O’REILLY MEMORIAL An Account of the Exercises at the Dedication and Presentation to the City of Boston of the O’Reilly Monument June 20, 1896.

Frontispiece of John Boyle O’Reilly and other illustrations. Boston: City Council, 1897. pp. 69. Publisher’s cloth with the insignia of Boston in gilt on upper cover. Presentation copy from A. Shuman with his signature tipped in on a complimentary slip. A very good copy.

John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-90), Fenian and writer, was born at Dowth Castle, Co. Louth. As a young man he was apprenticed to a newspaper compositor and after spending some time in England he returned to Ireland in 1863. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and at the suggestion of John Devoy enlisted in the 10th Hussars in Drogheda the following year to recruit soldiers for the I.R.B. He was detected however and sentenced to death (9 July 1866) but the sentence was commuted to twenty years’ penal servitude. After transportation to Australia he escaped to the U.S. where he worked on the staff of the Boston Pilot, of which he was later owner-editor.

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