Darby Ryan

Diarmuid O’Ríain (Darby Ryan) was born at Ashgrove, Bansha in 1777 and was a poet and patriot, his most famous composition was undoubtedly The Peeler and the Goat, a ballad or satire which was popularly sung across Ireland and was taken worldwide by emigrants. Copies of his Tipperary Minstrelsy are to be found in The British Museum and at The Royal Irish Academy. Ryan died in 1855 and is buried in the old graveyard in Bansha where his grave is marked, unusually, by a carved stone cross depicting a rope and anchor, suggestive of a maritime connection of which there was none.