O'Reilly (Irish: Ó Raghallaigh)[1] is a common Irish surname. The O'Reillys were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kindred and were closely related to the Ó Ruairc (O'Rourkes) of West Bréifne. O'Reilly is ranked tenth in the top twenty list of most common Irish surnames.[citation needed] It is also the patronymic form of the Irish name Reilly (Irish: Raghallach).[2] The name is commonly found throughout Ireland, with the greatest concentration of the surname found in County Cavan followed by Longford, Meath, Westmeath, Fermanagh and Monaghan, and the Province of Leinster.[citation needed]
Naming conventions
Male
Daughter
Wife (Long)
Wife (Short)
Ó Raghallaigh[3]
Ní Raghallaigh
Bean Uí Raghallaigh
Uí Raghallaigh
Overview
Usually anglicised as Reilly, O'Reilly or Riley, the original form of the name, Ó Raghallaigh, denotes "descendant of Raghallach".
The name is common and widespread throughout Ireland, ranked 11th most common in 1890[4] and in 1997.[5]
A self-proclaimed and disputed O'Reilly Clan Chieftain to this day is at odds with the O'Rourke Clan Chieftain because he contests the recognised O'Rourke claim on the title Prince of Breifne.[6] This was settled in 1994 when the Chief Herald of Ireland made the O'Rourke Chief the Prince of Breifne, but the Office of the Chief Herald stopped granting courtesy titles to Gaelic Chiefs in 2003 (see O'Rourke).
People
O'Reilly
People with the surname O'Reilly include:[7][8]
Alejandro O'Reilly (1722–1794), second Spanish governor of colonial Louisiana
Jennifer O'Reilly (1943–2016), medieval historian of Britain and Ireland
Jenny Quinn O'Reilly (1762–1802), in baptism Evgenia Ivanovna Vyazemskaya, Irish-born lady and second wife of Prince Andrey Vyazemsky, mother of the Russian Imperial poet Pyotr Vyazemsky
Aloysius Umbongo N'Danga O'Reilly, in the song "Baguette Dilemma for the Booker Prize Guy" by the band Half Man Half Biscuit on their 2014 album Urge for Offal
Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly, in the M*A*S*H media franchise
This page lists people with the surnameO'Reilly. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.
^"Raghallach — Database of Irish-language Surnames". Gaois. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
^"Ó Raghailligh - Irish Names and Surnames". www.libraryireland.com. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
^"Ó Raghallaigh". Sloinne. 5 December 2015.
^Matheson, Robert E. (1894), Special report on surnames in Ireland, with notes as to numerical strength, derivation, ethnology, and distribution; based on information extracted from the indexes of the General register office. Appendix to the Twenty-Ninth Detailed Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Marriages, Births, and Deaths in Ireland, Dublin: For Her Majesty's Stationery Office by Alexander Thom & Co. (Limited), p. 9 (accessible online)
^Murphy, Sean J. (2014), A Survey of Irish Surnames 1992–97. In: Studies in Irish Genealogy and Heraldry, Windgates, County Wicklow, pp. 14–29 (first published 2008, last revision 2014), here p. 27 (accessible online)
^Newerkla, Stefan Michael (2020), Das irische Geschlecht O'Reilly und seine Verbindungen zu Österreich und Russland [The Irish O'Reilly family and their connections to Austria and Russia]. In: Diachronie – Ethnos – Tradition: Studien zur slawischen Sprachgeschichte [Diachrony – Ethnos – Tradition: Studies in Slavic Language History]. Eds. Jasmina Grković-Major, Natalia B. Korina, Stefan M. Newerkla, Fedor B. Poljakov, Svetlana M. Tolstaja. Brno, Tribun EU, pp. 259–279, here 263–265 (accessible online).
^Newerkla, Stefan Michael (2020), Das irische Geschlecht O'Reilly und seine Verbindungen zu Österreich und Russland [The Irish O'Reilly family and their connections to Austria and Russia]. In: Diachronie – Ethnos – Tradition: Studien zur slawischen Sprachgeschichte [Diachrony – Ethnos – Tradition: Studies in Slavic Language History]. Eds. Jasmina Grković-Major, Natalia B. Korina, Stefan M. Newerkla, Fedor B. Poljakov, Svetlana M. Tolstaja. Brno, Tribun EU, pp. 259–279 (accessible online).
^"O'Reilly coat of arms, family crest and O'Reilly family history". irishsurnames.com. Retrieved 1 January 2008.
External links
Look up O'Reilly in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to O'Reilly (surname).
The O'Reilly Clan
O'Reilly family pedigree at Library Ireland
Statistics about O'Reilly Ancestors
O'Reilly, Reilly, Riley. History of family
Irish Times surname entry for "Riley"
The Irish O'Reilly family and their connections to Austria and Russia by Stefan M. Newerkla