Few figures in twentieth-century Ireland remained at the centre of Irish public life as long as James Ryan. As one of the longest-serving ministers in the state’s history, Ryan presided over momentous periods of crisis and change not only for the departments he managed but also for the country itself. Was he the greatest Taoiseach we never had?
When James Ryan finally retired from public life in 1969, the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, observed that Ryan’s life ‘could well provide material for an absorbing and exciting book’. That book has now been written and its author Michael Loughman chats with Declan Ralph here….

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