Born: 19 October 1923, United Kingdom
Died: 11 May 2011
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Mary Patricia Kinneen, Patricia Collins
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Angela Byrne. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Ryan, (Mary) Patricia (née Kinneen; other married name Collins) (1923–2011), ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet company founder, was born in London on 19 October 1923 to second-generation Irish woman Christiana Kinneen (née Kelly) and Galway-born businessman William Patrick Kinneen (1895–1971). She had three younger siblings (Michael, Virginia and James). Her family had a tradition of working in the performing arts; an uncle owned a theatrical touring company in Bristol, while a great-great-uncle and his ballerina wife toured Ireland with a theatre company.
The family relocated frequently due to her father’s work. When Ryan was three years old they moved to California where, in Santa Monica, she took her first ballet class. Her mother’s stories of the legendary dancer Anna Pavlova caught her young imagination and sparked the desire to be a ballerina. After two years in the USA the family moved to London, where they remained until moving to South Africa for a year in 1936, where Ryan first saw the Ballet Russes perform in Cape Town. She later emphasised this as a definitive moment in her life: ‘This was the company I wanted to join. I had an absolute belief that I could dance’ (O’Brien, 122). When the family returned to England, she sought out instruction in the Russian system of ballet and became a pupil of Nadine Nicolaeva Legat, formerly of the Moscow Bolshoi troupe. Ryan flourished under Legat, and had the opportunity to join Léonide Massine’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1938, but her mother would not allow it. Her training was interrupted when her parents decided to relocate to Dublin in 1939, following the outbreak of the second world war; they lived at Moorefield in Roebuck, Clonskeagh, before moving later to 140 Merrion Road. In Dublin, Ryan enrolled with the Sara Payne Company and the Irish Ballet Club but, finding the classes dull and unimpressed by the technical standard of ballet in Dublin, she stopped training and performing. Her last role before a long hiatus from ballet was in Cepta Cullen’s production ‘Aisling’ with the Irish Ballet Club in the Gaiety Theatre in March 1943; one reviewer enthused that Ryan ‘promises to be one of Ireland’s leading lyric dancers’ (Patricia Ryan website). Despite this, she is said to have suffered from anxiety and, at 5ft 9in, worried that she was too tall to be a ballerina, exceeding the then-generally accepted upper height limit of 5ft 5in. She later said of this time, ‘I had stopped dancing. I had stopped dead. I was dead’ (Marsden).
Ryan married, in 1949, the editor, painter, broadcaster and publican John Ryan; they had two children, Christine and Stephen. Although she was, in the words of a contemporary, living ‘in housewifely anonymity’, through her husband she became extremely well-connected within Dublin’s literary and creative arts scene (Irish Independent, 18 Apr. 1958). Patrons of his pub The Bailey, off Grafton Street, included Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh, J. P. Donleavy, Anthony Cronin and A. J. Potter, some of whom Ryan would later collaborate with on ballet productions. (She also sought out a collaboration with Samuel Beckett, who politely declined.)
Ryan’s dancing hiatus continued until early 1957, when news of Legat’s visit to Dublin prompted her to re-establish contact with her former tutor. Legat had come to Dublin at the invitation of the Irish National Ballet School, established in 1953 by Russian-born dancer Valentina Dutko and Irish painter Cecil ffrench Salkeld. In late 1955 Dutko was obliged to leave Ireland when her American husband completed his posting at the US Embassy, leaving the school without a teacher. Legat, assisting in the search for a Russian-trained ballet teacher for the school, offered Ryan the position in early 1957. (Other Irish ballet schools followed the Royal Academy of Dance system of training; the Russian style favoured by Ryan was freer and more powerful.) Ryan was reluctant – she had not danced in years and had two young children – but agreed to a six-week trial period. With Legat’s support, this six weeks turned into seven years. When Ryan struggled, Legat wrote to encourage her to ‘have more confidence, darling … remember – and this is I am telling you – you had not less talent than Margot Fonteyn. You did not go her way because you stopped dancing, and this is all … fight and fight well’ (Marsden). Legat became patron of the school and visited annually as examiner for the Association of the Russian Ballet. (In April 1958 Legat, then president of the association, presented Ryan with its coveted advanced certificate, enabling Ryan’s students to be examined by the association.) While Ryan’s teaching was initially based on Legat’s free-flowing style, Legat encouraged her to develop her own technique, after which she introduced elements of the more technical Cecchetti method. Ryan was also encouraged and supported by her former tutor, Cepta Cullen. Her first recital with the school’s twelve students was held in the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) on 30 June 1957; with a set designed by her husband, her new ballet ‘Uirapuru’ was well received. She continued to integrate performance into her students’ training, bringing them within two years to semi-professional level.
