Desmond Ryan

Desmond Ryan was an author, historian, and in his earlier life a revolutionary in Sinn Féin.

Ryan was born in London, on 27 August 1893, son of the Templemore, Tipperary-born London journalist William Patrick Ryan, editor of the Peasant and Irish Nation and assistant editor of the London Daily Herald, and his wife, Elizabeth. He came to Ireland in 1906, aged 13, with his mother and sister, and studied at St Enda's School, Rathfarnham, under Padraig Pearse; later he taught in the school and was briefly Pearse's secretary.

Ryan attributed to Pearse the saying "[G]ive me a hundred men and I will free Ireland!" Ryan became part of a group of former students lodging in St Enda's while they went to university who joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood. They used to meet in a safe house at Rathfarnham in 1911. The men took the tram from Rathfarnham to Nelson's Pillar in Central Dublin. Pearse once told his friend, "Let them talk! I am the most dangerous revolutionary of the whole lot of them!" In 1911, the Dungannon Clubs would revive the Volunteers Militia movement. These clubs were not initially successful in Dublin, but more so in Belfast amongst Catholic nationalists. One of the northern members the Dubliner Oscar Traynor, in his youth a professional footballer with Belfast Celtic F.C., later a war hero and later again a politician and Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

At this stage, according to Ryan, Pearse was a constitutional nationalist and spoke for Home Rule from a platform shared with Tom Kettle and John Redmond, and refused to hear any criticism of the Irish Parliamentary Party. But on the foundation of the Ulster Volunteer Force by Edward Carson and the approach of World War I, Pearse became increasingly sure that Ireland could not achieve independence except by force, and began with Thomas MacDonagh, Eamonn Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett, Thomas Clarke, Bulmer Hobson and others to plan the Rising.

...
Wikipedia