He was born at Prospect lodge, Ballyanne Desmesne, County Wexford, the son of Francis McCan, a land agent, and Jane Power. He was nephew of Patrick Joseph Power, MP for East Waterford from 1885 to 1913.
He attended Clongowes Wood College. He resided at Ballyowen House, Dualla, Cashel, County Tipperary, was an "extensive farmer" and was a member of the Tipperary Hunt.
He was a founder member of Sinn Féin in 1905. He joined the Gaelic League in 1909 and was a member of the Irish Volunteers from 1914 onwards.
He was interned after the Easter Rising for several months in Richmond Barracks, Dublin, and Knutsford, England.
In May 1918, he was arrested under the premise of the so-called German Plot and detained without charge in Gloucester Jail.
McCan was president of the East Tipperary executive of Sinn Féin. While incarcerated, he was selected as a Sinn Féin candidate for the East Tipperary constituency in the 1918 general election. He was elected but never took his seat in the Westminster parliament in accordance with Sinn Féin's policy.
In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled in the Mansion House, Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann. McCan never sat in Dáil Éireann, having died in prison in 1919, a victim of that year's influenza epidemic.
On 9 March 1919, McCan was buried in Dualla, Cashel, County Tipperary.
On 10 April 1919, Cathal Brugha told the First Dáil:
"Before I formally move the motion, as I have mentioned the name of Pierce McCan, I would ask the Members of the Dáil to stand up as a mark of our respect to the first man of our body to die for Ireland, and of our sympathy with his relatives. We are sure that their sorrow is lightened by the fact that his death was for the cause for which he would have lived, and that his memory will ever be cherished in the hearts of the comrades who knew him, and will be honoured by succeeding generations of his countrymen with that of the other martyrs of our holy cause."
The McCan Barracks in Templemore, North Tipperary, is named after him.
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