This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Patrick Maume. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 1888, Ireland
Died: 31 March 1967
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Agnes McCullough
Agnes Ryan (1888–1967), teacher, activist and philanthropist, was born at Tomcoole, ninth child and sixth daughter in the family. After attending schools at Glynn, Co. Wexford, Loreto Abbey in Gorey, and Darmstadt, Germany, and spending some time in Belgium, she entered UCD in 1908, taking a BA in modern languages, and in 1913 completed an MA in Old Irish under the supervision of Osborn Bergin. She was active in the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin. In 1913 she went to Belfast to teach in St Mary’s Training College for teachers. The following year she founded and organised a Belfast branch of Cumann na mBan. In Belfast she met Denis McCullough, whom she married on 16 August 1916 after his release from detention following the Easter rising. The couple lived initially in Belfast, where Agnes remained active in Cumann na mBan and ran the family’s musical instrument business during her husband’s repeated imprisonments, while rearing young children. (The McCulloughs had four sons and two daughters; the couple’s correspondence during his imprisonment is preserved in the McCullough papers, UCD Archives (IE UCDA P120).) She was also a Belfast poor law guardian, and in September 1921 participated in an anti-partition delegation of Belfast nationalists who met Éamon de Valera in the Mansion House, Dublin. Their business injured by the Belfast boycott, the McCulloughs moved to Dublin in December 1921 after Denis was released from Ballykinlar internment camp.
In Dublin, Agnes was active in a variety of charitable bodies, including Saor an Leanbh (the Irish Save the Children fund, for which she delivered a radio appeal in 1941) and the Catholic Social Services Council. In 1941 she was appointed vice-chairman of the statutory trade boards, composed of employer and labourer representatives, which fixed rates in certain industries. She worked on behalf of the Coombe Hospital Linen Guild, the Dublin Rheumatism Clinic and the Incorporated Orthopaedic Hospital of Ireland, and spoke at meetings in support of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. She was also active in the women’s section of the National Agricultural and Industrial Development Association, a business lobbying group. In 1954 she was an unsuccessful candidate in the NUI Seanad Éireann constituency. In the 1950s the McCulloughs (who had been pro-treaty in 1922) appear to have been on better terms with Seán T. O’Kelly than was Richard Mulcahy; they were present at O’Kelly’s second presidential inauguration in 1952 (as was Mrs Mulcahy, though not General Mulcahy), and in March 1957 they accompanied the president on a visit to Rome. At a 1962 meeting of Saor an Leanbh, Agnes expressed concern about the effect of television on children, believing that it was desensitising them to violence and failed to inculcate patriotism. She died suddenly on 31 March 1967 at her residence in Ranelagh, Dublin; her husband died the next year. Her Irish Times obituarist, who had been a fellow student, commented: ‘She believed that women should take part in public affairs, but she was womanly to the core in her actions and in her feelings’ (Ir. Times, 8 April 1967).