Bernard Ryan was one of six men hanged in Mountjoy Prison

Mountjoy Prison

Mountjoy Prison , founded as Mountjoy Gaol, nicknamed The Joy, is a medium security prison located in Phibsboro in the centre of Dublin, Ireland. It has the largest prison population in Ireland.The current prison governor is Mr...

, Dublin on the 14 March 1921. He was a member of the Irish Republican Army

Irish Republican Army

The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...

 (IRA) and part of the Dublin Brigade's Active Service Unit

Active Service Unit

An active service unit was a Provisional Irish Republican Army cell of five to eight members, tasked with carrying out armed attacks. In 2002 the IRA had about 1,000 active members of which about 300 were in active service units....

. He was one of The Forgotten Ten

The Forgotten Ten

The Forgotten Ten is the term applied to ten members of the Irish Republican Army who were executed in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin by British forces following courts martial from 1920-1921 during the Irish War of Independence. Based upon military law at the time, they were buried within the prison...

.

Trial and execution

Ryan was tried by Court-martial

Court-martial

A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...

 on 24 February 1921 and convicted of high treason

High treason in the United Kingdom

Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; having sexual intercourse with the sovereign's consort, with his eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the...

 and 'levying war against the King', following an attempted ambush at Drumcondra

Drumcondra, Dublin

Drumcondra is a residential area and inner suburb on the Northside of Dublin, Ireland. It is administered by Dublin City Council.The River Tolka and the Royal Canal flow through the area.-History:...

 on 21 January 1921. By trade he was an apprentice tailor and was 21 years old when he was hanged. The only son of an elderly widow with whom he lived in Royal Canal Terrace in Phibsborough, Dublin. he had attended St. Gabriels National School in Cowper Street. Ryan had recently married at the time of his arrest.

Reinterment

He is one of a group of men hanged in Mountjoy Prison in the period 1920-1921 commonly referred to as The Forgotten Ten

The Forgotten Ten

The Forgotten Ten is the term applied to ten members of the Irish Republican Army who were executed in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin by British forces following courts martial from 1920-1921 during the Irish War of Independence. Based upon military law at the time, they were buried within the prison...

. In 2001 he and the other nine, including Kevin Barry

Kevin Barry

Kevin Gerard Barry was the first Irish republican to be executed by the British since the leaders of the Easter Rising. Barry was sentenced to death for his part in an IRA operation which resulted in the deaths of three British soldiers.Barry's death is considered a watershed moment in the Irish...

, were exhumed from their graves in the prison and given a full State Funeral. He is now buried in Glasnevin Cemetery

Glasnevin Cemetery

Glasnevin Cemetery , officially known as Prospect Cemetery, is the largest non-denominational cemetery in Ireland with an estimated 1.5 million burials...

, Dublin.