Thady Ryan, who has died at his home in New Zealand at the age of 81, was one of Ireland's most respected exponents of field and country sports.
A deeply religious man of high moral standing, but with an irrepressible sense of humour, he was best known in the world of hunting as master for 40 seasons of the Scarteen Black and Tan Foxhounds, which have been in the Ryan family for almost 400 years.
Born in Hatch Street nursing home in Dublin in 1923, Ryan was educated at Killashee preparatory school outside Naas in Co Kildare, where the strict regime imposed by the nuns included a rule that pupils had to wear bathing togs while taking a bath. His education was continued at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire, where he became first whipper-in and eventually master of the college beagle pack.
One of the house masters at the school proposed that Ryan could have a promising career in the diplomatic corps, but his father was adamant that he would return to Scarteen, the family home in Knocklong, Co Limerick. The Ryan tradition was that the eldest son of each generation had the right to inherit Scarteen House, along with the responsibility of hunting the family pack of hounds.
With farming and hunting as his - and his father's - career of choice, Ryan put in an application to Glasnevin Agricultural College. Chances of getting through the entrance exam seemed doomed due to Ryan's rusty Irish. It was actually his maths that let him down, so he had to learn his trade at the coal-face.
A chance meeting with New Zealander Anne Peter on a day's hunting with the Tipperary Foxhounds resulted in a blossoming romance and Ryan followed Anne back to New Zealand to ask for her hand. The couple were married on June 15th, 1953, in Timaru, New Zealand, with the South Canterbury hounds waiting outside to greet the newlyweds as they left the church.
In mid-December of the following year, his father, John Ryan, died, leaving the hounds, the hunting horn and the house to Thady. His mother, Anita, moved out of Scarteen, but the house wasn't quiet for long, with Thady and Anne producing six children. Their first-born was a daughter, Rachel, followed by John, twin sons Hugh and Chris, Mark and finally, Claire. Tragically, Claire developed cancer and had to have a leg amputated, but the disease had already spread and the Ryans lost their youngest daughter at the age of just 12.
He was the seventh generation of Ryans to hunt the Scarteen and, like his father before him and his son Chris after, he provided superb sport, while still maintaining the all-important relationship with the farming community. But his service to the community, both locally and nationally, extended far beyond the hunting field.
In 1972 he was appointed as a member of the first Bord na gCapall and was made chairman of the marketing division. Although his own three-day eventing career was limited to one disastrous outing at Punchestown where he had a horrific fall at the second fence, he became chef d'équipe for the three-day event teams at both the Tokyo and Mexico Olympics.
He was a member of the RDS equestrian committee and, in 1983, proposed the addition of a new class to the Dublin Horse Show catalogue.
In an effort to introduce the joys of hunting to Dublin's urban community, Ryan launched the hunt chase, which went on to become one of the most popular and entertaining elements of the Horse Show.
Instrumental in the Hunter Improvement Society of Ireland, he was also a brilliant judge of a horse, not just for the hunting field but also for the show-ring, as well as being much in demand as a judge at hound shows. A staunch supporter of the Irish-bred horse, he was unimpressed by foreign bloodlines, once commenting to a journalist on the Hanoverian breed, "they were bred by the Germans for the Germans and they suit the Germans very well".
In 1986 he suffered an angina attack while out hunting. A heart bypass gave him a new lease of life, but he felt that it was time to fulfil a promise to his wife that he would take her home when he retired from the hunt. The following year the couple moved to New Zealand and, as his eldest son John had made it plain he was not interested in taking over the hounds, Thady handed over the horn to one of the twins, Chris, who has proved as natural a huntsman as his father.
But Ryan was determined that he would take a bit of Ireland with him and exported the Irish draught stallion Kingsway Diamond and two mares, Kilmanagh Banrion and Night Errand, in an attempt to show the New Zealanders how Irish bloodlines could improve the native stock.
All horses bred at the Ryans' new stud were given the prefix Éireann, but the fox on the letterbox at Scarteen was the only one in New Zealand.
Increasingly frail in his later years, Ryan finally succumbed to a lengthy illness on January 8th. His funeral was held in his adopted home-town of Temuka, New Zealand on Tuesday, January 11th before he undertook his last journey, a nine-hour drive to his final resting place at Nelson on the northernmost coast of the south island.
When Ryan moved to New Zealand, he had taken with him some Scarteen oak, planning to do take up woodwork when he retired.
Of course he never did retire, as he was co-opted to endless equestrian and hunt committees and was instrumental in founding the New Zealand Irish Draught Society. But the Irish oak was not allowed to go to waste and his son Mark used the wood to make his father's coffin.
A commemorative mass at Knocklong Church on a perfect hunting day last Sunday attracted a huge attendance. The Last Hunt, an American-made and so far unseen film of Ryan's last season hunting the Scarteen, will be shown in the Golden Thatch pub in Emly, Co Tipperary, after hunting today.
He is survived by his wife, Anne, sons John, Hugh, Chris and Mark, daughter Rachel, his sister Gwen and extended family.
Thaddeus Francis Ryan: born September 25th, 1923; died January 8th, 2005.