 Tyrrell is the great-great-grandson of Patrick D. Tyrrell, an immigrant from Ireland and a detective in the United States Secret Service in the 1870s, involved in foiling the plot to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln in 1876.Tyrrell has written for "Time", the "Wall Street Journal", the "London Spectator", "The Daily Telegraph", "The Guardian", "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", and "The Washington Times".He was also a media fellow at the Hoover Institution.