Tony Ryan was one of the greatest Irishmen of the twentieth century.
Ingenious, driven and sometimes reckless, his sheer spirit and adventurousness made him Ireland's Aviator. Born in a railwayman's cottage in County Tipperary he rose to enormous success. Ryan set up the airline leasing company, Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA), which quickly became the largest such enterprise in the world. But it famously crashed and burned and Ryan lost almost everything.
What remained was a little airline called Ryanair which was chronically loss making. Ryan set about turning Ryanair around, putting in one of his assistants, Michael O'Leary, to help knock it into shape. The rest is history.
Richard Aldous gives an irresistible insight into the machinations of the man who epitomised what it means to be an entrepreneur.
