Ceremony in Canada honours Carrick-on-Suir man involved in founding the GAA

A ceremony has taken place in Cranbrook in Western Canada to mark the final resting place of one of the GAA’s founders, JP Ryan from Carrick-on-Suir.

 Mr Ryan was one of the famous Hayes Hotel Seven who gathered in that Thurles hotel  in 1884 to found the GAA. 

 Former GAA President John Horan represented Croke Park at the ceremony where an ornate new grave and headstone was unveiled which marks Ryan’s historical significance to the GAA.

Joseph P. Ryan was an athletics enthusiast and a friend of the GAA’s first president Maurice Davin. Like Davin, he   hailed from Carrick-on-Suir. 

His friendship with Davin is thought to have been instrumental in Ryan, a solicitor based in Callan, being one of the seven men in the billiards room of Hayes Hotel in Thurles where the GAA was officially formed on November 1, 1884. 

Michael Cusack, John Wyse Power, John McKay, Thomas St George McCarthy and JK Bracken were the others present. 

Ryan’s active involvement in the fledgling GAA in Ireland was brief as he emigrated not long after and eventually settled in Canada. 

He lived in Cranbrook in British Columbia where he became immersed in local life and was a journalist and a magistrate.

A project spearheaded by Canada GAA and supported by the GAA’s History Committee led to the grave unveiling to mark his resting place,  with a hurling club based in Vancouver also commemorating Ryan’s GAA link. 

A delegation from across Canada GAA also attended the ceremony in Cranbrook where a lone piper led the cortège.