This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Cathy Hayes. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 28 February 1895, Ireland
Died: 19 November 1983
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Phyllis O’Kelly
Ryan, Philomena Frances (Phyllis O’Kelly) (1895–1983), chemist, was born 28 February 1895, the youngest child of the seven girls and five boys of John Ryan (1844–1921), farmer, of Tomcoole, near Taghmon, Co. Wexford, and his wife, Elizabeth (‘Eliza’) (née Sutton) (1848–1930). Phyllis’s brother James Ryan became a senior Fianna Fáil minister, and her brothers-in-law included Seán T. O’Kelly, Richard Mulcahy, and Denis McCullough. Educated at the national school at Caroreigh and at Loreto Abbey, Gorey, she entered University College, Dublin, to study science, and obtained a B.Sc. in chemistry in 1916 and an M.Sc. by research the following year. She was the only woman scientist of her year and the fifth woman scientist to have graduated from the NUI since its foundation.
Ryan worked alongside Professor Hugh Ryan, with whom she published several papers (Royal Irish Academy Proceedings), including one on the condensation of aldehydes in which she proved elements of his earlier theories incorrect. Their research was sponsored in part by Nobels Ltd, an explosives manufacturing company. Hugh Ryan had great hopes for her future as a chemist.
After qualifying, Ryan seized the opportunity to go to London and train as a public analyst. On her return to Dublin she worked in the college laboratory before setting up (1925) a private practice as a public analyst at 12 Dawson Street. All those employed in her laboratory were women graduate chemists. It was an uphill struggle: Ryan worked twenty-hour days to make enough money to install equipment, gas, and water pipes. She was eventually made public analyst for twelve county councils and was the only woman public analyst in Ireland for many years. When she later ceased to be actively involved in the practice, the net profits of the business were paid to the women who worked there. Her sole income from the business was then the rent for the premises and equipment, amounting to £150 every six months.
Ryan was closely involved in the organisation of the chemical profession in Ireland and was a founder member, along with others such as Hugh Ryan, John Keane, Rev. Professor Michael Casey (1901–97), and Joseph Algar of the short-lived Irish Chemical Association (1922–36). She served as honorary treasurer of the association (1928–30) and on the committee of its successor, the Irish Chemical Association (1936–7), of which she was vice-president (1938–40) and then president (1940–41). She was also a member of the first industrial research council (1934), founded to advise the government on matters relating to industrial and scientific development.
In common with other members of her family Ryan took a keen interest in the Irish republican movement. As a student she left her laboratory in April 1916 during the Easter rising and, with her sister Min, reported for duty at the GPO, where they acted as messengers. Unlike some of her siblings, she escaped arrest. During the war of independence (1919–21) she divided her time between political and military activity and the laboratory.
Ryan married Séan T. O’Kelly, the widower of her older sister Mary Kate, in September 1936 after they received a papal dispensation. They had no children. Following her marriage she was known as Mrs Phyllis O’Kelly or Phyllis Bean Úi Cheallaigh. When her husband became president of Ireland (1945) she gave up her flourishing business and turned to her other interests, trees and plants (her childhood on the family farm in Wexford had given her a great passion for farming and gardening). She was also a gifted flower arranger. Coming from a card-playing family, she kept up bridge in her later years. Independently minded and kind and caring, she had a great interest in her extended family. On her husband’s retirement (1959), they moved to Roundwood, Co. Wicklow. He predeceased her in 1966, and she died 19 November 1983 in the hospice at Harold’s Cross, Dublin.