SiAR 1905 



March, 1905. The Irish Naturalist. 45 



JOSEPH PATRICK O'REILIvY. 



BORN IITH JUIvY, 1829. DIED 6TH JANUARY, 1905. 



The death of Prof. J. P. O'Reilly removes one of the last links 

 between the present generation and the active group of Irish- 

 men who were associated in the development of the Royal 

 College of Science some forty years ago. Had that college 

 remained under local influences, as part of the great w^ork in- 

 augurated by the Roj^al Dublin Society in the previous cen- 

 tury, it cannot be doubted that the spirit of O'Reilly and his 

 colleagues would have been earlier felt in Irish education. As 

 it was, they left a small but devoted band of pupils, many of 

 whom were driven, by the general apathy tow^ards scientific 

 studies, to seek work outside the country of their birth. For- 

 tunately, O'Reilly was spared to see the revival of such studies 

 throughout Ireland, a revival that he would always have wished 

 to associate with the progress of general culture, side by side 

 with technical advancement. 



He was one of a family of thirteen, being the fifth son of 

 Thomas O'Reilly (knowm in his profession as Thomas Reilly), 

 a solicitor of Monaghan. His mother's maiden name was 

 Cecilia Devin. He was born in Monaghan on nth July, 1829, 

 and the Rev. T. Tierney, who was connected with the national 

 movement of 1848, w^as one of the sponsors at his baptism. 

 His father moved to Dublin, and was appointed Taxing Master 

 of the Court of Chancery in 1849. It may be worth recording 

 that his uncle John, an army-surgeon, was one of the veterans 

 of Waterloo. 



In 185 1, O'Reilly chose the independent course of stud}- 

 ing engineering in Paris, and entered the Kcole centrale 

 des Arts et Manufactures in 1852, receiving his diploma three 

 years later. He was then appointed by a French company to 

 develope the zinc-ores of Santander in Spain, and subse- 

 quently w^orked on deposits of sodium sulphate near Madrid. 

 His next engagement was in the Silvermines district of Co. 

 Tipperary; and in 1868, after teaching in the Catholic Uni- 

 versity College in Dublin, he was appointed to the chair of 

 Mineralogy and Mining in the Royal College of Science for 

 Ireland. 



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