anne (peter) ryan

Scarteen Hunt Dance, 1949, where Anne Peter from New Zealand first met Thady Ryan, MFH. Anne is second from the right in front. Thady is second from the left behind.Anne Ryan (neé Peter), eighty-nine, widow of the late Thady Ryan, MFH, Scarteen (IRE), died in her home in Nelson, New Zealand on Wednesday, March 11, 2015. She will be remembered with affection by sportsmen around the world who had the good fortune to meet her while hunting with the Scarteen behind Master and huntsman Thady Ryan, and especially by those who had the greater good fortune to stay or dine at Scarteen over their hunting holidays.

Anne, a native of New Zealand, was visiting cousins in Ireland in 1949 when she met Thady. She caught his eye the first time he spied her hacking in from a meet with the Tipps. A few days later, she appeared at the Scarteen Hunt Dance in the company of a young man. Thady had not forgotten his first sight of Anne, and he wooed her with determination. There were obstacles, she having been brought up in the Anglican faith and he a devout Catholic. Further, the cousins with whom Anne was staying had promised to return her to her family in New Zealand “whole and single.”