Ryan, Michael (‘Mick’) (1869–1947), rugby player, was born 4 November 1869 at Racecourse, Cashel, Co. Tipperary, eldest among three sons and two daughters of John Ryan, farmer, from Racecourse, and Anne Ryan (née Moloney), originally from Ballinhowe, Co. Tipperary. Educated at Templene national school, he was a noted hammer-thrower and hurdler in his youth, and a talented Gaelic footballer and hurler, playing football with Cashel King Cormacs and hurling with the local Racecourse club. Although he was regarded as one of the finest all-round athletes in the country, it is as a rugby player that he is primarily remembered. Ryan did not take up rugby until he was in his mid twenties and began his playing career as a back, but his tremendous natural strength meant he soon became a highly effective forward. Impressing in that position in a Munster trial, he was selected for the province and soon after got his chance at international level. His international cap total contained a then record thirteen appearances alongside his brother John (‘Jack’) Ryan (see below). Both Ryans made their debut in Ireland's 1897 victory against England, with Jack, initially named as a substitute, selected to play when L. H. Gwynne had to cry off the team. Michael went on to win seventeen caps in the period 1897–1904, his final appearance being a defeat to Scotland.
The Ryans were closely associated with the nearby Rockwell College and helped the college senior team to become one of the great powers of Munster rugby in the 1890s, reaching several Munster Senior Cup finals, but without success. They were one of only two sets of brothers to play international rugby in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and they were two of only five players to play in all three international games in 1899, when Ireland won its second triple crown. Together they formed a formidable forward partnership, giving rise to a manoeuvre called the ‘Ryan wedge’, and their physical attributes and longevity as a pairing helped to give them a legendary status in Irish rugby. It was Michael's only try for Ireland, scored in a memorable win against England in 1903, that inspired the rugby writer Jacques McCarthy to made the famous observation that he crossed the line ‘festooned with Saxons’ (Cork Weekly Examiner, 17 Mar. 1903). A prominent nationalist, Ryan was a close friend of Éamon de Valera (qv), who taught for a few years at Rockwell and who played with the Ryans on the Rockwell senior team in the early years of the twentieth century. De Valera treated the Ryan house as his own while at Rockwell, and Ryan was one of only three people that de Valera wrote to when he felt he was going to be executed for his part in the 1916 rising. Appropriately, he couched what he thought was a farewell letter to Ryan in sporting terms: ‘Just a line to say I played my last match last week and lost, I am to be shot, an old sport who unselfishly played the game . . . . Farewell, old friend, you are in my thoughts’ (Farragher, 113). A farmer and horsebreeder, Michael Ryan was a generous supporter of the local GAA club throughout his life. He married (1902) Ellen Quinlan from Knockeaney; they had no family. Michael Ryan died 19 August 1947 after being struck by lightning while working in a hayfield, and is buried in Roesgreen cemetery.
His younger brother John Joseph (‘Jack’) Ryan (1874–1937) was born 30 September 1874 at Racecourse. He was generally regarded as a harder-working player than Michael, and better in the scrum. The last of his fourteen internationals was a 19–0 defeat to England in 1904. Like Michael, he played hurling and Gaelic football and helped Arravale Rovers of Tipperary town to win the county senior football championship. He too was a farmer and a horsebreeder, living at Killeenateana, Boytonrath, Cashel; one of the horses he bred – Tipperary Tim – went on to win the 1928 Aintree Grand National. Ryan reputedly had a £5 bet on the 100–1 outsider. Shortly afterwards he sold his farm and emigrated to the US with his family, and while most of the family remained there, Ryan and a son returned to Ireland some years later. The popularity, sporting ability, and versatility of the Ryan brothers (in the days before the GAA ban on playing foreign sports) resulted in an unusual incidence of sporting ecumenism when the Tipperary county board of the GAA presented them with an illuminated address celebrating their role in the Irish rugby team's 1899 success. John married (1907) Helena Purcell from Orchardstown, Clonmel; they had six children. He died 24 October 1937 and is buried in Roesgreen.