Thaddeus ‘Thady’ Ryan of Scarteen was Master of the family pack of Kerry Beagles from 1946 to 2005, the year of his passing. Records show this unique breed of hounds has been in the Ryan family at Scarteen for ten consecutive generations stretching back more than three centuries. The pack hunted hare in the earlier years, then the stag, and finally, in 1927, the fox.
Thady Ryan, MFH, and Tommy O’Dwyer with the Scarteen Hounds at Knocktoran Bog, 1982. / From the painting by Peter Curling
The period from the early 1950s through the 1960s was an era of amateur Master/huntsmen where young men of some means would take on a pack of hounds more as an avocation than a job. I was fortunate to have hunted with many of them such as Thady Ryan in Scarteen, Evan Williams in Tipperary, Lord Daresbury in Limerick, Capt. Harry Freeman-Jackson in Duhallow, Victor McCalmont in Kilkenny, Elsie Morgan in West Waterford, and PP Hogan in Avondhu.
Over the next couple of months, I hope to bring short hunting biographies of these remarkable sportsmen, recalling a time of long days in the field and even longer hunts when the leading horsemen of those times flocked to Ireland to experience the magic and challenge of hunting in the south of Ireland.
Thady Ryan hunts with son Chris, MFH and huntsman, after passing on the horn in accord with 3 centuries of family tradition. / Catherine Power photo
These huntsmen hunted their hounds without the constraints of hunt committees. Anyone who has sat through long, tortuous committee meetings knows how little they add to a good day’s hunting. Also, at that time, farming practices were much less intense and with far little wire. Hounds and horses could cross the country more or less at will.
Ireland was a very different place when Thady Ryan took on the demanding role of Master and huntsman of the famed Scarteen Hounds at the tender age of twenty-two. It wasn’t his or the family plan that he should be burdened with the responsibility of hunting the family pack at such a callow age, but his father, John, who had carried the horn since 1904, became suddenly ill. Traditionally, the eldest son of each generation inherited Scarteen along with the responsibility of hunting the family hounds. With little advanced preparation, a young and inexperienced Thady was catapulted into the job.
It was unthinkable that the Scarteen hounds would not be hunted by a member of the family as these unique Black and Tan Kerry beagles had been in the family even before the Treaty of Limerick was signed then broken late in the sixteen hundreds. In the intervening centuries, Ireland saw the penal laws and the confiscation of Catholic lands. The Ryans, staunch Catholics, somehow managed to navigate through these troubled waters. They maintain their farm at Scarteen just on the Co Limerick border with Tipperary and, perhaps as importantly, their rather rare breed of hounds. The elephant in the family rooms at Scarteen may have been unseen and unspoken as young Thady took on the hounds in 1946, but the centuries of family tradition must have levied a heavy weight on the young man just as Europe was returning to peacetime after the Second World War.
He didn’t come without hunting experience, of course. In addition to learning his trade at his father’s knee, so to speak, he had hunted the Ampleforth Beagles while at school in that seat of learning run then as now by the Benedictine monks in faraway North Yorkshire, England.
It would be nice to relate that he was an instant success, but such was not the case. He had a sticky start with a ginger group of malcontents who lobbied for his replacement with a more experienced huntsman. However, with the support of the farming community in the hunting country, he weathered the storm. Before his first season ended he had produced some remarkable days. To make his success more telling, just a couple of days before the end of the season which then went on until after St Patrick’s Day, he had a red-letter day that silenced most of the malcontents.
Thady married Anne Peter in 1953 after meeting her at a Tipperary hunt dance. She was visiting Ireland from her native New Zealand, where she would have hunted with the South Canterbury Hunt. Geography notwithstanding, love conquers all, and Thady traveled by liner all the way to New Zealand to be married. After returning to Scarteen, the couple soon decided to take in hunting guests, after which no hunting CV was complete unless you could say you had hunted with the Scarteen and stayed in Scarteen House.
The great and good came to hunt with Thady and the Black and Tans: Fred Winter, winner of the 1957 Grand National on Sundew, was a regular. Lord Oaksey (John Lawrence), in his biography, Mince Pies for Starters, fondly recalled days with the Scarteen when he was preparing for his ride in the Grand National on Carrickbeg (20/1) where he was narrowly beaten by Pat Buckley on the un-fancied Ayala (66/1).
