John Ryan was an artist, broadcaster, publisher, critic, editor, patron and publican.
John Ryan was many things but primarily a key figure in Bohemian Dublin for many years. He knew nearly every artist of note that lived in, or passed through, Dublin from the 1940s onwards. It was often Ryan who brought these disparate characters together, particularly with his founding of Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art. The pub he owned, The Bailey, became a literary institution. He was friend and benefactor to many artists. For some he was a sort of 'Dublin prince'.[1] He was involved in numerous literary events and happenings, often as prime mover.
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Education John Ryan attended Clongowes Wood College and the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin. Family One of the eight children of Séamus Ryan[2], a member of Seanad Éireann and his wife Agnes Ryan née Harding who came from Kilfeacle and Solohead respectively in County Tipperary and who were Republican activists during the Irish War of Independence. They opened a shop in Parnell Street, Dublin, in the 1920s which was the first of 36 outlets which were known as 'The Monument Creameries'. His mother was a patron of the painter Jack Yeats, amongst others, and owned many pictures by Yeats. The family lived at Burton Hall, near Leopardstown Racecourse in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock. Among his siblings were Kathleen Ryan, actress, Fr. Vincent (Séamus) (1930–2005), a Benedictine monk at Glenstal Abbey, Sister Íde of the Convent of The Sacred Heart, Mount Anville Secondary School, Dublin, Oonagh (who married the Irish artist Patrick Swift), Cora who married the politician, Seán Dunne, Teachta Dála. Several of Ryan's children followed him into the arts: son and namesake John Ryan, publisher, actor and journalist; Seamus Ryan, London-based photographer; Anna Ryan, actress. Artist John Ryan studied at the NCAD, but was largely a self-taught painter through a practice of 'careful intelligent observation' combined with 'a genuine and humorous love of land, sea and human tradition' (Hilary Pyle, 'John Ryan exhibition in Cork', The Irish Times, 23 October 1981). He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) from 1946 onwards, and also showed at the annual Oireachtas and the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA). He designed theatre sets for the Abbey, Gate, Olympia and Gaiety Theatres as well as for the stage in London. He also acted in and produced several plays. Editor He founded and edited Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art (1949–1951); editor of The Dublin Magazine (1970–75); A Bash In The Tunnel (Brighton: Clifton Books 1970), edited by Ryan, essays on James Joyce by Irish writers: Patrick Kavanagh, Brian O'Nolan, Samuel Beckett, Ulick O'Connor & Edna O’Brien.Writer His books include: Remembering How We Stood (Gill & Macmillan, 1975; Lilliput Press, 1987 ), a memoir of literary Dublin with characters such as Patrick Kavanagh, Brian O'Nolan, Brendan Behan, et al.; A Wave of the Sea (Ward River, 1981), a marine memoir. Broadcaster Ryan was a long-time contributor to Sunday Miscellany on Radio Éireann (RTÉ Radio). Publican He owned The Bailey pub which became a famous literary venue frequented by characters such as Kavanagh, Brian O'Nolan, et al. Friend and Benefactor He was a patron to many artist, e.g. Patrick Kavanagh, and was always willing to help -discreetly[3]- when they needed it most. He owned a building on Mount Street where many artists stayed. He was friend and intimate with many leading artists of the period: Beckett, Behan, Cronin, Swift, Seán O'Sullivan, Pearse Hutchinson, J. P. Donleavy, Brian O'Nolan, et al. James Joyce connection He saved Leopold Bloom’s front door to 7 Eccles Street from demolition and used it in The Bailey pub in St. Anne Street, Dublin, from whence it was removed and transported to the Joyce Museum on N. Gt. George’s St., Oct. 1995; He arranged that the James Joyce Tower become a museum; First Bloomsday Celebration: 'Bloomsday' was invented in 1954 when John Ryan and the novelist Brian O'Nolan organised what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route; A Bash In The Tunnel (Brighton: Clifton Books 1970), edited by Ryan, essays on James Joyce by Irish writers: Patrick Kavanagh, Brian O'Nolan, Samuel Beckett, Ulick O'Connor & Edna O’Brien.
December 1949- July 1951. Founded and edited by Ryan. Envoy was inaugurated in response to Irish trade and censorship restrictions which had forced many writers to seek publication outside their homeland. During its brief existence, Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art, published the work of a broad range of writers, Irish and others. The first to publish J. P. Donleavy, Brendan Behan's first short stories and his first poem, and an extract from Samuel Beckett's Watt.
An affectionate account of Bohemian Dublin in the 1950s with Behan, Kavanagh, J. P. Donleavy (q.v.), Anthony Cronin and other Dublin characters. Ryan:
Dublin was a town of ‘characters’ then as now, and I suppose will ever be. A man I knew was taking a stroll down Grafton Street one day when he happened to overhear part of a discussion which three citizens were having outside Mitchell’s café. The gist of their dialogue was that they were deploring the absence from the Dublin scene of any real ‘characters’. They appeared to be genuinely aggrieved. They were, in fact, Myles na gCopaleen, Sean O’Sullivan and Brendan Behan.
From the foreword by J. P. Donleavy:
As one reads his words, dressed in their wonderful finery of irony, the world he speaks of reblossoms to be back again awhile. To see, feel and smell the Dublin of that day... a masterpiece of reminiscence.
BLOOMSDAY (a term Joyce himself did not employ) was invented in 1954, the 50th anniversary, when John Ryan and the novelist Flann O'Brien organised what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce's cousin, represented the family interest) and AJ Leventhal (Registrar of Trinity College). Ryan had engaged two horse drawn cabs, of the old-fashioned kind, which in Ulysses Mr. Bloom and his friends drive to poor Paddy Dignam's funeral. The party were assigned roles from the novel. They planned to travel round the city through the day, visiting in turn the scenes of the novel, ending at night in what had once been the brothel quarter of the city, the area which Joyce had called Nighttown. The pilgrimage was abandoned halfway through, when the weary Lestrygonians succumbed to inebriation and rancour at the Bailey pub in the city centre, which Ryan then owned, and at which, in 1967, he installed the door to No. 7 Eccles Street (Leopold Bloom’s front door) having rescued it from demolition . A Bloomsday record of 1954, informally filmed by John Ryan, follows this pilgrimage.[4]
Whenever you mention Patrick Kavanagh’s seat on the Grand Canal Dublin, most people will immediately think of the more famous park bench with the statue of Paddy himself sitting to one side of the seat almost beckoning for someone to sit down beside him. This bench is situated on the north bank of the Grand Canal between Baggot Street Bridge and the upstream Eustace Bridge. John Coll produced the sculpture and the seat was unveiled by her Excellency President Mary Robinson on 11/6/1991, however this is NOT the original seat. Only a relatively few people will be aware of the lesser known original Kavanagh seat situated on the South Bank at the Lock Gates close to Baggot Street Bridge. As is well known from his poem and heavy hints to his friends, he wished to be commemorated with a simple canal side seat near the lock gates of Baggot Street Bridge. To this effect shortly after his death in 1967, a committee was formed by the late John Ryan and Denis Dwyer to collect a sum of money to purchase the materials and labour for the seat. The seat was erected in the poet’s memory by his friends in 1968.[5]