Patrick Ryan is an Irish Catholic priest who left the Pallottine order in 1973 after refusing a transfer to a parish church in England. In 1988 Ryan was accused by British authorities of involvement in Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity, and was the subject of two unsuccessful extradition requests. Ryan denied the accusation in an interview with The Tipperary Star, saying that he had raised money both inside and outside Europe for victims on the nationalist side in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. But Ryan insisted that he had "never bought explosives for the IRA or anybody else", and had never been requested by the paramilitary group to do so. In an interview with the BBC broadcast in 2019, Ryan admitted that he was "one hundred percent" involved in IRA bomb-making. Early life Ryan was born in 1930 in Rossmore, County Tipperary, one of six children in a farming family. He attended the Pallotine College in Thurles, being ordained in 1954. He worked on the missions in the diocese of Mbulu in Tanzania, and also in London. IRA activity On 1 May 1988, three off-duty British servicemen were killed in the Netherlands. On 30 June 1988, acting on a tip-off, Belgian police went to the home of an IRA sympathiser and arrested Ryan, who was believed to be acting as quartermaster of the IRA active service unit in Belgium. Upon his arrest, the police seized a quantity of bomb-making equipment and manuals, and a large sum of foreign currency. The British authorities provided substantial evidence in support of a request for Ryan's extradition from Belgium to face charges in Britain. Legal argument between the two countries ensued and, following a hunger strike in protest against his possible extradition to Britain, Ryan was, after a court ruling, instead deported to the Republic of Ireland. On 30 November 1988, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain was in breach of European law for permitting the detention for up to a week of people suspected of connections with terrorist groups. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reacted angrily to the court ruling and to Britain's failure to secure the extradition of Patrick Ryan, who was wanted on charges of helping the outlawed IRA. Thatcher told the House of Commons: "We shall consider the judgment carefully and also the human rights of the victims and potential victims of terrorism." Extradition demand Upon his