Under Ryan’s dedicated and professional directorship the school evolved into the semi-professional National Ballet Company; it became Ireland’s first national ballet company and was one of the first dance companies to receive Arts Council support. In her seven years as director, Ryan brought Russian and British classical dancers to Dublin stages and in early 1958 oversaw the relocation of the school from its premises on Ely Place to a new, larger premises at 39 Parnell Square. The autumn 1958 season brought further successes: Ryan’s troupe was well received at the Wexford Festival and she produced a successful Ballet Week in Dublin, securing the renowned dancer Jelko Yuresha for nightly performances at RIAM’s Dagg Hall. (On foot of this, Yuresha returned to Dublin for two nights in the Gaiety Theatre that December.) Yet, dancer emigration and low ticket sales threatened the company’s long-term prospects. In November 1958 Monk Gibbon declared that the National Ballet School troupe were ‘comparable … to the London standard’ and appealed for measures to retain the dancers in Ireland rather than have them leave for the big London companies (Irish Times, 13 Nov. 1958). He reiterated this warning three years later.
The company saw continued critical success throughout 1959 and 1960, performing in the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s two seasons at the Gaiety Theatre and at Wexford Opera Festival (1959). An ambitious three-night run in Dublin’s Olympia Theatre was hailed as ‘a memorable milestone in the history of the National Ballet and of art in Ireland’ (Evening Herald, 12 Apr. 1960). The troupe performed in the first ever television broadcast by Telefís Éireann on 31 December 1961, with dancers emerging from an aeroplane onto the freezing runway at Dublin airport in a bizarre promotion of the newest addition to Aer Lingus’s fleet.
Ryan’s own reputation soared in parallel with the company’s success; she was invited to direct movement for theatrical productions at the Pike and Olympia theatres. The year 1960 saw the first of Ryan’s three collaborations with A. J. Potter: ‘Careless love’, which she choreographed to Potter’s pre-existing score with a libretto by Donagh MacDonagh, and which debuted in the Olympia Theatre with the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra on 12 April. A satire on the social strictures of the age, it received standing ovations. Ninette de Valois sent two dancers from Covent Garden for the production, and lent Ryan costumes for the corps de ballet. Ryan and Potter’s second collaboration was ‘Gamble, no gamble’, which premiered in Queen’s Theatre, Dublin, on 2 June 1961. With a libretto by Patrick Kavanagh, set design by John Ryan (they continued to work together on productions even after the breakup of their marriage in the late 1950s; Ryan later remarried, to the artist Patrick Collins and they had a daughter, Penelope) and recitation by actor T. P. McKenna, the performance was broadcast on RTÉ television with music by the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra. Ryan scoured Dublin’s pubs to press Kavanagh to finish the libretto on time; on opening night, he unexpectedly took to the stage to explain the ballet to the audience. Ryan and Potter’s third and final collaboration was another satire, ‘Caitlín Bhocht’, which premiered in the Olympia Theatre on 14 November 1963 and was broadcast by Radio Éireann. Micheál MacLiammóir wrote to Ryan to commend the performance, while the production was lavishly praised by critics; the Irish Times hailed the work as ‘something new and salutary in artistic commentary on Irish life’ (15 Nov. 1963).
In September 1962 Ryan realised an ambitious Ballet Week programme, presented over five nights in the Olympia Theatre. One of her goals was to include dancers from abroad, to give Dublin audiences the opportunity of seeing different styles. Making a direct approach to the Russian Embassy in London (Ireland had no bilateral diplomatic relations with the USSR at the time), she managed to secure two principal dancers from the USSR: Nina Menovshchikova and Veanir Kruglov. They attracted much media attention on their arrival in Dublin and prompted a small protest outside the Olympia by the Legion of Mary. The diverse repertoire of performances – ranging from classics like ‘Swan lake’ to Ryan’s own modern ballets – was accompanied by the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra. Ryan secured Arts Council funding for the programme, and Ninette de Valois’s Royal Ballet supplied (free of charge) costumes, two dancers, a conductor and choreographers. (In 1962 de Valois became president of the National Ballet Company, and took an active role, even teaching classes during her visits to Dublin.) Reviews were positive, though ticket sales were poor.
