Nenagh couple's marriage 100 years ago recalled
From our archives from a century ago comes this news of a highly popular marriage of two Nenagh natives......
Very sincere congratulations are being extended to Mr P. J. Ryan, Kenyon Street, Nenagh, on his marriage which took place in Dublin on the 15th inst., to Miss M. Gleeson, eldest daughter of Mr T. Gleeson, formerly of Pearse Street, Nenagh, now residing in Dublin. The bridegroom who belongs to an old, widely connected and very popular Nenagh family, is son of Mrs B. Ryan, Kenyon Street, and is for some years past an official of the North Tipperary County Council.
In his public duties he has proved himself a courteous, capable, and popular personality. In social and sporting matters he always readily co-operated, and heavy work has fallen upon him in secretarial and other directions in the organisation of many undertakings in Nenagh.
To be a patriotic Irishman, ran in his blood. The son of the late Michael Ryan, who practically died in Naas prison as a suspect in Balfour’s coercion days during the Land War, he inherited from his cradle the spirit of nationalism and of sacrifice. As a consequence, he was always prominently identified with the forward movement in modern Irish politics, with Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League, etc.
In the terror of November 1919, he was arrested by British forces, lodged in the military barracks in Nenagh, and some nights and days of horror, with the impending sense of tragedy every hour, he was removed to Limerick Prison and spent over 12 months imprisonment there and in Spike where he underwent a hunger strike, being only released after the Truce in 1921.
His many friends are delighted that he has survived all, and that there is now opening for him the vista of a life of happy married bliss, which no element of private or public unhappiness or uncertainty will in the slightest mar.
His bride is a talented and cultured young lady, a member of a respected and popular family, one who is certain to prove a worthy helpmate. May we associate ourselves with the general wish that the life of this young Tipperary couple may be one of long and unalloyed bliss.