to medical journals including the Medical Press, the Dublin Journal of Medical Science, and the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Medicine. These included ‘Fractured patella, treatment by extra-articular suture’ (DJMS, November 1889) and ‘A contribution to renal surgery’ (DJMS, February1900). He remained interested in athletics in his later years and was a member of the fund-raising committee for the Irish team that attended the Amsterdam Olympic Games in 1928. In 1930 he was elected president of the RCSI Boat Club and remained a keen yachtsman well into his seventies. He bought a twenty-seven-ton yacht, the Sheila (originally a present from Queen Victoria to her daughter Princess Beatrice), which in 1933 was wrecked off the Isle of Man. Undeterred he bought another yacht and went on a long cruise in 1936. An authority on French literature, he was too a brilliant raconteur.
He married (April 1888) Frances Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. George Ayres, a canon of St Patrick's cathedral, Dublin; they had no children. He died on 14 July 1937 at his old hospital, the Richmond, and was buried in Deans Grange cemetery. The RCSI possesses an oil portrait of him and also a bust by Oliver Sheppard (qv). The bust was loaned to the NGI in 1966 as part of its 1916 rising commemorative exhibition.