Preferring her teaching and choreography duties, Ryan struggled with the administrative burden that attended the company’s growth, and with its ongoing financial difficulties. She nevertheless oversaw the opening of a new premises on Morehampton Road, Donnybrook. As the company became professionalised, Ryan absorbed the importance of extending this status to her dancers. She negotiated their admission to Irish Actors Equity in the early 1960s – the first time dancers in Ireland had trade union representation. (She may have been influenced by Ninette de Valois, who also advocated for dancers’ working rights.)
Rumours emerged in mid-1962 of a merger between Ryan’s National Ballet Company and Joan Denise Moriarty’s Cork-based Irish Theatre Ballet (est. 1945). The Arts Council engineered the merger, citing the unfeasibility of supporting two separate ballet companies; a grant of just £2,000 was awarded to the new venture. The new company, Irish National Theatre Ballet, was formally announced at an event in the Shelbourne Hotel on 25 October 1963; the women shook hands over a wedding cake symbolising the union and their joint directorship. The company announced an ambitious programme: it was to debut at Wexford Opera Festival the following month, and perform three new ballets in Dublin in November. A planned tour of the west and midlands was quickly postponed, however, as the company’s participation in the Wexford programme was greater than originally envisaged. The Season of Ballet held in Dublin’s Olympia in November 1963 – starring Jelko Yuresha once more, appearing this time with his wife, Belinda Wright – drew such a small audience it prompted a contributor to the Irish Times to urge the public to support Ireland’s national ballet company. Shortly afterwards another writer for the newspaper bemoaned the poor attendance at ballet performances: ‘no amount of public praise convinces a bank manager that an overdraft is justifiable by an artistic triumph’ (19 Nov. 1963). The death knell had sounded for Irish National Theatre Ballet, mere weeks after its establishment. The company’s final production was a performance of ‘Coppella’ and ‘Caitlín Bhocht’ in Cork in early January 1964, accompanied by Cork Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Aloys Fleischmann). It too, was critically acclaimed.
Low ticket sales and funding shortfall aside, the company may, arguably, never have succeeded due to the apparently irreconcilable artistic differences between Ryan and Moriarty. The merger, driven as it was by the priorities and objectives of a third party, seemed doomed. Ryan and Moriarty had differing visions; Ryan’s goal was for a permanent, professional, Dublin-based company, whereas Moriarty was committed to her base in Cork. The company’s financial difficulties were made public in early 1964, and Ninette de Valois reportedly offered to assist with fundraising. At a press conference on 29 January, Ryan announced her intention to give the twelve remaining dancers (out of thirty-eight) one week’s notice and wind up Irish National Ballet; the others had already left for England. She revealed that the company would be unable to take up an invitation to perform at the International Festival of Arts in Tel Aviv, Israel, in what would have been their first international tour, as they had been unable to raise the £10,000 needed. Ryan appeared on RTÉ television’s Newsview, describing the company’s closure as ‘the death of a dream upheld for eight years by unremitting hard work’ (Irish Independent, 1 Feb. 1964). Friends of the National Ballet was established in February to co-ordinate fundraising efforts, but disbanded after just five weeks, having raised just enough to keep the company running for a fortnight. The company was formally wound up in March 1964 and all but one of the dancers emigrated. Although Ryan stated her intention to immediately begin fundraising to start another company, she never danced, taught, choreographed or performed again.
In 1973 Ryan and her youngest daughter joined Collins in France, returning to Dublin in 1981. She died at the Annabeg nursing home, Ballybrack, Co. Dublin, on 11 May 2011. A farewell ceremony was held in the Victorian chapel at Mount Jerome crematorium, Dublin, on 14 May. In life she cut a striking figure – tall, dark-haired, and always elegantly dressed – and her students were impressed by her presence and style. The National Ballet School, under Ryan’s directorship, has been remembered as ‘a vital phase in the evolution of classical teaching, technical acquirement and performance in Ireland’ (O’Brien, 141). Many of the dancers she trained emigrated in search of greater opportunities; the prestigious careers that several subsequently enjoyed demonstrated the high standard they achieved under Ryan’s guidance. While her contribution to the development of ballet in Ireland was long overlooked, an exhibition of ballet ephemera titled ‘A thread of years’, including materials relating to Ryan and the National Ballet School, was held at Dancehouse, Dublin, in November 2008. Her daughter Penelope Collins maintains the Patricia Ryan website and curated an installation of correspondence, ephemera and film, ‘Ballet in a hatbox’, displayed as part of a group exhibition at The LAB Gallery, Dublin, in 2020. Building a ballet, a radio documentary produced for RTÉ Lyric FM, was released in 2024.