Michael O'Reilly

Michael was the first born, baptized in the Tibohine-Fairymount RC Parish 31 Jan 1858. Baptismal sponsors were Patrick and Elizabeth Beirne. His parents' names were spelled O'Reilly and Beirne. By 1860 the family had moved to a farm in Tonroe [Kilnamanagh] in the Breedogue and Ballinameen RC Parish where Mary Ann, Winifred, Catherine and Eugene were baptized. Michael's father died when he was 16 and his youngest brother Eugene was only an infant. No doubt he had a tremendous responsibility caring for the family.

At age 24 he emigrated to Orange, NJ with siblings Patrick and Mary [age 22]. Ten years later his widowed mother Catherine and siblings Catherine and Eugene joined them and worked for the church. Theresa was with them in the 1895 census -- all listed as O'Reilly. They lived in an old victorian at 123 High Street, right at the entrance to St. John's Cemetery in Orange. Michael's name was not in the 1900 census, but Baldwin's Directory indicated he worked or was infirm at Orange Memorial Hospital. He was a life insurance agent in the 1910 census, and a factory watchman in 1920, at age 62, still living on High Street with his sister Mary. He's buried in the Reilly family plot at St. John's.