in The Guardian of 7 December 1988 from a British diplomat accusing Thatcher of "double standards on terrorism" for insisting on Ryan's extradition while failing to pursue the extradition of the Coventry Four from South Africa four years earlier. The following week, amid exchanges in the House of Commons, opposition leader Neil Kinnock, said Thatcher "blew" the possibility of Ryan's extradition by her "performance." On 13 December 1988, the Irish Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, announced in Dáil Éireann that the serious charges levelled against Ryan should be investigated by a court in Ireland and, because of prejudicial remarks made in the House of Commons, Ryan could not expect to receive a fair trial in Britain. In October 1989, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Ireland announced that he had decided not to initiate proceedings against Patrick Ryan. 1989 European election Ryan was the first priest to contest an election in the Republic of Ireland, when he contested the 1989 European Parliament election in the Munster constituency as an Independent with Sinn Féin support. He failed to be elected but received over 30,000 votes. Criminal trial In 1993, Ryan was tried in the Special Criminal Court, on charges of receiving stolen goods and found not guilty. BBC Spotlight interview In a 2019 interview with the BBC, Ryan was asked if he was involved in any of the incidents of which Thatcher accused him, to which he responded "I would say most of them. One way or another, yes I had a hand in most them - yes, [Thatcher] was right". He stated that his only regret about his contribution to the Brighton hotel bombing, which killed 5 people, was that "I wasn't even more effective... I would like to have been much more effective, but we didn't do too badly". References 1930 births Alumni of St. Patrick's College, Thurles 20th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests Living people Provisional Irish Republican Army members