Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/154

 OREILLE

O'KEILLY

violent opposition. In 1855 when St. Francis Xuvier'8 Convent of Mercy at Providence, R.I., was surrounded bj- a mob who threatened violence to the inmates, Bishop O'Reilly faced them, and by his determined attitude caused the mob to disperse without doing harm. He visited Europe in December, 1855, to secure a colony of brothers to take charge of liis schools, and paid a last visit to his parents in Ireland. He embarked for the United States in the ship Pacific in May, 1856, wlucli was never heard from again.

O'REILLY, Bernard, protlionotary apostolic, was born in the Parish of Cughall, near Westport, county Mayo, Ireland, Sept. 29, 1820. He im- migrated to Canada in boyhood, was educated for the priesthood in the Seminary of Quebec, and was ordained priest Sept. 11, 1842, in the parish church at Nicolet, Can., by Archbishop Joseph Signay of Quebec. For several years he was en- gaged in mission work in Canada, where he de- voted himself to the Irish families who immigra- ted there during the famine of 1848, and also to promoting a plan for Irish colonization. He went to New York city, became professor of rhetoric in St. John's college, Fordham, 1851, and after studying in Europe, became an assistant in St. Francis Xavier's churcli, New York city. He was nominated domestic prelate of the papal throne, Sept. 15, 1887, and protlionotary apostolic of the archdiocese of New York, Sept. 29, 1892. He traveled in Europe, and was selected by Pius IX. to write the official life of Pope Leo XIH. He is the author of Mirror of True Woman- hood {1816); Life of Pius IX. (1877); Triie Men (1878); Key of Heaven (1878); Hie Two Brides, a novel (1879); Life of Loo XIII. (1887).

O'REILLY, John Boyle, author, was born at DdWtli Castle, near Drogheda, county Meath, Ireland, June 28, 1844, son of William David and Eliza (Boyle) O'Reil- ly. He was educat- ed under his father, a noted mathemati- cian and master of the Nettleville In- stitute at Dowth Castle for thirty-five years, and in 1855 entered the office of the Argus in Drog- heda, where he learn- ed the printer's trade. He also learned short- hand, and removing to England served as a reporter. Becoming imbued with the revolutionary spirit tlien gaining ground in Ireland, he joineil in lsfi:J the 4tli Hus- sars, known as the " Prince of Wales'.^ Own," and

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stationed in Dublin, Ireland, for the purpose of stirring up rebellion among the large proportion of Irishmen in that division of the Englisli army. When his connection with the Fenian Brotherhood was discovered, he was arrested, tried for treason June 26, 1866, and sentenced to be shot; but tins sentence wascommuteil to life imprisonment, and finally to twenty years" penal servitude in English prisons. While at Dartmoor, from which he tried to escape, he helped to raise a crude pile of stones over the bodies of the French and American prisoners who had met their fate fifty years before. He was despatched to Australia with other political prisoners in November, 1867. and in 1868, through a young Maori girl, sent a letter to Father Patrick McCabe at Bunbui-y, AVest Australia, who labored for his escape. The i)riest arranged with Capt. Gifford, of the Gazelle of New Bedford, Mass., who after repeated adventures and escapes to save his passenger, had him trans- ferred to different vessels, until he was landed in Philadelphia, Pa., by t\\Q Bombay in November,

1869. O'Reilly was admitted to citizenship in Philadelphia, removed to New York city, and later to Boston. He lectured extensively on the wrongs of Ireland. He resumed his journalistic career in connection with the Boston Pilot in

1870, followed the Fenian raid into Canada for that periodical, and in 1874 purchased the Pilot with Archbishop Williams of Boston, and was the manager and editor-in-chief until his death. In 1877 he helped effect the rescue of six of his former fellows deported as felons to Australia, the effort costing him $25,000. He was elected recording secretary of the Catholic Union of Boston, from its beginning, and was a member of its executive committee; a founder of the Papyrus club, and a member of the St. Botolph club. He was married, Aug. 15, 1872, to Mary Agnes Smiley, daughter of John and Jane (Smiley) Murphy of Cliarlestown, Mass. She was a writer of ability, and died, Nov. 22, 1897. He received the degree LL.D. from the University of Notre Dame in 1881, and from the University of Georgetown. D.C., in 1889. He was poet at the dedication of the Pilgrim monument at Plymouth, Mass., Aug. 1, 1889. He contributed to the American magazines, and to the magazine of Oxford university, England, and is the author of: Songs of the Southern Seas (1873); Songs, Legends and Ballads (1878); Statues in the Block (1881); 7/1 Bohemia (1886), and had in preparation The Country ivith a Roof, an allegory dealing with certain faults in the American social S5'stem; The Evolution of Straight Weapons, and a work on the material resources of Ireland. A monument was erected to his memory in the Fenway, Boston. Mass., and unveiled by his daughter, Blanid O'Reilly, June