Patrick John Ryan (February 20, 1831 – February 11, 1911) was an Irish-born prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the second Archbishop of Philadelphia from 1884 until his death in 1911. Early life and education Patrick Ryan was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, to Jeremiah and Mary Tuohy Ryan. His father died when Patrick was nine years old. He received his early education from the Christian Brothers at Thurles, and attended a private school in Dublin from 1842 to 1847. In 1844, he led a delegation of students to Richmond Bridewell Prison, where he delivered an address to the imprisoned Daniel O'Connell. He completed his theological studies at Carlow College in 1852, his education supported by The Foreign Mission Fund, and was ordained a subdeacon. In the same year he left Ireland for the United States, in the company of Patrick Feehan, later Archbishop of Chicago. Ryan became attached to the Archdiocese of St. Louis in Missouri. He then served as a professor of English literature at the seminary in Carondelet for a year. Priesthood Ryan was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick on September 8, 1853. At age 21, he was below the age requirement for ordination but was granted a dispensation by Pope Pius IX. He was then appointed an assistant rector at the Cathedral of St. Louis, and was advanced to rector in 1856. In 1860, he was named pastor of the Church of the Annunciation in St. Louis, where he built a church and parochial school. During the Civil War, he served as a chaplain for prisoners of war at the Gratiot Street Prison. In the same parish was a government military hospital. Every day Ryan visited the Confederate prisoners and the Union wounded. Following the war, he was transferred to St. John's Church in St. Louis, and accompanied Archbishop Kenrick, as theologian, to the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866. While on a visit to Europe in 1868, he delivered the English course of Lenten lectures in Rome at the invitation of Pius IX. Upon his return to St. Louis later that year, he was made vicar general of the Archdiocese. He administered the Archdiocese while Archbishop Kenrick attended the First Vatican Council. Episcopacy On February 15, 1872, Ryan was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of St. Louis and Titular Archbishop of Tricomia by Pius IX. He received his episcopal consecration