And your editor, Norm Fine, though never once considering a Grand National ride, nevertheless possesses (along with his wife Joan) hunting CVs that are complete, according to my qualifications. Norm describes their lasting friendship with Thady and Anne, following the Black and Tans from the first draw to the last and often hacking home in darkness, to be among their most cherished hunting memories.
“And you never knew who might be sitting next to you at dinner,” he added. One night it could be a titled top-level officer of the Royal Navy, and another time it could be a man whose name is recognizable to everyone around the globe who reads in any language at all.”
Norm arranged for the publication of Thady’s beautifully-written autobiography, My Privileged Life: With the Scarteen Black and Tans, by the Derrydale Press in 2002. He recommends it without qualification as “a thoroughly enjoyable read, highly personal, written from Thady’s heart.”
In addition to hunting all winter, Thady was a leading member of what was then known as The Irish Olympic Horse Society and accompanied the Olympic team to the Games in Tokyo ’64 and Mexico ’68 as chef d’équipe.
Thady judges the Scarteen Puppy Show after retirement. / Catherine Power photo
He judged hounds and horses in show rings all ’round the world. His last major judging appointment when he was a little short of his seventieth birthday was at Royal Windsor where he rode more than seventy of the best-ridden hunters that England could produce. He judged at most of the major hound shows worldwide, including Virginia.
Always an innovator, the hunt chase, which was so successful for over thirty years, was his brainchild. Showing and show jumping had emerged from hunting, though over the years had become quite separate. To bring back hunting to the show ring, Thady invented the hunt chase with teams of four bona fide hunting men and women competing in a relay-type competition over a rustic course. From its inception in 1986, it was an instant hit in the Royal Dublin Show. In its second year, this author was fortunate to have been chosen to the Scarteen team in the RDS, led, of course, by Thady. While we didn’t win, we probably had one of the best weekends of our lives. That was what the event was about. Not necessarily winning, but taking part, representing your hunt, and having the opportunity to ride in possibly the greatest arena in the world.
It was in the hunting field, however, that Thady Ryan reigned supreme. Rightly he was looked on as the premier huntsman in these islands. It may not have been one of the more fashionable countries, but all true hunting men and women aspired to follow the marvelous music of the ‘Tans over their challenging bank county.
Like all of life’s successes, he had a great support team led by his wife Anne, who was always on hand with a sustaining bowl of soup (Thady was a teetotaller) to see him through a long day. And, boy, were they long days. Thady and Tommy O’Dwyer, his first-whipper-in, would often leave kennels with their pack before nine to hack to their more distant meets like Caherconlish, only to return in pitch darkness, perhaps as late as seven, then to face kennel duty.
Tommy was not only Thady’s first whip and kennel huntsman but his second great asset. Tommy came to Scarteen as a young lad and never left. A fine and fearless horseman (not always mounted on the best) and an even better houndman, he crossed the country effortlessly as if each yawner was little more than the first fence in the starters stakes.
Thady’s third great asset was the farming community in the Scarteen hunt country, with each of whom he had a lasting rapport. Difficulties did arise on occasion; there had to be with upwards of a hundred keen riders at some of the most popular meets. But Thady’s charm and quiet diplomacy would soon calm the waters and ensure that the hunt was welcome on their next visit. Alas, different times.
With PP Hogan as Field Master, the staff made a formidable team. Probably the greatest cross country riders of his or any other generation―powerful, tough, fearless―PP’s exploits crossing the country became the stuff of legend.
Catherine and I were privileged to have hunted with Thady from an early age until his retirement. He had promised her they would return to New Zealand when he retired from the field, and they did.
(L-R) Thady with his sister Gwen; Masters Semon Wolf, Ian Hurst, and son Chris; and grandson Tadgh at Scareteen House. / Catherine Power photo
Thady passed away in 2005. Unlike the other superb amateur huntsmen listed in the preamble, Thady left a hunting successor. His son Chris, like his father, went on to be one of the premier huntsmen of his generation. The apple falls near the tree.
Posted March 7, 2022
This article, previously published in The Irish Field, is re-published with permission. The author, Dickie Power, is well-equipped to tell Thady’s story, having grown up hunting with the Scarteen. Dickies’s wife, Catherine Power, not only provided her photographs for this and the original article, but for Thady’s 2002 autobiography, My Privileged Life, as well.