Antoin E. Murphy

English

Research Papers in Economics

The Economic and Social Review, Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring, 2004, pp. 109-110
Terence M. Ryan (1942-2003)
An Appreciation
ANTOIN E. MURPHY
Trinity College Dublin
T
erence M. Ryan died in June 2003. Terry was one of the most promising
members of the nouvelle vague of young Irish economists who studied at
the University of Essex in the late 1960s and early 1970s. All had graduated
in economics in University College Dublin and went to the campus at Essex to
capture the excitement of a younger generation of economists lecturing at
graduate level in this renowned new university. Alongside Paddy Geary, Colm
McCarthy and  Sean Murray  he studied under  such renowned economists as
Chris Archibald, Robert Clower, David Laidler, Richard Lipsey, Michio
Morishima and Michael Parkin. The ‘Essex four’ returned to Ireland and all
stamped their mark on the development of economic teaching, research  and
economic policy in Ireland. 
After a brief interlude in Sussex University, Terry joined Trinity College in
1972 and remained there until 1994. He quickly showed through his
publications some aspects of his vast intellectual talent. Within the space of
seventeen months he had published in five international journals, the Journal
of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (January 1973),  the Oxford Bulletin of
Economics and Statistics (February 1973),  Oxford Economic Papers (July
1973), the  Quarterly Journal of Economics (February 1974), and the Oxford
Bulletin of Economics and Statistics (May 1975). Following on from this he co-
authored with Colm McCarthy a paper analysing election results “Party
Loyalty at Referenda and General Elections: Evidence from Recent Irish
Contests” in the The Economic and Social Review (1976). These two authors
followed with “Estimates of Voter Transition Probabilities from the British
General Elections of 1974” in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
(1977). Building on his work in the area of portfolio selection he published the
Theory of Portfolio Selection (Macmillan) in 1978. 
109Terry’s academic output in his first five years in Trinity College was
rewarded by his election to fellowship in 1977. His erudition and scholarship
were vast. There were few areas of economics in which he could not lecture
and his computer programming skills, which he developed side by side with
his wife June, were much sought after. He had the  ability to ask the most
simple questions, to cut through cant and mediocrity and force people to reflect
on the foundations of the theory that they were trying to elaborate. One of his
favourite lines was to ask “what exactly are you  trying to say?” Behind this
probing intellect there was a genuine humanistic affection towards the world
of real scholarship. 
In the 1990s, shortly after he had retired from Trinity, Terry suffered an
undiagnosed attack which left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.  He
laconically accepted this new situation  stating that he had never been much
good on his feet. He was very much a man of the cerebrus. During his
retirement he showed his trenchant wit through his regular letters to the Irish
Times. Earlier, in one of his first letters to the Irish Times, during the
depressing days of the 1970s, he proposed  that taxpayers should be able to
adopt a civil servant analogously to the way he had been able to buy “black
babies” when at school in Synge Street. In this Kafkaesque reversion, once he
had adopted his civil servant, he would be able to phone him/her to find out
how things were in the bureaucratic corridors of power. The civil service was
not amused. 
Terry was a very warm and engaging person. He was always prepared to
share his knowledge and wisdom.  He helped inspire some of the brightest
students in Trinity in the 1970s and 1980s and through them his scholarship
will continue to be spread.  He will be greatly missed by his friends.  
110 THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVIEW

Terence M. Ryan (1942-2003) An Appreciation

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