Ryle, Maurice P. (1868–1935), journalist, was born in Co. Kerry and began his career as a journalist at Tralee. He supported Charles Stewart Parnell (qv) in the split, and in 1891 left Kerry for Dublin as a reporter on the newly founded Parnellite Irish Daily Independent; he was proud to recall that he received a warm send-off from his neighbours, whatever their political loyalties. By the late 1890s he had become editor of the Evening Herald in succession to John Wyse Power (qv), and in late 1899 he became acting editor of the Irish Daily Independent after James O'Donovan departed to edit the Cork Herald; Ryle oversaw the death throes of the Parnellite daily, which was virtually bankrupt. In mid 1900 the paper was taken over by William Martin Murphy (qv) and merged with the Healyite Daily Nation; Ryle remained as joint editor with W. F. Dennehy (qv). This arrangement, possibly intended to reassure Parnellite readers and accommodate Dennehy's editorial role on the Irish Catholic, could only be temporary.
In September 1902 Ryle returned to Tralee, where he founded the weekly Kerry People and twice-weekly Kerry Evening Star as catholic and nationalist papers. He was the author of The kingdom of Kerry (2nd ed., 1902). From his Parnellite period Ryle retained a friendship with John Redmond (qv), and he was a leading ally of Thomas O'Donnell (qv), MP for West Kerry, 1900–18, who had also been a Parnellite. During the third home rule bill agitation (1912–14) he spoke at the principal nationalist rallies in Co. Kerry.
In July 1914 Ryle and O'Donnell co-founded the Kerry Advocate, edited by Ryle, which supported Redmond's recruiting policy at the outbreak of war; from this period until its bankruptcy in May 1916, the paper participated in vitriolic exchanges with the Kerryman, which supported Sinn Féin; the Gaelic League and GAA were criticised for allowing themselves to be infiltrated by separatists, and Ryle personally accused the protestant Irish Volunteer activists Ernest Blythe (qv) and Alf Cotton of being Carsonite agents provocateurs – ‘Orangemen from Belfast’ masquerading as ‘Sinn Féin pro-Germans’. Ryle worked with O'Donnell in the 1918 anti-conscription campaign, and they remained closely associated until the MP's departure from Kerry after losing his seat in 1918.
Kerry was one of the strongest Sinn Féin areas in Ireland, and subsequently became a republican stronghold; Ryle's record of outspoken Redmondism may have contributed to the decline of the Kerry People, which ceased publication in 1928 after degenerating into a crudely printed advertising sheet. (The Kerry Evening Star was already defunct.) Ryle was then recruited by the Chapman brothers to edit their Athlone-based papers, the Westmeath Independent and Offaly Independent; he retained this position until his death at Athlone on 8 April 1935 after a long illness. His body was taken back to Tralee for burial. He was married with four sons and four daughters. His grandchildren included the singer Dusty Springfield and the historian T. Ryle Dwyer.